After a two-year pandemic hiatus, Fascination Dance Studio in Downtown Thorold is finally ready to take the stage again with a brand new show.
“Since we’re back on the stage it’s [called] ‘Haven’t Stopped Dancing’ and we haven’t stopped dancing since COVID hit,” says the studio’s director Lisa DiMaurizio-Paroyan, in an interview with ThoroldToday.
Fascination Dance Studio, situated on Clairmont Street, has been a part of the Thorold community for over 30 years.
“I started with my sister,” DiMaurizio-Paroyan says. “We started out with six students and went to about 18 the second year and about 45 the third year. It just sort of kept building from there.”
When the world shut down in March 2020, it had a devastating effect on the studio.
“We lost about half the population of the school,” DiMaurizio-Paroyan says. “We resorted to the online dance classes. It’s not an ideal situation for dance but the students were just troopers. They were my inspiration to get through it all.”
There was a lot of uncertainty in the initial stages of the pandemic, according to DiMaurizio-Paroyan.
“There were times that I was wondering if we were going to ever have students come back,” she says. “It was difficult, a lot of tears, a lot of stress. My son teaches with me and we would come up to the studio and it was very quiet. What an empty feeling without the life force, which are the children, in the studio.”
In spite of the difficulties, DiMaurizio-Paroyan is in awe of what her students have accomplished in the past two years.
“With the students online and back in the studio, back-and-forth, you start to wonder,” she says. “Have the children lost anything? Have we lost anything? I can happily say that they have not. There was a growth in them which is great, even in online classes. They persevered like nothing I’ve seen before and we overcame it.”
The students are already counting down the days until they can take the stage.
“It’s exhilarating,” DiMaurizio-Paroyan says. “What can I say? You just really feel what you have lost when you actually have the opportunity to do it again. It’s why we do what we do. We want to go out and perform and make people feel something.”
Fascination Dance Studio will put on 'Haven’t Stopped Dancing’ at the Welland Centennial High School on Saturday, June 25 and Sunday, June 26. Tickets can be bought here.
