Dance Academy USA offers Leadership Opportunities for their Young Dancers

Since 1998, Dance Academy USA has been offering leadership opportunities to their young dancers. Loretta Carter, the Production Company Manager at Dance Academy USA and a former high school superintendent, speaks highly of the leadership opportunities offered at DAU. According to Carter, "Dance Academy USA offers young people great opportunities to be paid while also learning leadership skills." Dance Academy USA has systems in place to help kids grow as leaders. Programs offered at DAU include the TA - Teacher Assistant Program, Competition and Performing Team Mentor Program and the Student Intern Program.

DAU is offering paid internships for their Student Intern program. The Student Intern program provides students in high school and college with an opportunity to gain hands-on business and leadership experience before choosing a college major. Students will learn how to work with customers, online bill pay, basic accounting, advertising, business operations, and office functions. DAU interns learn how to work as a team and pursue a goal. This program is currently accepting applications.

The Competition and Performing Team Mentoring program consists of 250 young mentors and is also led by Loretta Carter. According to Carter, "When older kids show love, affection and responsibility for younger kids - it transcends all. Our students really love this program and we believe being mentored to, then mentoring another - helps kids grow as leaders." In addition to their mentoring and internship programs DAU offers The Teacher Assistant Program (TA) which has been in place at DAU for over 15 years and currently includes over 50 DAU students. This program is co-lead by Jenni Tibbils and Marisa Cruz who help their TA's master their dance skills through teaching. Student teachers must pay attention to everything during class: their own energy level; attitude of the group that day; their own body-language; lesson plan for the warm-up; focus level of the group. DAU's goal is to educate and inspire their dancers by learning how to teach, lead, and gain 'real world' business knowledge.