We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Whitney Teyf. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Whitney below.

Whitney, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?
Expressions In Motion Dance came to life in 2006 when I saw there was a need for convenient dance education for children as an after-school onsite program. I was the full-time dance teacher at an Elementary School when a parent asked me if I could hold classes for her children at the school but after school hours. We decided to see if there was interest from any other families for this sort of thing so I created a flyer and handed it out. the day after I handed out these flyers I had a stack of registration forms and that is when I quickly knew that there was a need for this program. Parents want their children to participate in a fun and healthy activity after school and this program created a convenient opportunity for parents and their kids.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I am originally from Northern Virginia, and have been pursuing my passion for dance since the age of three. I have extensive experience in teaching, choreographing, and performance. I received my BFA in Dance Education from East Carolina University in 2006. During my time at ECU I was a member of the Pure Gold Dance Team and the ECU Jazz Performing Group. I was both a principle dancer in the outdoor drama Horn in the West and choreographer / performer at the Powderhorn Black Box Theatre in Boone, NC. I was a company member with Atlanta Dance Project. I have performed at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., with Atlanta Ballet’s Fusion Project,and most recently with Atlanta Dance Project at the Alliance Theatre. I founded the dance program at Vanderlyn Elementary in 2006 and taught dance there full time for eight years. While at Vanderlyn I created Expressions In Motion Dance and am now full time with my own business. Expressions In Motion Dance was created to offer students an opportunity to explore mutiple dance styles in a convenient way. EIM Dance provides dance classes after school at Elementary Schools, preschools, and daycare centers. EIM Dance also has two studio locations in Tucker and Dunwoody. Recently EIM Dance has started offering “dance at home” classes where we send our instructors to dancer’s homes to offer classes for children and their neighborghood friends. What sets EIM apart from others is that we are providing high quality dance education in alternative settings so all children have an opportunity to learn to love to move. We are proud that we were able to quickly pivot during the pandemic to continue to provide dance classes for our students by offering at-home classes and virtual classes.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
The pandemic has been my biggest opportunity to experience a quick pivot in my business. When the pandemic begin, we had to immediately turn all of our classes into virtual classes. We are lucky that we have such an amazing team of talented teachers to help do this. We were able to keep our dancers dancing and our teachers teaching through this new format. This task was not easy but we did it and it was successful. We also pivoted to create “dance at home” classes which have become a new type of class that we plan to offer for the long run!

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?
Over time we have worked hard to build our audience on all social media platforms but mostly Facebook and Instagram. We created themes for each day and make sure that we are constantly and consistently posting pictures and videos for our customers and future customers to see all the wonderful things our program is doing and has to offer. This past year we hired a marketing company to help us with social media advertising which has been a game-changer for our company. My advice to businesses who want to have a big social media following is to post consistently and to either hire a company to help with marketing or take classes to learn how to do it yourself.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.eimdance.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/eimdance
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Expressions-In-Motion-Dance-152990494756486
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/whitney-teyf-6a877935
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/eimdance