Not your average studio: by offering unusual services, dance studios can move to the head of the class.

Ballet students practice pointe while company dancers get relief after a big performance from an in-house massage therapist. Both happen at SOLAD (Spirit of Light and Dance) Dance Center in Walnut Creek, CA, which offers opportunities and amenities beyond the average barre-and-ballet operation.

Expanding your studio's offerings can draw in students looking for something out of the ordinary, and improve your bottom line. Everything from costuming Mardi Gras balls to aiding the less fortunate can be effective, as these studios have discovered.

HELPING OUT

After Miller Street Dance Academy student Troy Haywood told owner Michelle Rogers that his family had adopted a child from a Liberian orphanage, she wanted to help other less-fortunate children. So she enlisted the students of her Charlotte, NC, studio to sell pink wristbands to raise money for the orphanage. Rogers says since many students are too busy at dance class to volunteer, bringing the opportunity to Miller Street has made it possible for them to get involved.

"When I got that going I just really saw things changing," Rogers says. "Children would be saving money for a bicycle and then they'd donate every dollar to the orphanage."

Rogers continues to organize more fundraisers for the studio--a charity cookbook, penny wars, and countless donation drives. She rewards students with membership in the "Service Society" once they earn 150 service points. Like the honor roll of their schools, students are recognized by receiving a plaque at the studio's banquet. The dancer who earns the most points receives a large stuffed frog (the studio's mascot).

The good deeds have garnered national recognition for the families involved when O Magazine ran a feature last December. Over the two years she has done these programs, Rogers says it has helped increase her enrollment. Moreover, philanthropy has changed the attitude of her whole operation.

"Your children are nicer, and it attracts the kind of people you want to have in your studio," she says.

ACTING OUT

Look Sharp Performing Arts Center in Ramsey, NJ, draws in would-be performers by offering more than just fancy footwork. This summer, director Colleen Cross and artistic director Rosanne Renda are making tween dreams come true by letting their dance and theater students star in their own version of the Disney Channel blockbuster High School Musical. After the school's regular spring recital, Cross will hold auditions. The production will run as a camp, with a separate participation fee covering rehearsals and performance costs.

Cross says Look Sharp students who come for the theater productions often end up enrolling in the fall in a "movement for actors" class, and then a dance class. The studio pulls in older students as well--offering stretching and dance-as-exercise classes as well as professional level classes for dance teachers in the area. With the myriad levels and subjects available, Cross often has an entire family involved, with mothers taking adult classes while their kids are in beginner ones.

RELIEVING TENSION

SOLAD offers more advanced students the chance to dance in one of its two student companies or its affiliated professional company. When the arduous schedule takes a toll on their bodies, the in-house massage therapist can help.

Though dancers receive a discount, Rhianna Ray, the studio's operations manager, says the massages are something reserved for the tensest of times. "It's hard for dancers to afford massage, because they don't make a beck of a lot of money," Ray says. "But it's definitely useful to have him around when we have shows and dancers are stressing their bodies."

But the massages do more than just give the dancers some quick relaxation therapy. By showing that SOLAD invests in their well-being, it sends a message to students that the studio is about more than just the bottom line. Dancers like coming to a place where their bodies count as much as their technique.

DRESSING UP

When Jerisse Bolton-Grantham's mother expanded Jeffie Jean Studio in Baton Rouge, LA, to include a costume shop 20 years ago, the decision seemed logical. The studio not only outfitted her own dancers, but the dancers of neighboring studios as well and ran a costume rental business on the side.

"It goes along with the dancing," Bolton-Grantham says.

"If you have a concept of the number you want to stage, then you see the costume with it."

While Bolton-Grantham has scaled back her business a bit in recent years, she still outfits her studio's numbers and those of friends. She says busy parents appreciate the attention to detail. "We're the only studio where the parents pick up their costumes and everything's done for them--and we go all out." Bolton-Grantham also provides costumes and choreography for Mardi Gras, outfitting the city's Krewe of Romany each carnival season. "It's just the thing to do in Louisiana," she says.

Kim Moreau is a research assistant for Macfadden Performing Arts Media and a New York writer.