Northville Business Spotlight on Piazza Dance Co.

There are many interesting businesses that call Northville home, from clothing retailers to restaurants to salons and even businesses you might not have known existed in your own backyard.

Each Thursday, we'll feature a new Northville business to learn more about its roots and more.

This week, we feature the It was co-founded by Gina Piazza, who tells us more about her business below.

Q: When were you founded?

The Piazza Dance Company was founded in the spring of 1981 by 3 sisters;  Marilynn, Denise, and Gina Piazza. 

Q: How did your business come to be?

We three sisters were teaching dance at schools in West Bloomfield and Birmingham and decided to pool our talents and resources to form our own school.  We opened at the Highland Lakes strip mall 31 years ago.  Seven years later we moved to the Northville Plaza where we expanded, and then, after seven more years, moved to our present location in the Northville Plaza (between Patio Plus Furniture and Knightsbridge Antique Mall) where we were able to expand a third time.  

Q: Why did you choose Northville?

We chose Northville because it was a growing, family-oriented area.  We're a family-owned, family-run business serving Northville families and surrounding areas.  Also, at the time, there were no other dance schools nearby, and our service filled a void.

Q: What kinds of services do you offer?

The Piazza Dance Company offers quality, caring dance instruction for all skill and age levels beginning at age 3.  We have a staff of 14 excellent, highly proficient teachers who teach performance dance: ballet, tap, jazz, hip hop, musical theater, pre-school and kinder dance, acrobatics, modern/contemporary, and lyrical.  We also have Parent/Child dance classes for children as young as 18 months old as well as adult classes.  This year we added a dance class for children with special needs. We offer dance for students with varying interest levels, from the recreational, once per week student, wanting a fun activity, to the intensive dancer aspiring to someday dance professionally.

Q: What's a fact about your business that most customers probably don't know?

A fact about our business which most people don't know is that our recreational program outnumbers our intensive/competitive program by a margin of 5 to 1.  We offer a year's free tuition scholarship to our recreational dancers to honor the memory of Sarah Girard, our little student who succumbed to cancer in 2010.  Most people probably don't know that we are the original Northville school of dance, unlike other Northville studios which started in other communities and moved here later.

Q: What do you want your business to be best known for?

We are most proud of our faculty and office staff.  We have top notch teachers, who love their students and are passionate about the art of dance.  Because our teachers truly love their students, the students know it and greatly strive in their weekly class work.  We are also proud that our teachers are specialists, each in their own area.  For example, our pre-school/kinder teachers teach only the age 8 and under set.  This is their specialty.  They are capable of teaching all age groups, but prefer to focus on this young group.  Our office staff, under the direction of manager Jackie Neuhaus is helpful, efficient, and an incredible support to our families and to our teaching staff.  Also, our intensive, competitive team is highly accomplished.  Miss Dance of Michigan, 2010, Briana Bock, graduated from Piazza Dance Company. We are truly a family at Piazza Dance Company.

Q: What's your most popular product or service?

We hope people know that our strength and our focus is our families, and that Piazza Dance Company is a fun place where a child, and indeed the entire family, can come to share time with friends, to move their bodies and burn energy, to feel a sense of accomplishment, while learning a respected art form, and develop a growing love for the art of dance. We proudly welcome the public to come and see the talent produced and developed at our school. Our year-end performances are at Northville High School, June 20, 21, 22, and 23. Show time is 7 p.m.

Interested in being featured in our Northville Business Spotlight? Email nancy.kelsey@patch.com for more details.