Dance Studio Owner is Living Her Dream: Building a Community, Sharing Her Passion, and Giving Back
By Katie Chatham
From the time she was a little girl, Alexes Niekamp dreamed of opening a dance studio. Growing up in California, she went to Marti’s Dance Studio. She practiced and learned every style of dance offered. As the daughter of a single mother, she found that the dance world offered her a sense of community and belonging.
Thanks to her dedication to dance, her teacher offered her a scholarship to help her afford her passion and to take some weight off her mother’s shoulders.
“I remember asking my dance teacher what I could do to pay her back, and she just told me, ‘All I ask is that you give back.’” Alexes shared during a recent interview.
Today, Alexes owns her own studio, and, she said, “This is my way of giving back.”
She has owned Lessons by Lexe, located in the Prescott Gateway Mall, for three years, and she was just recently able to expand from a 900-square-foot space into a space that is just over 5,000 square feet. “This move allows us to do so many things! We will have a hard floor and a spring floor. It’s really exciting for everyone,” Alexes said.
As well as the expansion of her studio, another new achievement in Alexes’ life was earning the title “Miss Parker, Arizona.” She has not been involved with the pageant world for long; she earned her title just three months ago, but she was really drawn into the community aspect of pageantry. She explained, “This is also another place I get to tie together dance and giving back to my community.”
She said that in the Miss America pageantry community, there is a category that regards Social Impact. Alexes has devoted this area of her pageantry to a cause she calls, “A Chance to Dance.” In this way, she offers anyone who wants to dance but may not be able to afford the opportunity (be it monetarily, physically or otherwise) the chance to dance.
“We get to open up the dance world to kids that have learning disabilities like ADD or ADHD, or even physical hindrances and might not otherwise get to dance.”
Alexes has chosen The Lions as the mascot for her studio, “because they are courageous yet humble, and that’s how I encourage our dancers to be.”
She explained that she wants her students to feel as though they can move wildly through dance, and to be wild and untamed by nature, just like a lion. Alexes takes a lot of pride in her dancers, and the community she has helped to create for and around them. She recently taught the students a dance number that was performed at the Dancing for the Stars event benefitting Big Brothers Big Sisters as another way for her and her students to give back. At three years, she feels that her studio is thriving, and as she continues to knit her community together, she is excited to see how things continue to flourish.
For more information about Lessons by Lexe, visit her Facebook page – Lessons by Lexe : Dance Studio – or email her at [email protected]