Our Vision

Our goal is to engage our students abundantly so that they fall in love with dance. We support an inclusive community where you can discover dance, or train and make it your life's path.

What Makes the Callanwolde School of Dance Unique?

Our beautiful surroundings provide safe harbor, fresh air and a sense of community for students of all ages.  While moving from one studio to another, there is an uncommon opportunity to commune with nature, have a snack by the fountain, pause in the gardens, and stroll with friends. Once in the studio there is an abundance of natural light. The mansion feels like a place our students can call home. 

Our students are taught by dance professionals, this means that their teachers are currently dancing professionally or creating professionally. How this fortifies students is quite significant.
Our philosophy is present in all that we seek to do from how inclusive we are to the curriculum we stand behind. From the very beginning, our students are encouraged to be creative, free thinkers who will grow into powerful, resilient and refined movers. 

The Emergence of Contemporary Ballet Technique at

Callanwolde

Dancers at Callanwolde benefit from a broad sensory approach to the underlying challenges of classical ballet. Our distinctive contemporary ballet method fulfills the rigor and standard of ballet while allowing for muscular and somatic exploration. With guidance, dancers enhance technique by applying abstract qualities to classical exercises, which are creatively patterned to support a deeper and experiential understanding of proper execution. By analyzing the physics of ballet, students feel and sense the ballet aesthetic in organic, healthy, and exploratory ways to acquire and build on skills that will feed into and help organize their approach to every other dance style.

Here, a path of inclusion replaces the traditionally upheld process of exclusion toward refinement. Rather than coaching execution based on what something should look like, we reinforce dynamic balance principles to achieve a whole-body system that synergistically supports finite movements or large physical concepts.

Dancers are encouraged to articulate and punctuate movements with greater precision, thoughtfulness, and artistry. The class strengthens technical integrity while respecting individual bodies and skill levels, and students are challenged and equipped to work with deepened intelligence. The experience is a ballet class full of variety and complexity, nurturing an increased command over physicality, overall engagement, and sensitivity. 

Students learn musicality on a highly sophisticated level with accompaniment by an eclectic playlist designed to mirror the attributes of physical intentions with tones for toning and sounds that shape. The music informs the muscles, and the muscles inform the mind. What surfaces are the embodiment of music, pure innate enjoyment, and comprehension that will assist a dynamic way of moving throughout a dancer's life.  



Callanwolde School Of Dance: An Integrated Approach

Callanwolde offers classes that aim to expose, explore, develop and train. Very early on, we build upon the ecstatic way that children already move. Later, we focus on preserving their joy, while pairing it with skills that could shape their life.
Expose Your Young Dancer
Explore and Enrich
Develop Your Dancer
This promotion based system signifies the beginning of a more prescribed path. Ballet classes are paired with Modern and Contemporary dance in order to inspire a robust physicality, and an ease in moving diversely. 
Classes that Compliment a Foundations Level Class
Expose Your Pre-Teen Dancer
Callanwolde School of Dance’s Training and Performing Companies
The Prime Mover Company was created to provide an in-town dance training and performance opportunity that followed trending artistic approaches to dance. Prime Movers receive training from high profile and influential dance artists who bring with them their seasoned teachings, innovative pedagogy and connections to other professional Atlanta based artists.  Given the unique setting of the Callanwolde campus, and all of its event programming, the Prime Movers benefit from numerous opportunities to perform. They have continued exposure to original ideas in the form of Holiday shows with an ongoing interplay between acting, singing and dancing. 
Due to COVID-19, not all classes listed above are available at this time. We look forward to being able to offer our full course load soon.