'A portable boombox and a whole lot of heart'

Thrive Dance Studio's story starts somewhere most dance schools never would: on carpet. In 1994, according to the studio's website, founder Cinda Herndl opened the North Otter Society of Performing Arts as an after-school, non-profit dance program at North Otter Elementary School.

Longtime dancers, the studio writes, “may remember those early days well—dancing on carpeted floors with a portable boombox and a whole lot of heart.”

Today that program is a five-studio facility at #101-22661A Fraser Highway with more than 350 dancers. It's still here because a family kept it going. The studio is now directed by sisters Natalie and Krystal Kohan (the staff page lists Krystal as Krystal Morrison), and Herndl's motto still sits on the ballet page: “dance from your heart and the rest will fall into place.”

'I grew up at my mother's dance studio'

“I grew up at my mother's dance studio,” Krystal told the Langley Advance in 2012. The paper described Thrive as formerly the North Otter Society of Performing Arts, run by Krystal and her sister Natalie, then 22, and reported that their mother had danced with the National Ballet of Canada.

That same spring, Krystal told the Aldergrove Star she had become artistic director of “our family-run studio at the early age of 18” while earning a dance degree at SFU. Natalie later took over running the studio so Krystal could pursue a professional dance career full time. “I was very lucky to have such an understanding family that supported me both emotionally and financially through those years,” she said.

We haven't confirmed when the North Otter Society became Thrive Dance Studio Inc., or how the sisters split the work today. Those are the first things we'll ask them.

Outgrowing a heritage church

The school moved between spaces around town, the website says, before settling into “an old heritage church” at 248th Street and Fraser Highway and turning it into “a little dance studio we proudly called 'Thrive.'” “At the time, we could never have imagined that we would one day outgrow that space,” the studio writes. It did.

Classes now cover ballet, contemporary, jazz, hip hop, lyrical, acro, silks, tap and musical theatre. Ballet follows the Royal Academy of Dance syllabus, and Natalie is listed as a certified Rambert Grades contemporary instructor. Twice a season the sisters direct a full-length ballet production at Chief Sepass Theatre. Past shows include The Nutcracker, Alice in Wonderland and Inside Out.

From two-year-olds to grown-ups

The youngest dancers can start in Little Thrivers, a weekday-morning program for ages two to five that mixes art, story time, music and creative movement. The competitive program, which the studio says has been “building technique, character, integrity, and confidence since 2006,” runs teams named like a garden: Seedlings, Roots, Sprouts, Buds and Bloom.

Adults aren't an afterthought. There are adult ballet, tap and silks classes, adult competitive teams, and barre and Pilates classes under the Adult Fit banner. “I was welcomed into adult ballet 5 years ago, having never taken a class,” one Google reviewer wrote. She now goes on stage with the studio's competitive adult program.

'Like a second home'

Parents on Google tend to describe the place as family. “It really is like a second home for my daughter,” one wrote. Not every review is glowing: one parent described a dispute over tuition charged for a class her daughter never attended, so read the registration terms before you sign up.

The front office keeps short hours, so call 778-366-0796 or email thrivedancestudio@gmail.com, and check the class schedule on thrivedance.ca before you go. If your kid already dances around the living room to a speaker, they'll fit right in. This whole place started with a boombox.

Photos: Thrive Dance Studio.