Today we’d like to introduce you to Vanessa Woods.
Hi Vanessa, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
In my past life, I was a professional ballet dancer. I moved to St. Louis in 2010 from Manhattan, New York to dance with the Saint Louis Ballet. I got recruited out here to fill in for one of the injured swans in Swan Lake and the rest is history. I got my contract renewed every year and quickly establish roots and a connection with the St. Louis community through my love and passion for performing with SLB. While I was dancing with the company, I was consistently looking for more working opportunities around my robust schedule as a ballet dancer. Being a ballet dancer is an amazing job, but it’s not well paying so many dancers work a multitude of jobs including dance teaching. It was a conversation with my mom that I had on the phone where she gave me the idea about teaching dance to seniors. She is an Occupational Therapist and works with geriatric patients, so she thought it would be a great merge to continue offering patients movement through the fun and beauty of dance, especially seniors. There is a lot that that can be done from a chair, but it was a brainstorm that it took me a few weeks to put together what a dance class would look like entirely from a chair and how I would keep it authentic and engaging for the students. Vitality In Motion was born! I started adding communities one at a time through grassroots efforts of connecting with each individual location to share with them about the value of the arts and this unique program to benefit the residents living there. Slowly, the program continued to grow while I was still dancing. Typically, I would try to teach as many Vitality In Motion classes as I could in the morning before company class started. Then I would go to my job as a dancer and I would be taking company class, run out and check my email for client requests, go to a rehearsal, run out and respond to a call from a community. At the time, I never would’ve imagined the company would grow to the size we are today. It was just me teaching the classes and enjoying being passionate about my side job helping others through my love of dance.
I used to teach all the classes myself, I’ve since graduated to being the one who runs the show from behind the scenes. I hire and onboard carefully selected instructors to facilitate all of our classes in four cities: st. Louis, Kansas City, Phoenix, and Tucson.
I also expanded my programming to a sister company, called Vitality Ballet, a virtual ballet studio for all age adults. This company offers real adult ballet classes for all age adults from 25 to 75 years old. I wanted to make sure that the benefits of Dance were not only available to our Seniors, but that we could use Dance as a preventative measure to get people of all age engaged in the benefits of dancing. There’s research to show that dancing can improve brain function, memory, balance, coordination, gait, and mood.
www.vitalityinmotion.com
www.vitalityballet.com
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
There have been many unexpected struggles in starting my own business, including Covid, which shut us down completely. Watching my business unravel from seven years of work was emotionally really trying. It’s also been an interesting struggle to learn about how to communicate about our programming to make it accessible so that senior living and facilities know about these programs being available to them. There isn’t a direct channel to reach our target audience and the facility directors are not spending time researching online or using Google to find programming like this so it’s been an interesting market challenge to learn how to bring awareness to this type of program being available and being important to offer seniors.
In the beginning, a huge challenge was just building the confidence to know that I could make this a full-time job and I can make this company successful. I spent a brief year in between my Dance career and running my company full-time working in a marketing advertising agency in Clayton. It was a really difficult year because I was missing being a ballerina, and I was also trying to do a good job in my new career while still keeping my own company afloat I eventually had to take the plunge and commit to running my company full-time because that was where my heart really was.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
www.vitalityinmotion.com – Vitality In Motion- I started this company in 2012 running a part time while I was still a professional ballet dancer with the St. Louis ballet. I’ve always loved Seniors and the feeling you get when you are helping others through something you are also passionate about. I also feel like access to the arts and inclusion is so important when it comes to the arts, so I loved the idea of making dance and all the many researched benefits of dance, accessible to older adult populations. I like to describe us as a dance studio on wheels. We have a team of 70 dance instructors in our four city locations, including St. Louis, Kansas City, Phoenix, and Tucson. Our instructors provide us their daytime availability and then they go out and they teach our adaptive dance classes at senior living facilities around the region. Many of the teachers are choreographers, dancers, fitness instructors, parents with a dance background, students who graduated with a dance degree, and we have dancers from Broadway, cruise ships, dance professors- really good talent! I’m really proud of being able to have a two prong support approach for my company. We provide amazing programming to help improve the quality of life for aging seniors in fun, meaningful and engaging dance programs. We also help support local artists by giving them quality and reliable work, that’s meaningful to them to help support them in their own artistic pursuits.
www.vitalityballet.com- Vitality Ballet- I always wanted to make sure that high-quality accessible ballet would be available to everyone and encourage all ages to pursue the benefits of ballet. I started Vitality Ballet to be a virtual, inclusive dance studio, where adults of all ages and backgrounds would be welcome to learn ballet. We have adults from ages 25 through 75 who take class with us. This program started during Covid or we would fill the virtual classroom with students from all over the world who are all dancing from home. Today, we continue to offer our online programming so that those who are looking for a more convenient in private place to take ballet can still enjoy the community feel without needing to drive to a studio, change into a leotard and stand in front of mirrors. Our approach to these classes is informative, welcoming, laid-back, and authentic. All of the instructors are real professional dance instructors so students are learning from the pros seeing the real technique and learning tips and tricks to improve their technique from day one. Adults are busier than ever so if we can provide them a place that they can get an amazing virtual ballet class workout without needing to take extra time to drive, navigate traffic, park and get changed, it’s a win-win because we can encourage more people to fit ballet into their schedule- including first timers or those who want to return back to ballet since childhood.
What are your plans for the future?
For the future of Vitality In Motion, my plan is to continue growing this company to new cities around the United States. I am already scoping out two new locations to expand in 2026. I am excited by. I love getting to virtually travel around the United States meeting dancers and getting to know new communities to help bring the power of dance into their facility. Every new location we go to brings different and exciting challenges. It’s also informative for me as a business owner to see how similar, and the differences, each market is from one another. So far, they are much more similar than I would have thought.
For the future of Vitality Ballet, I really hope we encourage more students to join us. My goal is to continue igniting passion for ballet in more adults. I also am looking forward to expanding our students in the 55+ range who have been coming to our new Gentle Ballet class that I started on Tuesdays.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.vitalityinmotion.com and www.vitalityballet.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vitality_in_motion and https://www.instagram.com/vitality_ballet
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VitalityInMotion and https://www.facebook.com/vitalityballet
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessawoods15/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvlXDoQTQnU
