Allana’s Academy Of Dance

My daughter has been dancing with Allana since 2009 and loves it — she now dances 5 days a week and I can’t pry her away. We came to Allana’s after trying various dance classes at 3 other studios in the Littleton area that were fine but nothing great. Since coming to AAD, she has tried every style of dance and has always been taught by skilled, kind, caring, wonderful, and diverse teachers, including Allana herself. The choreography is always amazing and I love seeing the end of the year recital where it all comes together. Allana sets up great public performance opportunities for all the kids, and she also runs a competition team where the focus is truly on building their skill level, team work, and the love of dance, and NOT about unhealthy competition or body image.
Reading through some of the negative reviews about AAD, I am really surprised. Yes some of the recitals have been long — that’s just the nature of kids dance programs. There are even facebook memes about it! The fees at AAD are very reasonable and in 6 years I have never had a single problem with billing or payments. I get several emails a month with updates, plus the studio has a facebook page, so I never feel like I don’t know what is going on, and if I have a question my emails and phone calls have always been answered promptly. So in summary, AAD is amazing and I can’t think of anything I would change.

First things first, WE LOVE ALLANA’S. My daughter has been taught by Allana, Cassandra, and two other teachers and we have NEVER had a negative experience– either with a class or with any other issue.
My daughter has been dancing at Allana’s for 2.5 years now– since she was 2 years old. She started out in the Twinkle Babies class with Allana herself, and took that class for two years. There are some people who were just born to work with children, and Allana is one of those people. She truly cares about every child that passes through her studio door, and my daughter ADORES her. Teaching 2 – 3 year olds is incredibly difficult, and yet Allana manages to a fun and nurturing environment in her classes. She has instilled a life long love of dance in my little girl, and for that I could not be more appreciative.
AAD is like a second family to us. Her parents Glyn and Cli, who help her run the studio, are like an extra set of grandparents to my little girl. They are always friendly and helpful. I know there are HUNDREDS of other dance families who would stand behind me and say the same thing.
Unfortunately when somebody has a negative experience they tend to flock to the internet in greater numbers than the people who have had positive experiences– even when the numbers of those who have had positive experiences FAR outweigh the number of those who have had negative experiences. AAD is a small business, and a small business is never going to manage to make every single person happy– especially when it comes to children. But you can rest assured that this is a good business run by exceptional people who have a true passion for dance, and for fostering the love of dance in children.
As for those who had issues with the recital– late June recitals are the name of the game in the dance world and sometimes they fall on Father’s Day when it’s the only date left available to the studio. I personally had not one but two friends with children in other dance schools have their recital on the exact same day. I just got an e-​mail that this years recital will be held on a Saturday, and will only be half as long as the one last year. The AAD works hard to make sure all their beautiful dancers are showcased and I absolutely appreciate that.
We’re excited for 2016 and many, many more years with AAD. I would absolutely recommend this studio to everyone.
EDIT: Since somebody decided to post a new review falsely claiming that I am Allana I thought I would let everyone know that I am NOT. My name is Lauren Blehm– you can easily find me on Facebook, and I will give you all of this same information, as well as share the many MANY pictures of my happy little dancer in Allana’s classes over the past 2 ½ years. To stoop so low as to make such accusations says much more about this personal poster (who has made an account just to post ANOTHER negative review) than it does about the wonderful business they are trying to defame.

This place is horrible! STAY AWAY! You know the saying, «burn me once, shame on you, burn me twice shame on me»? Awe man, we got burned by Allana over and over and over and I just kept grinning and bearing it and taking it for my daughter’s sake until we could be done with the recital and get the heck out of that place! Don’t let their «7 News A List» rating fool you. The customer service, communication, and business management for this place deserve no more than a big, fat F.
Here are all of the terrible things that happened over our year spent here:
Allana bought out Elite Dance Academy in early 2014. In June of 2014, she held «open houses» at each of the studios so students could acquaint themselves with each of the facilities. She offered balloon pops with coupons as an incentive to attend. We went to the open house (on Father’s Day Sunday no less) to the Littleton studio. It was dark and locked. I figured I went to the wrong place, so we drove over to the Highlands Ranch location. Again, dark and locked. The next day I asked the secretary if I was wrong about the date of the event. She sort of skirted my question initially, but it ended up coming out that Allana had poor turnout on Saturday, so she simply cancelled Sunday’s event WITHOUT NOTIFYING ANYONE! Not even a note on the locked door!
If the above weren’t bad enough, the next month’s parent newsletter encouraged people to use their balloon pop coupons. What?! So, I emailed Allana asking if my daughter could come pop a balloon since she didn’t get to at the open house. NO REPLY. I followed up with a phone call. NO REPLY.
We did a summer camp in 2014. Allana was my daughter’s teacher. Allana knew all of the girls attending the camp from previous classes except for my child. She walked in the door and we were standing right in plain sight in the lobby. Allana passed us by like a diva, greeted the other students she knew, and never introduced herself to my kid. I had to follow her down the hall and tap her on the shoulder to introduce them. I think it is awful for any teacher (dance or otherwise) to behave this way. It is not about her, it should be about the kids!
Despite these bad experiences we continued to attend in fall of 2014 for ONE single reason: both my daughter and I ADORED our regular ballet/​tap combo teacher and had very little regular interaction with Allana. We had a great experience that fall and my daughter learned a lot and was having fun.
However, that fall the secretary was often late to open the door for class and once winter hit it was no fun to stand in the cold waiting for her to arrive. This was addressed over time and did get better by early 2015.
In January 2015, another student joined my daughter’s ballet/​tap combo class. Her mother apparently requested that ballet be removed from the class, and so it suddenly was just taken out! Nothing was ever said to me, no phone call, nothing. Three weeks went by with no ballet and I finally asked the secretary what was up. She informed me Allana took the ballet component out of the class because that other mom wanted a tap-​only class. So, I called the instructor and she was wonderful about it and put the ballet portion back in. But then Allana never informed the other mom that it was changed back! Terrible communication! Finally, I spoke with Allana over the phone and she said she had sent an email to me about ballet being removed and that I must have never gotten it. I requested twice that she forward me the original email and both times she said she would and never did it. It is easy to say you sent an email and it never arrived. .. A couple of months later I mentioned to the secretary that I had had email issues with Allana because I had never received the email informing parents about ballet being removed from the class. The secretary [not knowing any better] bluntly stated, «Allana never sent an email about the changes to this class.» Yep. That’s what I thought.
At this point we were roped in on the recital. If we didn’t move forward, my daughter wouldn’t be able to participate here or anywhere else since it was too late to purchase a costume and enroll at another studio, so I just kept on grinning and bearing it. Here is the kicker: recital tickets were $ 25 a piece! They used
for sales so I was able to look at ticket prices from studios across the entire country to see what the average price points were. I could not find another studio nation-​wide that charged that much for a recital ticket. (Most were between $ 6-​$ 14). $ 25 is flat out extortion!
Lastly, although this did not happen to me personally, every other parent in my child’s class said their bills were messed up at some point and there were random charges on their account.
This place is so AWFUL! Stay as far away as you can unless you have a super high tolerance for disorganization, terrible communication and horrible business practices!

Allana is an exceptional dance teacher/​owner of this studio. I am so pleased to have found and become a part of this team. This dance studio offers a wide range of dance styles for young children up through adults. A wonderful studio atmosphere and passion for the performing arts.