By Heather Posey, Staff Writer
After 30 years of owning the Los Altos Dance Center in Long Beach, Marilyn Manley has tapped and twirled into the lives of hundreds of little girls eager to point their toes, and for at least one hour, be a prima ballerina. But as the second owner of the self-proclaimed “neighborhood dance studio,” she remembers back when she was one of them.
Manley didn’t know it back in 1959, but the 7-year-old student would one day become the teacher. A job that she says “just fell into her lap.”
“My grandmother got me involved because I was dancing around the house, so she got me into the studio,” said Manley.
And since then, she has been hooked.
“I just loved to dance. I taught my dolls to dance, I was a teacher from the beginning,” she said.
Then Manley went from teaching her dolls to teaching her younger students when she began teaching at age 19. Then in college she moved from studying to be a school teacher to becoming a dance major. A few years later, previous owner Kay Bartlett would give Manley an offer she almost refused.
“I was married almost a year when she asked my husband Brian and I if we wanted to buy it,” she said. “I had just gotten pregnant and I was unsure but my husband [immediately] said ‘Oh, yes. We want a business.'”
Her husband, Brian Manley, soon became her business partner and though it hasn’t been the same ever since, if you ask them, it’s been better.
“Brian does all the phone calls. He does all the business and I do the artistic [side] and set up the classes and see how the teachers are with the students,” said Manley.
And also by acquiring a second dance space, Manley has turned the studio formerly known as Suzy’s School of Dance into the Los Altos Dance Center, a business that thrives from not only word of mouth but by the children of former students.
“Some of the mothers who used to come when they were younger will bring their girls,” said Manley. “We get a lot of that.”
With afternoon classes in ballet, hip-hop and jazz, students from pre-school up to adults can learn techniques and styles that Manley claims will not only give them grace, but a nice self-esteem boost as well.
“You gain so much confidence from it as well,” she said. “I really try to bring up their ego and it’s such a good creative outlet.”
Dancers also learn teamwork as helpers for the younger-aged classes and by assisting in their annual recital in June, a task which in addition to their dance level, may very well get them a job as teachers.
“It’s nice to use teachers you’ve trained and that know how we do the whole year and how we relate to the children,” said Manley. “It’s more cohesive and we all agree with what we want to do.”
As for the future of Manley and Los Altos Dance Center, she claims she will most likely do what was done to her and hand it down to one of her teachers…her daughter Marissa.
Los Altos Dance Center is open Monday through Thursday from 4:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. Classes are priced at $44 a month and $74 a month for two classes. For more information, call (562) 429-7486.
