Jacqueline Hart Gibson. Gilpin County. Gilpin County Rec Center recently hosted ballroom dance with professional dancer, and fabulous teacher, LA Dysart. The first session of instruction ran from the first week of January through the first week of February, covering basic beginner fox trot and salsa.

The students, eight couples, began the first class with a visible mix of enthusiasm and nervous energy. LA immediately eased the mood with humor and simple instructions, dispelling the stereotype of the perfectionistic, evil-stepmother type of dance teacher. By the end of the first lesson, in only one hour, students were comfortable with basic steps, smiling with pride as they got it, despite having never practiced ballroom dance before.

Ms. LA, as her younger students lovingly call her, has the training and experience of a professional dancer one would expect to find in the big city.

She began her dance training at two and a half years old in Ithaca, NY where her grandparents, professional ballroom dancers, founded their family dance company in 1935. She also received private instruction from her mother, a retired Rockette. LA explored and vigorously trained in many forms of dance and movement at her family’s academy including; ballet, contemporary, jazz, funk, hip-hop, acrobatics, lyrical, modern, musical theater, pointe and tap.

LA, who reports she has seen the movie Dirty Dancing at least 300 times, got her big city dancing expertise from the biggest city of them all, New York. She followed up her family’s instruction by forging her own path at Broadway Dance Center in the Big Apple, from 1996 to 2001. Throughout her 23-year career, she has trained and collaborated with notable talented artists such as; Sheila Barker, Tap Masters Debbie Dee and Phil Black and Rhapsody, to name just a few.

In her classes today, LA is fond of the saying, “Perfect practice makes perfect performance.” She shared that what she refers to is when dance students put energy and focus into perfecting the steps in practice, those steps and movements become second nature. When movements are permanently wired into the dancers’ minds, perfectly, execution of the dance doesn’t require as much effort. Though practice time in her classes is used wisely and steps are rigorously practiced, the entertainer side of her persona keeps classes fun. Students forget they are “practicing perfectly,” and simply let go and have fun.

Dance afforded Ms. LA the opportunity to travel the country performing and attending workshops. In 2000, she directed and choreographed the annual dance recital for the Pasco Center for the Arts, in Florida. LA appeared as a backup dancer for Pollyanna Dorough at the torch ceremony in the 2002 Winter Olympics. Then from 2002 to 2007 Ms. LA was a company member at Asher Dance Eclectic where she adapted choreography and performed in the company’s 25th Anniversary Show, “Fusion,” and choreographed and co-directed “White Hot Broadway,” in 2007.

Since 1986, LA has participated with traveling dance circuits such as; Dance Olympus, Dance Caravan, Dance Makers Inc., the Pulse and ADP. Her career includes education, training, performance and teaching, each weaving in and out of each other at various times in her life. From ‘99-’04 LA studied at both Pasco Hernando State College in Florida and Marymount Manhattan College in NY. In the fall of 2004 she studied ballet, choreography, dance history and modern dance at Hillsborough College, in Florida, followed by a Master Teacher Workshop in Oklahoma City in 2008. In 2011, she returned to the Broadway Dance Company in NY to attend Frank Hatchett’s Master Jazz class.

Throughout her time training and traveling she formed her own dance company in Florida, Brooksville Dance Academy and Kicks & Co. There she functioned as director, instructor and owner. She was inspired to operate her company modestly, allowing kids to be kids in kid-appropriate costumes that didn’t cost parents a small fortune.

It may be her lifelong learning style that has led to the sixth sense her students often witness in class. Although Ms. LA has her back turned and is not facing a mirror, she still “just knows” when a student perfects a step they have been struggling with and can quickly turn to offer praise to the student. The same holds true when a student loses a step and she can turn, seemingly from nowhere to offer one-on-one instruction that immediately addresses the student’s struggle. She shared how she accomplishes this seeming wizardry in the interview for this article, but a reveal now would spoil the fun for future students.

LA and Paul met in Florida, where she found him to be charming and, “a good dancer and an excellent curtain puller,” which is how Paul has helped with performances in the past. LA moved from Florida to Black Hawk with her husband five years ago, just after their first child, Aaron, was born.

Today, LA and Paul have two children. Their daughter, Aliza, born in 2015, began her dance instruction at age 2, just like her talented mama.

Since moving to Black Hawk, LA has participated in the founding of the Gilpin Elementary School Theater Department where she worked on choreography. She also assisted with choreography at the middle and high school levels. She’s taught ballet, hip-hop, tap, acrobatics and now ballroom dancing at the GCRC. But, due to unfortunate lack of funding for teachers at the rec center, she has had to seek opportunities to teach in Denver. This year she began teaching at Rise Dance Co., and Premier Dance Co., in Lakewood, as well as Present Dancin Dreams and Belliston Academy of Dance, in Littleton.

If you are interested in participating in one of LA Dysart’s classes, you can reach her at LADance13@gmail.com or on Facebook at LA Community Dance. Ballroom dance begins its second session this week, and a Burlesque class is tentatively planned for next month. See you there!

(Originally published in the February 7, 2019, print edition of The Mountain-Ear.)