Dance enthusiasts, please welcome Michelle Montanez Fox to the blog! She is the Area Director of the Northern New England region for Fred Astaire Dance Studios (FADS) and the owner of the first FADS dance studio in Maine. Michelle started her ballroom career as a professional dancer and teacher at a FADS studio in Massachusetts and gradually worked her way up to studio manager, studio owner, and finally director of an entire region. Her passion for dance is matched by her passion for teaching adults and providing a truly positive and fulfilling experience for both her students and the teachers who work for her. 

I first reached out to Michelle when a post about the new FADS studio in Portland appeared in my Instagram feed back in September 2023. Maine has never had a franchised ballroom dance studio, so I was surprised to learn that one had recently opened! Even more interesting, the studio opened in September. Much of Maine’s population exits south for the winter, and so opening a new business in the fall could present extra challenges than if you opened around May when part-time residents and summer tourists are returning in droves. With curiosity, surprise and excitement over seeing that familiar logo here in Maine, I had to learn more.

First Dance Steps

Michelle’s first introduction to dance was ballet. She remembers seeing The Nutcracker ballet on television when she was about 5 years old, and she was hooked. Looking back, she notes that it was one of the few things she was exposed to growing up in the early 80s where a female character was the lead, where feminine strength and beauty took center stage (pun intended) in a story. She began taking dance classes and by 12 years old, she was training in ballet for several hours a day, five days a week.

“My parents didn’t push me into it. They were supportive, which was great, but I was the one going ‘No, I cannot miss dance. This is what I need in life.’”

By the time Michelle reached high school, she was performing at the professional level. She continued her ballet pursuits into college, choosing a school that had a direct path to an apprenticeship at a ballet company. The college program was structured in a way that was very much like being in a ballet company, and the experience caused Michelle to pause and second guess whether she wanted to continue on this path. Ballet was near and dear to her heart, but she realized the realities of being in a ballet company were not what she wanted out of life.

As her ambitions moved away from joining a ballet company, Michelle explored the idea of teaching dance to adults as an alternative career path. A lot of her colleagues became teachers for ballet companies or started their own companies, but teaching kids just didn’t feel like the right fit for Michelle. She had the opportunity in college to study other dances besides ballet, including partner dances like ballroom. She loved learning about partnership in dance, beyond ballet’s classic pas de deux, and how it played a role in different dance styles. A love for partner dancing and teaching adults? I think we all see where this is going.

Entering the Ballroom

Her first teaching position was in a new FADS studio that had opened in Belmont, MA and it was there that she received the majority of her ballroom training. Having extensive training and experience in multiple styles of dance, Michelle easily added the concepts of ballroom to her repertoire. 

“It seems like that would be difficult but it isn’t because if you are a professional dancer, your body already knows all of the language that the dance requires…it’s really just learning a different dialect of the same language.”

I love the idea that learning different dances is like learning different dialects! It’s something I think we could all keep in mind as we go through our dance journeys and encounter different dance styles. Even switching styles within the ballroom world, like moving from Smooth to Latin, may feel like you’re almost starting over because the dances look so different. In reality, you’re bringing your experience and knowledge of how to balance and coordinate your movement, how to maintain proper posture, how to lead or follow your partner’s movement, etc., so you’ll end up progressing far faster as a dancer who transitioned into Latin than someone who never danced before and is learning Latin for the first time.

While many people teach ballroom dance on the side of another job, or they do it as a way to make some extra money while they’re in school finishing a degree in something else, Michelle was on a full-time professional career path in ballroom dance. 

“The way I was raised in the ballroom industry was to be a teacher whose career was going to be ballroom dancing.”

In addition to teaching, Michelle competed professionally in American Rhythm, becoming a six-time Open Rhythm champion for Fred Astaire New England. She also loved opportunities to compete with her students, calling them “the most fun way of working ever!” 

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I found it interesting when Michelle shared that she felt less pressure as a ballroom competitor compared to her experiences performing as a ballet dancer. There was less pressure for her performances to be 100% perfect every time and instead there was more chance for creative expression. There was room for each competitive performance to be a little different. Michelle continued to compete at a professional level until the Covid-19 pandemic hit in 2020. Competing professionally, and the training and practice that came with it, was a way for her to maintain a connection to dance on a personal level, even while her career grew in other directions.

The Business of Dance 

“I don’t think I ever thought of myself as someone who could be a business owner or a manager as a dancer because that wasn’t one of the skills that you work on.“

As Michelle grew her ballroom career, she added studio manager and then studio owner to her resume. She expressed gratitude to the studio owners who gave her her start as a professional ballroom dancer and teacher, sharing that they were always invested in her career and never expected her to remain just a teacher. They gave her the opportunity to manage, and they supported her when she was ready to open her own FADS studio with her husband. 

As she transitioned from dancer/teacher to studio manager/owner, Michelle shared that, among many exciting things like tracking KPIs, she had to learn how to be a leader, particularly in a workplace environment. Just like being an accomplished dancer doesn’t automatically make you a great dance teacher, being a great dancer teacher doesn’t automatically make you a great dance business owner. Michelle learned quickly though and her studios became very successful. Her success was recognized at the regional level, and Michelle started training FADS studio owners and teachers all over Connecticut and Massachusetts. 

Introducing Fred to Maine

In 2021, Michelle accepted the position of director of the newly formed Northern New England region, encompassing the states of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. These three states had exactly zero FADS studios at the time. She and her husband would be opening at least one studio themselves, but eventually they would need to recruit and train others who wanted to have their own FADS franchise. Even though they were entering a new region with a lot of unknowns, Michelle trusted in her abilities to train someone on how to be a successful dance teacher who can develop into a manager and then business owner. 

Portland, Maine was the chosen location for the first studio. Michelle didn’t have a strong sense of the ballroom or dance culture in Maine before arriving, but she knew it existed and trusted her experience in working in different demographics. 

“I trusted that where there are people, there will be people who want to learn to dance.“

The studio officially opened in September 2023. Michelle said that it’s been both an encouraging and challenging experience so far. She felt the support of the community; people were glad they were there. The existing dance businesses didn’t seem to feel like they were competition because it was clear that FADS was bringing a different product. 

The biggest challenge according to Michelle has just been getting the word out about who they are and what they do. In many areas of the country, Fred Astaire is a recognized brand. So when a new FADS studio opens, even if it’s the first for an area, people still know what the studio offers. That is not the case in Maine.

Before they opened, Michelle shared that a lot of people told her that a ballroom dance studio wouldn’t work in Maine. She was told that the economy wouldn’t support it, but she’s not convinced. While there may be areas of the state where there just isn’t a large enough population or the population is too seasonal for it to make sense to open up a dance studio, Portland certainly isn’t like that. 

“Anywhere you see an Orange Theory…yoga studios…wellness things like hypnotherapy or skin care. Anywhere people are doing something for themselves, they will want to dance. The economy is supporting it… If those other businesses can thrive, definitely a franchised dance studio can.“

Why FADS Portland is Different

One thing that was clear while talking with Michelle about her hopes and goals for the Portland studio is she deeply cares about the quality and value of the services she’s offering. We talked about the existing group dance classes that are currently offered in Maine by both amateur and professional dancers teaching on the side of another job or profession. These classes are only $10 or $15 for an hour or longer, which to me felt like a real deal coming from Southern California ballroom studios! The difference that Michelle sees in those classes versus what a franchised dance studio offers is in the experience, particularly for first time dancers. 

While you may pay a lot less for the class taught by the person teaching on the side, that class is only going to attract a specific set of students who like that person’s teaching style and are already at the skill level necessary to jump into the class and get value from it right away. Anyone else who stumbles into it likely won’t return. Michelle has learned that when an adult has a poor first experience in a dance class, they will walk away from dance assuming the problem was with them, that they must not be able to dance, as opposed to thinking that maybe that particular dance teacher just wasn’t the right fit for them. 

When Michelle trains dance teachers in the FADS system, she ensures that they are not only trained in the dances, they are trained in how to teach dance to adults. Learning to dance as an adult is very different from learning as a child, and you want a teacher who understands those differences. Like a personal trainer, a dance teacher needs to know how to customize their lessons to best meet the adult student’s needs and desires. That takes a whole different set of skills beyond knowing how to waltz or rumba. Michelle strives to bring that extra value to anyone learning to dance in her studios, so they can have the best experience possible regardless of what dance knowledge they bring with them.

“Hopefully people will start to change their minds that dancing isn’t only for those few people who have been doing it already because they could hang with the group classes and they weren’t intimidated by the scene.“

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If you’re in the area, be sure to check out the Portland Fred Astaire Dance Studio! Tell them the Girl with the Tree Tattoo sent you. 😉