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

Nola, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Did you always know you wanted to pursue a creative or artistic career? When did you first know?

I knew I wanted to pursue my love for dance at a very young age. I began dancing at the age of 2 years old and began to compete and take it pretty seriously by the age of 5. I loved to perform and entertain. I can’t think of a time where I didn’t say when, I grow up I am going to be a dancer, choreographer, and a studio owner. I turned out to do all those things on my Journey and will continue to the day that my body and or mind says you need to retire.

Nola, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I decided to open my own dance studio because I felt there was a need for a studio in my area that focused on giving all of their dancers more opportunities to perform. The more a dancer is able to perform and put their work out there the more they will learn and grow. We wanted to focus on providing both non-competitive dancers and competitive dancers many performance opportunities.

Most studios do maybe 2 shows / performance opportunities a year for their non-competitive teams. That is simply not enough for a dancer to grow confidence in the performance aspect of what they are learning. Dance is a performance art that requires a lot of precision, team work, and athletic ability. Soccer programs no matter the skill level recreational or competitive, they are all playing a game almost every weekend.

What we do at FMDA is take all dancers on a clear path of personalized dance development, so they can meet their goals no matter when they start dancing. We have created a syllabus that focuses on proper skill development and artistic development, In Ballet, Tap, Jazz, Modern, Hip Hop, Acro, and Silks, Further we have even created our own APP where we track skill progress and house resources like skill tutorials videos for more at home practice. Of course we give these resources free to our customers because we are committed to giving our customers more.

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

Our Mission at Fluid Motion Dance Academy is to provide the highest quality training while giving our customers more and keeping things economical. This became our mission because there were a handful of years I had to take off dance as a kid due to finances. It was so hard for my parents to do and it was hard to not have that outlet. I still danced of course even though I was not in formal class, I spent a lot of my free time making up my own dances in my room and giving myself full classes at home with use of the edge of my bed as my ballet Barre. When my parents could put me back in, It was something I never took for granted. I think its why I am so committed because I did experience what it was like to not have formal dance class, while realizing the joy of dancing anywhere.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Our Journey has been full of surprises, when we first opened it was January 2020, I turned our basement in my home into a two room studio, it was a new year, new goals and was ready to dive in (while still working a corporate job that traveled) then we were shut down. with Covid-19. .One can imagine with knowing the stats of small businesses surviving the first five years, this was looking pretty challenging right out the gate. It was devastating in a way too because with starting with just 3 classes offered I had 35 students join. and from there we just kept doubling. 4 years today we have over 200 students, and a 4 room studio facility and are no longer in my basement, however we did find space right outside my neighborhood (by a target) and due to the pandemic and the negotiating skills learning in my corporate sales job we locked in one deal of a lease agreement and plan to buy a facilities/build once the lease is up in a few short years.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://fluidmotiondanceacademy.com/
• Instagram: @missnolabeth
• Facebook: @fluidmotiondanceacademy
• Youtube: @fluidmotiondanceacademy

Image Credits
Elm Solutions