We recently connected with Holly Brown and have shared our conversation below.

Holly, appreciate you joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?

From a very young age I knew I wanted to be a dancer when I grew up. The movie, “Flash Dance,” came on one afternoon after school. From that moment, I knew I wanted to be a dancer. I begged for dance classes for years. Finally, my family moved to an area of Middle Tennessee where there was a dance instructor after school.

I spent the remainder of my childhood taking classes at various studios around Middle Tennessee. However. it never seemed that studios stuck around in rural communities for long despite the limited arts funding for the public schools in the area.. I began student teaching as a teenager and continued my dance education through the Nashville Ballet and college. As a young adult, I taught at several different studios in the Middle Tennessee and dreamed of one day running my own.

After resigning from a director position with a performing arts academy I decided to take the leap (pun intended) and begin doing the research and paperwork to open my own studio. I decided on a nonprofit organization that would eventually encompass all branches of the arts; dance, visual arts, music, and theatre. Having seen so many studios come and go in my rural hometown, I wanted to offer affordable arts education to that community specifically. The Arts Alliance was born in 2018,

Holly, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

The Arts Alliance is going into our fifth season, serving almost one hundred students in the Cheatham County and surrounding areas as well as offering an after school program for students at Pleasant View Christian School. Our tuition is a sliding fee scale based on the Federal Poverty Income Level to make classes affordable for families with multiple students. We have two students with private sponsors.

The Arts Alliance is the only arts education organization within a 10-15 mile radius that offers classes for all ages beginning at age 4. We have two recitals per year for our dancers and two Gallery Nights per year for our Visual Arts Students. We also have a competitive dance team that allows dancers the ability to experience dance within the competition world.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

The mission of The Arts Alliance is to offer quality, affordable arts education to any one who seeks it regardless of age, ability, financial status, or gender identity.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding aspect of being a creative, or an instructor in general, is being able to share my love of the arts with people of all ages through teaching classes. There is nothing like seeing the light come on for a student who has been struggling to understand a concept or a dancer who finally achieves a skill they’ve been working so hard to execute!

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @the_artsalliance
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheArtsAlliance17/
• Other: TheArtsAlliance.org