“Five, six, seven, eight!”  Another season is about to begin at Steps ‘N Motion, one of Charlotte’s “most innovative and creative dance studios.”  Recreational classes and an award winning competition team coexist at Steps ‘N Motion’s main facility at the Fountains, located in the Ballantyne/Blakeney area.  The Wesley Chapel location holds a very busy satellite studio.  From ballet and point, to hip hop and pre-professional, all converge for a mammoth show the first weekend of June. Just who is the woman behind the studio?  Celebrating 27 years of instruction, owner Sabrina LeClair recently met with connectwithcharlotte to reveal her lifelong passion for the movement and for the children.  

cwc:  Sabrina, where are you from and how long have you been here?   

Sabrina:  I was born in Dillon, South Carolina.  We moved here when I was four years old and have been here ever since. 

cwc:  I’d call that a true Charlottean.

Sabrina:  Yes.  My husband Jeff is a Charlotte native and firefighter at Hickory Grove Firehouse #23.  We have three children, all in college – Jared, 22; Joshua, 20; and Sydney, 18.  They all grew up dancing.  Joshua continued through high school with hip hop, but Jared stopped around 9^th grade.  I think the peer pressure got to be too much!  But he is a musician; an awesome drummer.  Sydney is the dancer of the family and has loved all genres of dance.  I don’t know if she’ll take over the studio.  We’ll see.  I hope she does something in the dance realm, such as sports medicine or physical therapy.  Jeff and I are going to be empty nesters this year! 

cwc:  You have two locations?

Sabrina:  We have this location and a satellite studio at Wesley Chapel.  I have a wonderful director/instructor in Abbie Steele, who runs that studio.  She does a fabulous job.  I stopped teaching when we undertook this project, Steps ‘N Motion.  This was two years in the making and a lot to put together.  We’ve been in this location for one year. 

cwc:  Approximately how many students do you have?

Sabrina:  We have about eight hundred students between the two sites. 

cwc:  Tell us about yourself, Sabrina; about your career, or how you fell in love with dance.

Sabrina:  I started dancing when I was three years old, joining Gross School of Dance in Charlotte at five.  I stayed with them through high school, and then taught for Bubba and Jean Gross.  We did a lot of traveling and performances.  Festival in the Park, community events; things I try to do with my kids now.  So I grew up dancing with the Charlotte Choral Society which did the Singing Christmas Tree and a spring production.  I did drama and all the musicals at Independence High School.  I attended CPCC while teaching then transferred to UNCC, majoring in Early Childhood Education and Dance.  My senior year I decided to quit school and open my first studio.  I was compelled by an opportunity.  Sometimes I wish I had finished school, but it has turned out fine.  I grew up traveling every summer to New York; took classes with the Atlanta Ballet and in Birmingham.  I was very into ballet.  Most of my training is there.  Tap and jazz were secondary to me.  I opened my studio with twenty five kids in the fall of 1981, with around 600 square feet in an old barber shop.  It still had the sinks and cabinets, a little restroom and a back room where I had an office.  The rent was $200 a month!  Isn’t that crazy?!  This was in Mint Hill.  I expanded to 1200 square feet a couple of years later.  One day, my husband and I were driving around the area and saw a “For Sale” sign in front of a house.  I knew we had to buy it and turn it into a studio.  Being over fifty years old at that time, the house had original hardwood floors and a lot of character.  It was a major project, but Jeff did all the renovation.  We stayed there for twenty four years.  During that time, we opened up in South Charlotte…and now here we are!  We had to sell the house/studio in Mint Hill to come over here, which was hard because my kids grew up in that studio.  I was very attached to it.  Selling was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in business.  But it was a great move.

cwc:  Has Steps ‘N Motion always been the name of your studio?

Sabrina:  No, I was Sabrina’s Dance Academy.  But when we opened our second location, I wanted to be very professional.  There is a famous studio in New York called Steps.  Having considered pages of names, one day I thought of Steps ‘N Motion.  We call it Steps when we are talking about it! 

cwc:  Sabrina, what is your proudest moment within dance?

Sabrina:  There’s not any one moment, but several things have happened over the years that have defined the studio.  I feel my gift is the gift of encouragement.  I am able to encourage people.  And not get wrapped up in all the competitive aspects of dance.  I can give the kids the opportunity to grow and become better people.  A proud moment would be when we started having our shows at Ovens Auditorium.  I felt like I had come a long way from our little school.  Also, we had a dancer, Brian McSween, who is now with the Joffrey Ballet.  Brian came to me at the age of ten and was an obnoxious, annoying kid!  He used to tell me that he was going to be a dancer one day.  When he did finally get to that place, I was very proud of him.  I know I had a small role in encouraging him and exposing him to teachers that he needed to experience.   Finally, we had a teacher named Mary who did a lot of ministry outreach.  She had an adult tap class and worked with a fella named Bill, who was mentally handicapped.  But he came to life when he was at the studio.  I didn’t think he should be in the recital, but Mary insisted.  It turned out to be a shining moment for Bill.  That’s when I started to redirect my vision for our competitive team.  I wanted them to be more community oriented.  We’ve worked with inner city kids through a ministry, taking dance to kids who would normally not have the opportunity.  We shared insight with them on nutrition and addressed other relevant issues.  Parents don’t always agree with my community focus.  But competition can be “all about me.”  Particularly in the area we are located, kids are very privileged.  I don’t think they realize what they have.  Through this, we can take dance into the community and be helpful. 

cwc:  What is your favorite part of day to day operations? 

Sabrina:  My favorite part is definitely watching the babies in dance class, or actually teaching them.  I love seeing them come into the studio so excited.  The nice thing about the younger kids is that they haven’t developed attitudes yet, at least not socially.  They’re just so eager to please and love you unconditionally.  And they tell the best stories…probably more than their parents want them to tell!  We start the kids in a thirty minute creative movement class at 2 ½ years.  They’re adorable.

cwc:  How old is your oldest student? 

Sabrina:  Most of the women in the adult tap class are in their 50’s and 60’s.  And they love it, having danced together for eight or nine years.  It’s pretty cool.  I love them, as well!

cwc:  Is there a “best kept secret” about Steps ‘N Motion?

Sabrina:  We really stress technique, even at our recreational level.  We give those kids just as much as we give the company kids who are here 12-15 hours a week.  I think that is why people come to this studio and stay here.  We have that traditional value regarding dance.  We group kids not only by age, but by ability. 

cwc:  Sabrina, what is the best advice you’ve ever received? 

Sabrina:  Well, I’m always getting advice!  The best advice I ever received was to stay true to my vision.  I met an eighty five year old gentleman at a discouraging point at the Mint Hill studio house.  He said, “You have a very nice place here.  I can tell that you work very hard.  Just keep working and don’t give up.  Go with your vision.”  I still come back to that moment because I would never have believed that we would be at this point today—the amount of teachers and students we have; I still enjoy it; I’m not burned out. 

cwc:  Their encourager received some encouragement.

Sabrina:  Yes.