We caught up with the brilliant and insightful DeAnna Lee a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

DeAnna, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

I was working for a local country radio station as an on air midday personality. They decided not to renew my contract. In tandem with this work, I also taught a weekly line dance class at a regional country bar. I had been teaching this weekly class as a live remote feature for the radio station for two years. I had amassed a large following of dedicated dancers who never missed a lesson with me. Also at the same time, I had created a line dance team for the radio station from these dancers. I was coaching them on my free time for the station. When the contract ended, so did my access to the team I had created. I was devastated, but I did not spend any time focused on what I had lost. I went into action of how I could build my own team removing the umbrella of the corporate world.

I sat down one day and started a brain storm diagram of words that I could use to name my new line dance team. Within minutes I came up with “Boot Boogie Babes”. The country bar where I had been teaching wanted me to continue to teach weekly despite the radio station urging them to not continue with me. The country bar was loyal to me as they understood the value of what I brought to them each week.

When I returned to the club that week, I gathered up my most loyal dancers and asked them if they’d like to be “Boot Boogie Babes”. Some of them were already on the radio station’s line dance team I had created, so they understood what I was trying to do. They didn’t hesitate and joined me and the Boot Boogie Babes.

I had been choreographing beginner and intermediate bar dances that were approachable and easy enough to digest in a bar setting with one lesson. With the newly formed Boot Boogie Babes, I put my choreography skills to the test by creating the first ever long form performance dance. I called it “Death By Dance”, and we danced it to Miranda Lambert’s “I Wanna Die”. I brought this dance to the first Boot Boogie Babes rehearsal, and the dancers fell in love.

I began to film everything we did and post it to my newly created social media pages for the Boot Boogie Babes. I was doing something that had never been done; choreography for a full length country line dance performance for women only. It was a hit with my team and also on social media. Everything we put out went immediately viral gathering tens of millions of views.

A competitor of the radio station that had not renewed my contract reached out to me and hired me for the same position as a midday host. They encouraged me to promote the Boot Boogie Babes through their social media and to talk about it on air. It was lightening in a bottle. I helped grow the radio stations social media pages garnering millions of millions of views for my line dance instructional videos and full length feature videos of the Boot Boogie Babes performing dances I had created.

I started beginner classes and created our mission statement: DeAnna Lee Dance provides a safe space for women of all ages, sizes, and backgrounds to grow through dance and friendships, and we believe most strongly that empowered women, empower women.

I created a Lead Dance Instructor Certification program where I trained my Boot Boogie Babes to become instructors. Then we would find locations through the Puget Sound area to launch Beginner Boot Camp line dance classes. Each time the classes would sell out. These classes would lead the women to want to audition for the Boot Boogie Babes.

Within a few years time, I had grown to 12 Boot Camp locations and four levels of performance teams from beginner, improver, intermediate, and my advanced team; the Boot Boogie Babes.

Funny enough, the station that had not renewed my contract wanted me back. I ended up back where it all began at the original station in Seattle where I had worked and used their social media platforms to further promote the Boot Boogie Babes brand.

During Covid, I spent the last eight months on air producing my show from home. On September 10th, 2020 they laid off over 500 broadcasters across the United States for financial reasons and I was one of them. I was never so happy in all of my life. I was finally free to focus 100% of my energy on the thing I loved most; empowering women through dance and friendships.

This freed up my time to expand into other states and travel to support our mission.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I started dancing as a child in my home state of Arkansas. I would teach the neighborhood kids how to break dance as we were all in love with Michael Jackson and his music. I was a cheerleader from 3rd grade all the way through my college years. I had my first formal dance training in college. After college, I moved to Houston, Texas and continued my formal training as a country and western partner-style dance instructor. I competed professionally in the United Country Western Dance Council (UCWDC) with a partner, and I also competed with Pro/ AM students.

I was trained by UCWDC Masters Larry and Laurie Sepulvado. It would use all of this training as I continued teaching professionally. After moving back to Arkansas, I taught swing dance classes and started my own dance company, “DeAnna Lee Dance”. The swing dance classes were always sold out and attracted generational students. I would have teenagers bringing their mom and dad to class, and then the grandparents would want to attend as well.

I started my first dance teams called the “Big Bad JittaCats” and the “Flyin’ Jivers”. We performed all over the Arklahoma area. At this time I was also working at a local country station in Ft. Smith, AR as a midday personality.

My classes grew and after a year I was teaching four nights a week for three hours a night and on Sundays.

My radio career took me to Biloxi, MS then to Birmingham, AL, Nashville, TN, and finally Seattle, WA. I always brought along my professional dance abilities with me, and in each location it was easy to find students who were eager to learn.

While in Birmingham, AL I decided to focus my full attention on teaching line dance. I loved the freedom of it. You could do all the moves on your own without having someone lead you. It was also easier to teach line dancing as you were not having to intervene between a couple who might squabble over who gets to lead and who has to follow.

Each radio station would pair me up with a local country bar, and I would teach weekly line dance classes. All of them were very successful and helped cement myself as a part of the community.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

My business was thriving, and 2020 was going to be our most successful year to date. Then Covid hit. All of the studios I was renting for my beginner Boot Camps and the studio where I was teaching my performance teams were emailing one by one that they were shutting their doors due to Covid restrictions.

I did not panic. My husband is a professional sound engineer, and we developed a virtual online system where I could continue teaching my classes from home. My students stayed with me as just like myself they needed that connection and accountability that dance was giving them.

I would have my performance teams film videos of themselves dancing what I had taught, and I would edit the videos together to put out on our social media platforms as one dance.

When Covid restrictions began to lift, we were grateful that a local church allowed us to use their parking lot to rehearse. We could be outside but six feet apart. I would use chalk to mark off the spaces where ladies would dance. Most all of my students would show up to these parking lot lessons.

Through Covid, I had gained the knowledge that all of my classes could be in person AND virtual. So if someone can not attend in person, they can watch online on a private page.

This led to developing virtual line dance instructional videos and ultimately a whole series that we could offer for students.

We use this model to this day. It was a beautiful gift that came out of what seemed like an upside down world.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

My organization focuses on women and providing them a safe space. For the women on our performance teams we have a strict contract they must sign that focuses on behavior. We have a zero tolerance policy for negative attitudes and gossip.

Even though some women come in with the best intentions, it doesn’t always work out that way. Some women by nature are not capable of living to their highest self and the ideals we set forth as an organization.

When this happens, we take time to listen to them and also share where we’d like to see improvement. We hope in these communications that women will understand what we are looking for and are able to adjust to fit our model of empowerment.

As a business owner, you never know which way this will go. If they are someone prone to gossip and negativity, it’s difficult for anyone to get them to see this error in ethics and morality. In the best cases, the women will apologize, change their behavior, move forward, and we never speak of it again. While others become defensive and either leave the organization or are dismissed. In these cases, it is all typically the same. The gossip and negativity gets worse, but now they are not in the organization and try to find ways to hurt the brand.

I have learned that truth is quiet and lies are loud. I do not feel the need to defend myself in these situations. The women with good moral character are able to discern what is the truth, and those are the women we want in the organization.

We continue to fiercely protect our safe space, and when we do so it shows the women who are in the organization that we stand by our mission statement. We will not allow anyone to disrupt it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://deannaleedance.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bootboogiebabes/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bootboogiebabe/
• Twitter: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deanna-lee-23772b22/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DeAnnaLeeDance
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@bootboogiebabes

Image Credits

Selah Kay Photography