This opportunity is for the dedicated student who loves to perform! Sole Artistry is open to all students ages 3-20, beginner to advanced, who love learning and want to step up to the next level! These students have the opportunity to spend more time in the classroom learning and enriching their passion for dance and tumbling! There are also many other opportunities to perform, travel, participate in group events and attend workshops where they learn from the most highly revered choreographers and performers seen in movies, television, and on Broadway stages! We participate in several regional competitions during the Winter – Spring season and at the end of our spring competition season, we attend Nationals where we get to compete against many other great dancers across the country! Competitions are a great opportunity where we get to show our love for our art, perform and show off our talents, show our studio spirit and get inspired by other performers! During the Summer season, we participate in many local competitions at fairs and other fun community events and hope to qualify to compete at the Iowa State Fair in which the winners receive high cash prizes and perform live on television! Being an AIDC Sole Artistry performer is a great tool to help students improve not only their technique and quality of movement, but also earn life skills, gain confidence, and be a part of their artistic community. It is a wonderful learning experience for any student!!
Meet The Dancers
Melina Reinhardt is 14 years old. She began dancing with AIDC in 2011 at age 3 and is in her 10th year of competing. Melina is most known for her wide performance range and contortion abilities for which she has received many awards. This year Melina has been loving showing off her dark and quirky musical theatre style, performing to "Pulled" as Wednesday Addams and exploring her mature contemporary style in her solo to "Who's Sorry Now" portraying Cruella De Vil! Melina won several high awards at regional and state competitions this year for both of her dances including qualifying to compete at the Iowa State Fair for the 6th time and is excited to go back as she has already qualified again for next Summer! Melina has been a student assistant for 2 years, she is a great example of what a young dancer can become and does a great job helping with our littlest ones!
Brooklyn Frantz is 15 years old. She began dancing with AIDC at age 5. This year she received her 10 year student recognition award and is going into her 11th season on the competition team. Brooklyn always receives high marks for her stylized tap dances, but also likes to explore her talents in many other areas and most recently has received many Grand Champions and Judge's Awards for her powerful contemporary dances! Brooklyn has qualified to compete at the Iowa State Fair 7 times and has made it to the semi-finals of the Bill Riley Talent Search twice and she is now prequalified to attend again next year. This year she gave us all the attitude in her unique performance to "Bennie & The Jets" and Tap dance to "Misery Business", watch out because she is commanding that stage! Brooklyn is an extremely hard worker and will never be seen wasting a moment to practice!
Emma Strayer is 12 years old. She has been dancing with AIDC since 2016 and received her 5-year student recognition certificate at last years' showcase! Emma is not part of our regular company but attends many workshops with us and competes with us in all of our summer events! Emma has great jazz style and is a strong tumbler and contortionist. She is small but mighty with her endless energy! She has received many scholarships from dance workshops and wins high awards at all of our summer competitions! Emma has had the opportunity to make it to the semi-finals of the Bill Riley Talent Search in 2019 and was named a sprout champion as one of Top 6 under age 12 in the state of Iowa in 2021! This year she got to show that growing into a beautiful young artist with her Jazz solo to "River Deep Mountain High" and has already qualified for the State Fair next year! She is becoming a great leader in the classroom and we love her style and her smile!