Dance Studio No. 1 (“DS1”) in West Los Angeles, California, was founded by their Artistic director, Elizabeth Banke, in 1992. DS1 quickly grew out of its first location due to its reputation for its outstanding Young Children’s Program. To accommodate the tremendous growth of the school and an expanding curriculum, DS1 moved from The Sports Club to the Westside Pavilion, then Granville Avenue, and finally they signed a long term lease to its present state-of-the-art home.
Dance Studio No.1 is a classical ballet academy highly regarded for two core offerings: its strong and successful, pre-professional classical ballet program and its endearing young children’s program. The Classical Ballet Program is for ages 5 to 19 and provides some of the finest classical training in West Los Angeles. The Young Children’s Program is designed to prepare children ages 2 to 6 for the Classical Ballet Program and continues to be very popular.
Well-known in the West Los Angeles community, DS1 focuses on technical and artistic excellence. The Studio offers limited class sizes and aims to foster each student’s potential through well-designed dance programs that carefully consider each dancer’s developmental age, motor skills, capabilities, and interests. Featured in Los Angeles Magazine’s, Best of Los Angeles “Hall of Fame” as an “exceptionally qualified Dance School,” DS1 works to instill the love of dance in all students and truly is a “home away from home” for many dancers and their families in west Los Angeles.
Dance Studio No. 1 is now considered one of the preeminent ballet schools in Los Angeles. It is a competitive academy with several hundred students ranging in age from 2 to 19. Although DS1 specializes in classical ballet, they also offer contemporary, character dance, pointe, variations, and conditioning classes as part of its well-rounded ballet program. Many of its students in the Classical Ballet Program have been selected for prestigious summer ballet summer schools (and colleges) all over the country, such as San Francisco Ballet, Boston Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, American Academy of Ballet, The Joffrey Ballet, Alonzo King Lines Ballet, The Rock School, (Columbia, Harvard, Berkeley, Swarthmore, Oxford, and the Claremont Colleges). DS1 students have placed in the top 24 of the Youth America Grand Prix Regional Semi-Finals and have also qualified for and participated in the distinguished Solo Seal Award.
In addition to its outstanding training, Dance Studio No. 1 is set apart from other studios by its sense of community and camaraderie among the students, parents and teachers. Dance Studio No. 1 is a caring dance studio that tries hard to set realistic goals for all of their students. Although they have hundreds of students, they limit their class sizes, and care about the quality of teaching to each student. DS1 provides competitive-level training within a nurturing and supportive environment: an experience for young people of great value, not easily duplicated.
A professional dancer, Elizabeth began training at age 8 with The Swedish State Theatre Ballet School. At age 20, she opened her own professional performing arts studio in Malmö, Sweden. She was nominated for an international Emmy and for the European equivalent, the Golden Rose, for her starring television role in the widely watched HeltApropå, a variety show styled after Saturday Night Live.
Over her performing career, Ms. Banke danced in The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, and Sleeping Beauty and toured Europe, performing lead roles in Cabaret, Fiddler on the Roof, Sweet Charity, Kiss Me Kate, and Little Shop of Horrors. Ms. Banke arrived in the United States in 1990, and in 1992, opened Dance Studio No.1 in West Los Angeles with programs in ballet, jazz, flamenco, and tap.
Every year, Elizabeth and her staff co-create original variety shows that include student choreography, ballet and other dances such as jazz, hip hop and tap, modern, flamenco, and folk, all taught at DS1 and are performed to the delight of family and friends. In addition, her choreographs and directs a minimum of two performances for her students each year, which are produced in association with SoCal Ballet. Past productions include The Little Match Girl, The Elves and the Shoemaker, The Snow Fairies (2009), Chopiniana, Peter & the Wolf, The Four Seasons (2010), Tales about Tails, Paquita, La Boutique Fantasque, Ragtime (2011), and Carnival of the Animals (2012).
DS1′s Classical Ballet Program provides comprehensive ballet training from beginner through pre-professional levels for students from 5 to 19 years of age. DS1 is an “R.A.D.” school which means the studio teaches the Royal Academy of Dance (R.A.D.) method as the foundation of their Classical Ballet Program. R.A.D. is taught in 79 countries and is the world’s leading organization is known for its correct and precise technique providing a safe, age-appropriate and thorough foundation training in classical ballet. (For more information about the R.A.D., visit www.rad.org.uk.) DS1’s students prepare and participate each year in internationally recognized R.A.D. exams, which occur each March/April. The exams are intended to help encourage dancers to achieve the goal of mastering their particular level of study and to elevate the dancer with measurable progress and “graduate” them to the next level.
Students in the ballet program also participate in winter and spring recitals and select dancers in the program have the option to perform at competition or other community events, such as Youth America Grand Prix. Several students in the program also participate in DS1s summer American Academy of Ballet Performance Awards Camp,
DS1 is set apart from other studios in many ways. Not the least of them is an intangible, enduring sense of community and camaraderie that exists among students, parents and teachers. DS1 provides competitive-level training within a nurturing and supportive environment: an experience for young people of great value, not easily duplicated.
Of all of Elizabeth’s proud moments, her proudest moment while coaching is when students she has taught and seen grow as artists enter for a solo seal or enter competitions. Whether they win or lose, Elizabeth is proud of them and the way they perform.
In addition to DS1’s Classical Ballet Program, they have a celebrated and developmentally appropriate Young Children’s Program designed for children 2 to 6 years of age. In order to provide important early dance training within a fun and creative learning environment, Elizabeth created the curriculum for “Tu-tu Dance,” “Expressercise,” and “Pre-Ballet.” Tu-tu Dance is a fun, 30-minute, play-dance class for two years old built on age-appropriate movement skills. Expressercise is a 45-minute, creative movement class for three year olds that encourages children to express themselves through a variety of music and movement styles. Pre-Ballet/Jazz/Tap is a preparatory dance class for four year olds, introducing placement, posture, form, and rhythm, as well as the coordination of simple dance steps. Like Tu-tu Dance and Expressercise, many exercises are set to songs making the combinations fun to perform and easier to remember. After Pre-Ballet, students move into the Classical Ballet Program to continue their training in Pre-Primary.
Dance Studio No. 1 also offers several Open Classes as part of its broad-based curriculum. Open classes are offered at varying skill levels in ballet, contemporary, character dance, conditioning, tap, and pop hop and are designed to cater to advanced level dancers looking to add classes to their training schedule, or to once-a-week, recreational dancers hoping to learn something new and have fun. There are no attendance requirements or recital obligations associated with Open Classes.
Dance Studio No. 1 does not offer adult classes as part of its curriculum, however, the Studio serves as home to a wide variety of classes for adults taught by independent teaching professionals from the Los Angeles community who rent space at the Studio. These teachers operate independently from DS1, therefore, anyone interested in the adult classes, please contact the teachers listed on the adult schedule on their website for more information.
The biggest mistake Elizabeth sees dancers make has to do with mismanaging their time. Often when young dancers enter high school, they want to do everything and end up taking on too many commitments
Elizabeth loves dance and especially loves sharing her passion for this beautiful art form. Her goal for next year is the same goal that she always has – to use that love and passion to create the best dancers she possibly can with the students that she is privileged to work with at Dance Studio No. 1.
Dance Studio No. 1 has become the home away from home for many of DS1’1s students. They offer an “academic program” as well as recreational programs and they welcome everybody who wants to learn what they have to offer.
Please post a comment if you have had any experience with Dance Studio No.1 or Elizabeth Banke.
