HELP SAVE OUR HAUS! Support our New Space!
Hello! My name is Ciara Glass and I am the owner of the local Grand Rapids small business, Haus of Glass Dance. We are asking for help to keep our doors open! Since opening just before the pandemic we have struggled to stay afloat and we are coming down to our last leg. We are in the difficult position of having to move to a new space all while producing professional company productions, supporting and continuing to support our current students, all while struggling to meet the current financial needs. We are extremely hopeful and confident that by finding a new place to call home we will be able to provide better opportunities for our dancers and have the ability to keep our stage productions thriving! We are a unique space that provides safe, welcoming, open and non-judgmental classes and performance opportunities for young dancers and adult dancers in West Michigan!
It is important to know who you are donating to, so let me tell you a little about how Haus of Glass was formed.
I founded this dance space because I knew I wanted to help shape not just young dancer’s, but all dancers with the mindset of “growth over perfection” when it comes to dance and movement arts. The dance space can be hard, so I wanted to provide a studio that was noncompetitive, inclusive, welcoming, and simply a place all humans can come and take a deep breath. Haus of Glass is the pick me up to start someone's day or the de-stresser to end it. When looking at other studios, I saw a serious lack of dance opportunities for adults who either haven’t danced yet or yearned to continue their dance training post school! This is where the heart of “growth over perfection” was born. We want everyone to feel beautiful in their bodies and to use the beauty of dance to be cultivated within and help you let go of any insecurities that are holding you back!
THE REASON FOR THE SPACE
Since our grand opening in 2019, Haus of Glass Dance has seen how much our students have grown. Along with that so has our student body! Our current rental space is limiting the amount of dancers that can be in the space at the same time. This prohibits us from being able to have our entire dance fam get together for events, meetings, and rehearsals. The current space also currants a lack of options for varieties of class. With the new space we will be able to offer a multitude of diverse dance options for the littlest dancer, to our professional adults! Our Performance Company, C.Glass Dance Co provides performance opportunities for all ages starting with young dancers ages 4 all the way up to adults of any age! To hold rehearsals, our studio does not have the room to accurately rehearse our performances. And our dancers work so hard for months and months to have a one or two day performance. They deserve more! We will be able to put on more regular , small scale performances so our dancers can truly shine and spotlight their talents!
There are so many difficulties dealing with a rental space and a landlord when owning an artistic, community space! No adjustments of rental space to allow for more movability, no control over automatic locks so dancers are waiting outside occasionally, rental prices will always continue to rise and tuition will always continue to have to match. Not to mention that I have actually had to deal with studio equipment being thrown away for not being kept inside my unit. Thousands of dollars worth or property to be more specific. So, with this move will come a feeling of ease about the entire space and overall price drops. YES! Tuition costs will be LOWER!
Finally, we want to give back in a way that’s beyond the arts. With a larger studio space we will be able to provide more affordable events space for all kinds of events that could benefit a community. It is our goal to be a light for good to as many as we can reach, in as many ways as we can reach them!
THE VISION
With this new space, we can allow the Haus of Glass vision to truly come to life! A part from being able to host more classes for more students here are some of the other visions that would make this space all the more special.
Larger lobby for families to wait for their dancer to finish class. The lobby would be more well equipped with child’s toys, games as well as storage for all dancers to enjoy.
With more space, we can have a storefront to feature our dance apparel and have in stock basics to make it easier for new families entering the dance world to quickly get what they need.
A costume closet designated for our costume designers to work and have easy access to organized costumes. We recycle and repurpose as many costumes as we can and have handmade one a kind costumes for our dancers. This space would allow us to do this and keep our garments stored safely.
One large studio would be designed for our larger adult classes and Company rehearsals. This studio would also allow our small child’s group classes to really move and explore distance! This larger studio would also be excellent for birthday parties, family events, in Haus performances and more. This would begin as a lounge space for students and a small office space for our studio manager.
This space would be much larger to accommodate safe and realistic training with leaps, turns, and jumps.
This new location would give also us the opportunity to provide pop up shows at our studio so our dancers can PERFORM more often, beyond the restraints of only a couple shows at a theater a year.
Ample parking would be provided, and the location would bring a sense of safety and comfort to our families. Centrally located in Grand Rapids and easily accessed by being set directly off a highway exit, so families would have an easy time bringing their kids in and out of class.
This new space would have double the ceiling heights of our current studio, allowing for dancers to expand the limits of their leaps and lifts. Ample windows and natural lighting to provide a sense of ease and focus in classes, they will allow for parents to easily watch their dancer in class without distraction.
OUR DREAMS
Beyond transforming what we can offer our students at Haus of Glass, this space would allow for my husband Walker to live into his passion of cooking with more “dinner and dance” shows! Dance At Dusk was such a hit, we sold out almost every performance and people LOVED it! We want to be able to have monthly or quarterly “Dinner Clubs” where we would include dinner with the ticket and put on events in the studio. We have a dream to provide a space for families around the greater Grand Rapids area that is safe, comfortable and inviting, along with more varieties of educational and personal development extracurricular activities for all ages! Dance is only one of the beautiful art forms in this world, we would like to provide growth for students in visual arts, singing, acting, modeling and more!
With this new location we are also able to offer a higher level of urban classes through our partnership with Vizions Dance! That mean even more diverse opportunities for dancers to flourish fully! We will be able to lower outgoing costs and will be cut down tuition by a huge percentage. This means that we will be able to provide all of these incredible benefits at a fraction of the current cost! Our tuition will become even more reasonable for the amount of high quality, unique dance opportunities will can provide!