On the competition circuit, Kevin and Meri Bender’s students are, in a word, impressive. Wowing audiences and judges with a combination of creative choreography and stage presence, they also display the unmistakable signs of solid technical training across a variety of forms-from freezes in a hip-hop routine to expert theatrics in a musical-theater number. But it’s not all about competition at Bender Performing Arts in Phoenix, Arizona: The school’s performing and competing company, Dance Motion, accounts for only 15 percent of overall enrollment. “When Kevin and I got into this, we didn’t just want to be a competition school-there is so much more out there,” Meri explains. Adds Kevin, “We know that, as educators, working with youth is a big responsibility, and we’re using dance and art as a way to form them and help them grow into young adults.”
As shrewd studio owners as they are dedicated teachers, the two recently opened a new 14,000-square-foor facility housed in a new $3 million building that is carefully tailored to all their needs, from studio-monitoring video screens in the lobby to a digital music system wired throughout. It wasn’t just savings that allowed them to build their dream studio, however-it took creativity and careful planning. Most importantly, they understood the value of knowing their own strengths and finding the right partners to fill in the gaps. Now, the couple has all sorts of future lans including expanding their annual charity performance (to which they invite seven other local studios to participate) and, for Kevin, dabbling in dance studio consulting. Their message, after all, is about community, not competition.
BEGININGS AND THOUGHTFUL TRANSITIONS
Meri, 34, spent her childhood at Phoenix’s Betty Johnson School of Dance, from her first ballet class, at age 5, to her first stint reaching jazz and ballet, at 16. Dreaming of a Broadway career, she went on to perform in regional stage shows while studying dance, music and theater on scholarship at the United States International University in San Diego, California.
Kevin, 41, first tagged along with a neighborhood friend to tap class, at age 5, adding ballet and jazz through his teen years at Phoenix’s Spisak Dance Academy, where he started teaching, at age 15. At 18, he moved to Los Angeles and spent three years dancing professionally in videos, shows and industrials. On a trip home in 1985, he found a message from Betty Johnson on his family’s answering machine, asking him to replace a teacher who had left mid-year. Johnson had previously observed him teaching and saw him as a perfect fit, she says. He agreed to teach through the next recital-from January to June-but instead got hooked and stayed for good, founding the student performing company, Dance Motion, in 1987.
At the school, Meri and Kevin’s shared love of dance and close relationship as young dancers and teachers was a natural prelude to dating. “We started partnering a lot together and we became really good friends,” Meri says. “We both have the same interests and passions, and we both understand one another. We ended up spending less time together working as dancers and more time teaching, and it blossomed from there.” Drawn from San Diego back to Phoenix to continue a serious relationship with Kevin, Meri started teaching more, and realized it was the classroom, not the Broadway stage, where she wanted to spend her time. In 1993, they married, and now have a bustling family of three sons: Erik, 10; Jason, 8; and Ryan, 6.
Johnson, meanwhile, suffered a back injury in 1991, and began looking for a way to retire. But of her seven children, none had danced seriously. She considered Meri, however, her “adopted dancing daughter,” so the solution was clear: Kevin and Meri would take over the school.
The couple didn’t buy the school in the traditional sense: In ·1992, they started managing it and, over the next six years, received annual bonuses that accumulated toward a down payment. lt was a win-win situation, said Johnson, whose financially minded husband suggested the idea (and enlisted a CPA to oversee the details): It provided the Benders incentive to stay with the studio and gave Johnson the security of having owners who knew and loved her school. “It was a natural way to transition into a business like this,” Kevin explains. “It also gave us an opportunity to continue to learn about the business under her and her husband’s tutelage.”
TOTAL TRAINING
Over the years, the Benders have developed a reputation of their own, especially -for their emphasis on students’ total development, not just dance development. “[Dance education impacts young people-they learn discipline, time management, working as a team,” says Kevin. “Thar’s our motivation.” Meri adds, “If they become dancers, great. If they decide to be doctors, we know that this stepping stone has helped them in some way.”
Patience, hard work and delayed gratification are at the heart of the lessons the two seek to teach. I’m seeing kids burn out by the time they’re 12, because they’re dancing or competing so much. So, it’s important that we teach these kids that the art of dance is a journey,” Kevin says. “It’s not like microwave popcorn [that is] ready in a minute. Dance is a developmental process and it’s really hard to teach this generation that. You don’t get everything you want at age 10; you don’t get to dance with the big girls on the big stage in the big show. You’ve got to work through the ranks. To me, that’s a life skill, too. We didn’t get to the point that we are, right away; this has been a 20-year process. So, we understand the value in taking your time and being patient and working through the artform of dance.” With this philosophy, the Benders’ older, more experienced dancers are afforded more opportunities to work with guest choreographers, perform in the community and compete at an advanced level.
For Sarah Purtzer, a freshman in college who has studied with the Benders since age 8 and will return to Phoenix to teach for them this summer; the versatile training and nurturing beyond dance study have left her well-armed to tackle her first year pursuing a dance degree. “Their teaching technique is nor just, this is how you turn out your leg or, ‘This is how you point your foot,’ but instilling in us the need to watch and to feel and to think, ‘ls this the way we’re supposed to move?”‘ Purtzer says. “Yes, they give us corrections, but it’s about watching and learning and really being observant of those corrections. For me, coming to college and experiencing modern classes and styles I haven’t done, it’s been helpful to have that eye,” she says, adding, “I was blessed to have wonderful teachers who actually cared about me, not just how I looked. That has really made me who I am as a dancer.”
Students’ most common observation about these studio owners is how well they work as a team. Lauren Gottlieb, 17, who is moving to L.A. to dance professionally this summer, says, “They complement each other so well, and they’re really good at trying as hard as they can to make everyone happy.”
Kevin is famous for his lighthearted approach, while Meri is known to be a hard hitter when it comes to technique. Gottlieb, who took her first class at the studio from Kevin in 7th grade, says, “If you were in a bad mood and went to class, he’s such a goofball [that he] puts you in a great mood.” In subtle contrast, “Meri is very determined and focused in rehearsals, and she really wants to get things done-so you don’t mess around,” says Purtzer. “She gives me respect; I give her respect. You know they are strict because they both care about you so much, and you respect them for that.”
A NEW HOME
In the spring of 2003, the Benders began planning for an inevitability so many studio owners confront: the end of their studio lease. The couple made the decision to relocate and pursue their vision of running their own performing arts center. Betty Johnson’s was a very nice facility-about 11,000 square feet, four nice dance rooms, quite a bit of space-but we knew that it was time to take the next step,” Kevin says. They started looking for property in the area on which to build a new building and decided on a 2.5-acre lot that they happened to drive by daily.
Investing their own savings and reinvesting the school’s profits wouldn’t be enough to cover costs, though; they needed a financial partner, as well as guidance, in building a new studio from the ground up. Partnering with Kevin’s sister, Tara Evans, and her husband, Rob, a general contractor, they purchased the land (with the additional help of a bank loan) and constructed an approximately 26,000-square-foot building that would house the new performing arts center, Rob Evans’ painting business and several other properties-for-lease to generate additional revenue. Bender Performing Arts’ doors opened in January 2006, just one year after breaking ground, and the for rent spaces quickly filled with the businesses of friends and acquaintances: a dancewear store owned by studio moms, a salon run by a woman Meri grew up dancing with,
and a chiropractic company operated by their tap teacher’s husband, among others. The synergy among all the businesses helps give the entire complex a family atmosphere.
As for the Benders, they wanted to give the new studio “a 21stcentury feel,” in contrast to Betty Johnson School of Dance’s pinkand-maroon homespun quality. The new facility has dance studios equipped with video cameras and TV monitors to record and play back footage of class progress; large viewing windows (which can be covered with blinds); monitors in the lounge for parents to observe students; and a large projection screen on the lobby wall where staff members can splash details about future events and footage of past performances for visitors. In addition, teachers have access to an entirely digital music system through a computer in each studio (all connected to a central server on the center’s second floor), so they don’t have to tote around their own CDs. (Although Kevin is a self-proclaimed gadget guy, the Benders hired an information-technology specialist to help them get wired.)
Brightly colored walls and furniture, high ceilings, aluminum accents and concrete floors throughout (with the exception of the studios, which are sprung maple) contribute to the artsy, industrialloft look they were aiming for. Building from the ground up also allowed the Benders to bring to life their own design considerations (like no electrical outlets in the lobby for the safety of children and garage door openings to studios for easy loading of equipment, as well as those required for new construction by local law (like streetlights and landscaping) that they learned about and tackled along the way.
OPEN ATTITUIDES
Some might say that the Phoenix dance school community has been historically competitive, with the only interaction between dancers at neighboring studios occurring at competitions. According to the Benders, however, this has eased up in recent years, in part because of more competition options as well as more local studios. But they hope the greater sense of community is, in part, the result of an event they’ve spearheaded for the past five years.
DancInspiration, a benefit concert rallying together seven
other area studios, is the Benders’ effort to teach their dancers to put their energy and shared passion toward cooperation instead of opposition. The performance, held in downtown Phoenix, draws local dance lovers as well as friends and family, and has raised more than $30,000 for the Caitlin Robb Foundation, which supports pediatric cancer research. As Meri puts it, “Two wonderful things are happening: These kids are raising money for kids, and secondly, the dancers from different schools know each other now, and it’s created a better atmosphere here among teachers and students. It’s taught everyone a great lesson.”
The Benders, always with an eye toward growing onward and outward, have aspirations to expand the program beyond the Phoenix area by pairing with corporate sponsors. “Our goal is to have different dance studios in each state across the country put on DancInspiration, so we’re all raising money for kids,” says Meri. Adds Kevin, “We’re really proud of it, and we’d like to see it grow into something larger.”
In recent years, Kevin has also transitioned to taking on a larger business role, while Meri has remained in the classroom. “My strengths are changing,” Kevin says. “I still choreograph and produce shows, because I enjoy the creative end and it’s a part of who I am, but I realize it’s time for me to go to the next thing.” When the dust settles, maybe he’ll consider moving on to a different kind of teaching-sharing his self-taught and learned-in-the-trenches dance business knowledge with other teachers who want to open their own studios.
Their best business advice, when it’s all said and done? “Be open and involve people,” says Kevin. “It’s not just about Meri and me. It’s not just about Betty Johnson. That leadership is not to be confused with the fact that there’ve been hundreds of people behind us. Could we have done it on our own? No more I than I could pick someone off the street and say, ‘Choreograph a dance and put a show together.”‘
Lisa Arnett is a Chicago-based writer and Midwest editor of Dance Spirit magazine.
