Luminz Studio
Luminz Studio dance & performing arts center is a lively dance studio with a welcoming atmosphere offering dance and fitness classes taught by professional instructors in a wide variety of styles. Luminz Studio also offers master classes, dance for school groups, employee fitness programs, workshops and performance events. Luminz also serves as a rehearsal space and studio venue for many artists and dance companies.
The beautiful 52 x 20 studio space has high ceilings, tasteful lighting and is fully equipped with sprung floor, mirrors, sound system and basic theatrical lighting for classes, rehearsal and performances.
Founded in 2007 by dance maker Aurora Corsano, Luminz Studio is an inclusive community operating from love and commitment to dance. Something for every one who wants to move or be moved!
- dance & fitness classes
- guest teacher workshops
- performance events
- employee fitness classes
- in-school/after school/home school classes
- studio rental for rehearsal or performances
- private individual and group classes
mission
Luminz Studio’s mission is to foster the development of dance, the performing arts and choreography by offering classes, workshops and performances and by serving as a center for dancers within our community and beyond.
We facilitate the creative and technical development of students of all ages and skill levels ranging from first time dancers to professionals. We focus on dance as a performing art and provide ample opportunity for the creation and presentation of new dance work.
READ ABOUT LUMINZ IN THE VALLEY ADVOCATE: CLICK HERE
history
Written by John DiGeorge
Luminz Studio grew partly out of Luminzcircus, a multimedia art circus that Aurora started in 2003, which gave several performances a year until about 2006 or 2007. She collaborated primarily with puppeteer Jana Zeller to conceive the pieces, and recruited all sorts of artists from the area to participate (myself included). The shows were a fabulous mix of circus, dance, music & visual art and one of the most inspiring things happening in the area performance-wise at the time.
At the beginning of that period, Aurora was performing a lot of aerial dance, particularly on rope & harness. I think in 2004, she slipped and fell while mounting a trapeze and fractured her tailbone. For about a year she could barely dance at all she had to carry a little stuffed ‘donut’ to sit on (kind of looked like a toilet seat) everywhere she went. It was a deeply trying and emotional time for her, and transformative in terms of her approach to dance. She basically gave up the aerial work and began to explore a current of very grounded, personally delving modern dance that continues to the present.
Aurora was teaching modern dance classes out of the “stone church” on Main Street, Brattleboro for a couple years (I think those were my first dance classes ever), and organizing performances of her own and other people’s choreography. She had dreamed & talked about opening a dance studio and performance center for a while. I think she began to look at possible spaces and reckon with what it would take financially and otherwise to open a studio, when the stone church she had been working out of was struck by lightning and closed down!
Aurora didn’t have nearly enough money to open Luminz Studio, but she went ahead and committed to it, and all the things she needed started to constellate right away – friends loaned funds and equipment, a local business donated mirrors, lots of people put in time to help… For a couple years Aurora did nothing but push to furnish the studio with everything it needed, learn how to run the business, and promote to draw in new teachers and students. One of the most affirming and exciting things that started to happen almost immediately was that very high-caliber dancers, teachers and choreographers began to get drawn into the Luminz community. I think that it was obvious something special was forming, and many exceptional artists who encountered Luminz have chosen to become a part of it in some way. Today, if you read the resumes of the teachers and choreographers working out of Luminz, it’s amazing that such a diverse and accomplished group has intersected in this small rural locale. For some, it’s a big factor in choosing to live in the area, and the gravity of the place just seems to increase and increase.
Aurora has always stressed inclusiveness in all her ventures. She’s never fixated on one type of dance or one approach to dance-making, and has been open to trying and offering a wide range of dance at Luminz. She also makes a huge effort to create a welcoming and nurturing environment for students of every age, body type, fitness level and skill level. Another thing that’s really stressed at Luminz is dance-making, as opposed to just dance-training. Many students are quickly drawn into performing not just ‘student work’, but participating in the committed, original, personal art works of a growing contingent of skilled choreographers that orbit Luminz. For myself, as a beginning dance student nothing was more terrifying and exhilarating as getting up on stage for the first few times. As I’ve grown in skill I’ve been drawn into more and more dance collaborations, and out of these have come some of my proudest personal & artistic accomplishments.
Aurora had always been good at creating situations that facilitate not only her own artwork, but that of many other people. She’s very generous in this way and I’ve often see her sacrifice her own opportunity to create or perform in order to help others do this both students and other choreographers or artists. It’s been really inspiring to see her build Luminz up from nothing and turn it into a sustainable business, and a truly extraordinary dance school and art incubator.
