Entrepreneur opens new dance studio in Endicott

ENDICOTT, N.Y. — With a desire to start her own business, Dhyani James considered a few options before deciding to open her own dance studio.

She thought maybe a food truck, before the thought came to her: “I don’t know why I don’t just teach dance,” she says. James took dance classes for years and also performed in color guard. It just made sense to go with what she knows.

Starting with offering classes once a week at the Broome County Dance Center, Dancing with D got its start last spring. 

“That’s where I started to gain a little bit of clientele,” James notes. Soon, she needed a space where she could offer classes more often.

James worked with the Noma Community Center in Binghamton, which offered space for her to use free of charge. However, as her clientele continued to grow, it was apparent she needed more time than the center could offer.

By summer, James began searching for a space to house her own studio. “We spent three months looking,” she says, before finding just the right space at 1301 Broad St. in Endicott. The location is appealing, close to a couple schools with a lot of foot traffic and visibility. The studio celebrated its grand opening on Jan. 14.

The space previously housed a hair salon, so some renovation work was in order. James and her family and friends completed all the work themselves, which included painting and installing flooring, mirrors, and ballet bars. James declined to disclose startup costs, but said a grant from the United Women in Faith of the United Methodist Church helped offset some of those costs.

Along with sprucing up the space, James also spent time taking classes with the SBB607 Business Accelerator Program at the Koffman Southern Tier Incubator at Binghamton University. The program, which supports Black-owned businesses and Black entrepreneurs, covers a range of topics including business models, organizing finances, branding/marketing, and networking tools.

“I know how to dance because I’m a dancer,” James says. The program taught her how to run a business, too. Prior to opening her own business, she worked full-time as a medical assistant for United Health Services, and she continues to work there part time.

One of her main priorities with her new dance studio is keeping dance affordable. Between the cost of classes, shoes, clothes, and even more costs if a dancer is competing, it gets expensive fast, so she tries to keep the cost of her classes as low as she can.

James is already offering more classes, holding two to three classes most nights. She’s also already started to see new faces in the studio. “My Tik Tok Tuesday (class), I would say 75 percent of them were new faces,” she notes.

As her studio continues to grow, James says she already sees the need for an even larger space down the road. Ideally, she’d like a space large enough to host several classes taught by different instructors.

James is currently the only instructor but hopes to work with some of her older students to help with younger classes. She’s also searching for an assistant to help with some back-end tasks such as running the studio’s social-media accounts.

The dance studio offers a range of classes for children starting at age 5 and for adults.