San Luis Obispo and surrounding communities will soon have a new mecca for training in dance and movement: the Movement Arts Center, located at 2074 Parker Street in SLO. The Center is the realization of a dream for its co-founders, Ryan and Maartje Lawrence, who are both highly trained ballet professionals with a deep commitment to the arts. They created the Movement Arts Center (MAC) to foster that same lifelong appreciation among future generations of dancers and their families.
The dance studio is hosting an open house on Saturday, June 20 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Families with children, adults are interested in recreational classes, and anyone with a love of the arts is welcome to attend. Summer programming kicks off on June 22 with a variety of children’s dance camps; registration is now open via the website.
The MAC will deliver a curriculum-based ballet program, using the American Ballet Theatre® National Training Curriculum, for children age three to young adult. They will also teach ancillary classes in jazz and contemporary, yoga and adaptive dance for both children and adults. Their goal is to create a retreat, a place for dancers to explore and develop, regardless of their skill or ability.
“We believe that movement is a basic human right, and as such we have classes in diverse styles of dance including adaptive dance for kids and adults who have movement disorders such as Cerebral Palsy, Multiple Sclerosis or Parkinson’s,” said Ryan Lawrence.
Ryan and Maartje Lawrence have degrees in dance from The Juilliard School and The National Ballet Academy of the Netherlands, respectively. Their dance careers literally span continents, culminating with Scapino Ballet Rotterdam, one of Europe’s most respected contemporary ballet companies. It was during their mutual time with the company that the pair met and later married.
Their teaching experience includes university level instruction, as well as the development and implementation of a successful preparatory ballet program at a local academy, through which they helped several young people move on to prestigious summer and year-round training programs affiliated with nationally recognized ballet companies.
The facility itself boasts bright, airy open space, with 23-foot ceilings and more than 3,000 square feet of unobstructed dance floor divided between two unique studios. Both studios have observation windows and feature a sprung wood sub-floor for shock absorption and Harlequin Studio vinyl flooring used by the world’s leading dance companies due to its slip resistant technology and a slight cushioning for pointe work. Both studios are available for rental, as available.
Ryan Lawrence began his training at the Academy of Dance in San Luis Obispo, California, continuing at St. Paul’s School in Concord, New Hampshire. In 1998 he attended The Juilliard School, under the direction of Benjamin Harkarvy, where he trained with and danced the works of ballet and modern dance masters such as Paul Taylor, Hans van Manen and Lar Lubovitch. He graduated with a BFA in 2002.
Born and raised in the south of Holland, Maartje Lawrence-Hermans, began her formal ballet training in the Vaganova method in Maastricht. At the age of 16 she moved to Amsterdam to study at the National Ballet Academy where she participated in numerous productions with Het National Ballet and danced in the works of Maurice Petipa, George Balanchine, Hans van Manen and Jiri Kylian.