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New Canaan Dance Academy Wins Super Nova Group Routine Award

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The New Canaan Dance Academy last month participated in the Heat Convention Dance Nationals in Orlando, and took home the most prestigious group dance award. The company director and choreographer of the award-winning group dance “The Artist,” Sheena DiMatteo, described a “dream-like” feeling watching her dancers perform on the biggest of stages. “I felt an immense amount of pride watching the girls dance,” DiMatteo said. “Especially for them to perform so well in Florida, where everything is so heightened, it was a magical feeling. Seeing all of the hard work unfold onstage was euphoric.”

The competition took place from July 6 to 11 and featured dance studios from across the country.

Around Town

‘A Safe Place Where They Feel Supported’: New Canaan Dance Academy Preps for Nationals

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Achieving success in the competitive dance world is not easy. 

It takes years of relentless hard work and dedication; it takes 20-hour weeks of blood, sweat, and tears. Now, that might not sound enjoyable; when the end result of that work is dancing on stages at the highest levels in the nation, however, it may be worth it. “The New Canaan Dance Academy was always my second home and the people there were my second family,” NCHS senior Sasha Kotlyar, who started dancing at age three, said. “Being a part of the program was so special and is something I will never forget.”

Founded in 2001 by Elaine Young, the New Canaan Dance Academy (NCDA) has experienced significant growth in recent years and is preparing now to send its competitive program, known as the “company team,” to Dance Nationals on July 5. This will be NCDA’s second time sending their entire competitive program, consisting of about 75 girls, to Nationals, which will take place in Orlando.

Around Town

Quiet Heroes of New Canaan: Scarlett MacAllister

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Though New Canaan’s Scarlett MacAllister, 13, was just three weeks old when she was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis—a rare, genetic, life-threatening disease that makes it difficult to breathe—the condition has never defined her, according to those who know her best. Instead, said Sheena DiMatteo, head coach of MacAllister’s company team at New Canaan Dance Academy, the teen not only shines as a highly gifted dancer but also as a support to those around her, exuding qualities of ambition, leadership and generosity. “I feel Scarlett really is a well-rounded person in that she is very ambitious and she does have individual goals that she works very hard to achieve,” DiMatteo told NewCanaanite.com by way of nominating MacAllister for the “Quiet Heroes” series. “But in the same breath, she is the number one supporter of all the dancers around her. She will be the first one to show up at a competition early to make sure that she supports her teammates and doesn’t miss their performance and helps kids go on stage that have never even competed before.”

Those who know MacAllister from the Forest Street studio are “inspired by her talent, dedication, abilities and team spirit,” DiMatteo said.

Business

Podcast: Elaine Young of the New Canaan Dance Academy

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This week on 0684-Radi0, our free podcast (subscribe here in the iTunes Store), we talk to Elaine Young, owner and director of the New Canaan Dance Academy. Like other local businesses, the Forest Street dance academy has had to adjust during the COVID-19 pandemic—changing the way it offers lessons, attends competitions and puts on performances. Keep an eye on this area of the NCDA website for news about its June performances, to be held on the campus of the New Canaan Museum and Historical Society. Here are recent episodes of 0684-Radi0:

Around Town

‘We Would Have To Move Our Business’: Local Business Owners on the Prospect of Reduced Rail Service to New Canaan

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Delivered with a thud last month and underscored by state transportation officials during a recent forum in town, proposed severe cuts in train service on the New Canaan branch line has prompted residents to decry the effect it would have on property values and the ability of visitors—for example, those traveling up from New York City to see the Philip Johnson Glass House—to get here. Less obvious though no less important is the effect that proposed elimination of weekend service as well as off-peak weekday service to New Canaan would have on local businesses, merchants and service providers say, largely because those who work here rely on the train. Steve Karl, vice president at Karl Chevrolet, said that as a business owner in New Canaan, “the news of limiting the train service to our community is the last thing we want to hear.”

“By cutting back the off-peak service and the complete elimination of weekend service it affects our business in a number of ways,” Karl told NewCanaanite.com. “First of all, the employees who use the train to commute will be affected and these are some of our hardest working employees who rely on the train every day. Secondly, due to the proximity of the train station to our store, we frequently sell vehicles to clients who travel by rail to pick them up at our location.