Dance Teacher who wants to help others glide through life.
As a former computer consultant who was forced to switch careers due to overseas outsourcing, I decided to pursue my passion and love for all things DANCE! My second career resulted from my buying a local long-established dance school, the Valley Forge Dance School, in King of Prussia, PA. One year later, a lightening strike during a fierce middle-of-the-night thunder storm started a fire that gutted my rented studio. I lost many of the costumes and props that were needed in our annual Nutcracker Ballet. I did not have enough insurance coverage for such a catastrophic loss. I was able to quickly find low cost replacements through my many new friends on Ebay: Masqueradelady, Costume Heaven, Satin Stitches, Valo, and the Costume Fairy. Four months later, the show did go on at the Colonial Theatre, in Phoenixville, PA. I could not have afforded to do it with the conventional costume companies that charge $50/costume and need six months lead time. Even my June recital, "Hooray for the USA." could have been renamed, "Hooray for Ebay."
The Valley Forge Dance Theatre, a non-profit corporation established in Pennsylvania in 1980, had been performing its full childrens theatre version of the Nutcracker Ballet for decades at the Valley Forge Music Fair in Devon, PA and the Westbury Music Fair, in Long Island, NY. Over 25 years that we've been performing, we learned that conventional dance costumes can't be washed or dry-cleaned and don't last long with repeated wearings. So we found a low cost manufacturer and decided to have batches of sturdy tutus custom made to our specifications - most without zippers, and with removable trim. We'll be selling some of our surplus items on Ebay to raise funds for our future productions of the Cinderella Ballet and Hip Hop Halloween.
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