How a GR dance studio offers ‘oasis for diversity’

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — A women-owned Grand Rapids dance studio has been teaching kids tap and other forms of dance for decades.

Jennifer Smith now owns the dance studio where she started dancing when she was 4.

“I was really, really welcomed,” she said. “I excelled in the enrichment of dance. It really was a haven for me. … Dance was always a safe place for me and it helped me develop my best skills and qualities in myself.”

Her mom and teachers encouraged her to take different opportunities and she grew in her dancing career. When she was in sixth grade, she became a teacher’s helper, a role she took very seriously.

“I learned the principles of understanding and how to be gentle with people,” she explained.

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When she graduated, the owners of the studio, which opened in 1977 and moved to its current spot at 2423 Eastern Ave. near Alger Street 1990, were looking to retire.

They approached Smith about taking over the studio and she agreed, taking on a teaching role before buying it in 2004, just before she turned 21.

Twenty years later, Over the Top Academy of Dance has doubled in square footage and serves as a “hub of communities,” she said, teaching kids through adults and offering everything from tap and ballet to a ‘Hotties in Heels‘ class for women and a HERO Academy boys pre-sports program.

“We’re the most diverse dance school in West Michigan,” Smith explained. “We’ve been told we’re an oasis for diversity and people to come and feel dance in so many different ways. … That’s how I build community, by just spreading the joy of movement and non-judgment and artistic expression.”

The school is “so much more than dance,” Smith said. Competitive students go through a leadership program in which they learn how to be a dance teacher.

“I built a lot of friends off of this dance community and most of my confidence from here,” 11-year-old Laila German, who has been dancing for six years, said. “Such a nice energy that radiates off this place, so that’s just why I love going to dance.”

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Ariana Martin, a 10-year-old who has been dancing for five years, said she loves the beat of the music.

Smith’s daughter, 16-year-old Chase Smith, has been dancing almost her whole life, encouraged by her mom.

“She is a hard worker and she’s a go-getter,” Chase Smith said of her mom. “No matter what has came in her way through the struggles or anything, this business has been going on for 20 years. … I’m just really proud of her.”

Chase Smith encouraged those interested in dancing to check it out.

“Just do it,” she said. “You have your whole life to dance. It doesn’t have to be when you’re super little, could be when you’re really older, like an adult. … There’s no wrong way to do it, as long as you’re moving your body to a beat of the music or the own beat to your head.”

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As the community celebrates Women’s History Month, Smith said there are so many people and women who came before her in tap, pointing to dancers like Jeni Le Gon.

“It’s a blessing to live in a space where I can continue to create and have Women’s History Month, to have space to really count my blessings and acknowledge the women, our community, and also be one of those women in our community,” she said. “It’s huge.”

Smith works to teach her students about the history of tap dance, which originated with slaves on plantations in America after slave owners took away their drums.

“You can’t take rhythm out of people’s souls,” Smith said. “So they had hand percussion and it evolved into tap dance, which ended up becoming the one American art form dance born and bred here by African Americans.”

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Understanding the history is empowering, Smith said. She hosts events like Tap Week during Black History Month to teach others about the dance form.

“It’s intentionally placed to put tap dance and arts in the front of people so they can try something in the art form during Black History Month in a Black-owned business,” she said. “The best learning is grown through action, so it’s like put yourself in art and you can experience the storytelling and you can get an understanding for what it’s all about.”

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