The walls of Dance Magic’s new North Location were bouncing with both bass and beneficence this past Sunday. The local dance studio brought in high profile choreographer, dancer, and actor Chris Jones to share his love of dance with students, teachers, and community members during the 10 hour Dance-A-Thon. Chris has danced with Beyoncé, Britney Spears and J-Lo. He has choreographed for One Direction, Willow Smith and One Call and has appeared in movies such as Step It Up, Forrest Gump, You Got Served and Big Mammas House to name a few. His energy and enthusiasm helped motivate the teams and solo dancers to keep pushing hour after hour for the cause.

Chris starts with Street Jazz basics: The Funky Walk!

The dancers try their hand at a new discipline: Commercial Dance

Miss Tracey and Miss Brianne spread some love.

In years past, Dance Magic has hosted similar fundraising events, notably two Zumba-Thons, in which families and friends of the studio raised over $50,000.00 to help end MS. This year, however, was all about kids helping kids, says studio owner, Christine Slaymaker. All proceeds from this year’s event will go towards Jumpstart. Jumpstart’s mission is to ensure that all kids, even those in low income brackets, have equal opportunity to participate in sports and other physical activities such as dance classes. Jumpstart is about more than getting kids active. It’s about kids meeting other kids and building relationships and community through fun, meaningful, healthy activities. When asked why she was taking part in this year’s event, one Dance Magic student said, “I think every kid should be able to dance, or play hockey, or do whatever they are passionate about. Everyone deserves the chance to have fun and be healthy.”

Chris leading the students in a hip hop routine.

The dancers are almost ready for Cirque du Soleil tryouts!

Even the teachers found some time to play during the busy event.

Throughout the course of the ten hour day, dancers were instructed in a wide variety of disciplines including jazz, hip hop, contemporary, street jazz, commercial dance, acro, and the studios most recent offering, aerial silks. Together, the Dance Magic family raised over $3000.00 to help kids in their communities. Talk about dancers making a difference! For more information on the Dance-A-Thon, or any of Dance Magic’s classes, events, workshops or camps, visit www.reddeerdancemagic.com.