Since the age of five, Cara Brand has been in love with the art of dance. For over twenty years, she has performed and taught the art that she so loves throughout Mississippi. Today, she’s preparing to share her love of the art with children and adults alike by offering dance classes at her very own dance studio in Hickory, aptly named the Hickory Academy of Dance Arts.
Born and raised in Tupelo, Brand wasted no time in determining that dancing was for her. After a doctor told her parents that would be too tall to take tumble, they enrolled her in dance classes, and she flourished.
“We never even looked back,” she said. “I’ve been dancing since I formed a conscious thought, and I’ve been in dance ever since then.”
From that point, Brand was instructed in every type of dance that was offered. But the form of dance that she was drawn to was ballet.
“It’s my favorite to teach, my favorite to watch and favorite to do. It’s a very disciplined art form,” she said. “While you can still be free for expression and artistic, you can still make it look different, even though ballet is typically so structured and rigid. I think it is prettiest to watch.”
Brand grew up learning dance from Sharon Long, owner of Tupelo Academy of Dance Arts and director of Tupelo Ballet, a prestigious ballet company that’s considered a pre-professional company. When she enrolled at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, she taught at the Oxford Academy of Dance Arts throughout her time in college. After marrying husband, Matthew Brand, and making her way to Hickory, she taught for two years at Ms. Tina’s Dance Studio in Philadelphia.
After teaching dance for nine years, Brand determined it was time to open the Hickory Academy of Dance Arts and offer her services to Newton County. Her dance studio will offer classes for ages three to 12th Grade. The studio will offer a variety of dance for the young students, including ballet, hip hop, tap, musical theater, point, and jazz contemporary.
Brand will also offer adult classes for those who have never taken dance or those former dancers looking to get back into the art. The two classes are adult beginner ballet contemporary class and an open level ballet technique class.
“When I taught in Oxford, we started a beginner adult ballet class, and I got a really good grasp of how to tier instruction. On one bar, we’d have a dancer who trained at Houston Ballet, and then a complete beginner, who just walked in and thought it would be fun, would be on the other end,” said Brand. “And we made the class enjoyable, enriching, and useful to everyone, both beginner’s and skilled, and it became such a fun class.”
While her studio, located at 13 W. Washington Street in Hickory, is currently under construction, Brand has hosted two open houses to meet and enroll students, and has another scheduled for August 2. Registration is available online at the studio’s website, hickoryacademyofdancearts.com for those that can’t make it to the open house. For those who are new to dance and are not sure it’s for them, Brand expressed that it’s an art form that you’ll never regret learning.
“I have never regretted a single hour that I spent in dance class. It enriched my life so much and it is literally who I am as a person,” said Brand. “As a parent, watch how often your kids dance in their everyday life and imagine how much joy you could give them by giving them an outlet to express that more artistically.”
