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Bustling halls of colleagues, committed to dance education just like you, new learning, and deals and more abounding…this is the Dance Teacher Web (DTW) Conference and Expo. What one can even feasibly experience over the weekend only scratches the surface of what’s available.
The 2025 conferenceto be held July 21-25, in Las Vegas, will provide what the event has provided for years, as well as many new and exciting offerings. World-wide community and attunement to the realities of 2025 – in both challenges and innovations – will be a guiding light through it all.
Dance Informa spoke with DTW Founders Steve Sirico and Angela D’Valda Sirico to learn more about it all. Let’s dance!
What’s consistent
As always, this year there are two main tracks of learning: business and pedagogy. Participants can mix and match learnings as suits their needs and interests. With seven sessions happening simultaneously at the conference, missing things is inevitable.
Dance Teacher Web Conference and Expo. Photo courtesy of Steve Sirico.
Thankfully participants can catch all conference programming through the DTW app, up to six months after the conference (and, fun fact, DTW was the first dance conference to launch an app). “At a certain point, attendees hit information overload, even if they’re loving it – and it’s helpful to review at a later point,” Sirico explains. They can also choose particular lectures or classes that are particularly pertinent to their current needs, questions, et cetera as educators and business owners.
As for pedagogy, the conference has always offered programming on both traditional and newer, up-and-coming styles – and that continues this year, notes D’Valda Sirico. World-class faculty will lead this programming. This year, attendees can train with Allison Burke, Courtney Ortiz, Faliceano Turk, Cara Dixon and far beyond. With respect to business, all registrants will receive a complimentary business audit resource – which studios can use to “fine-tune their marketing,” explains Sirico.
The conference’s Dance Teacher University program also continues this year – offering more specialized training (such as in particular styles), which registrants can combine with regular conference programming. It’s also a certificate program; registrants receive a Level 1 certification, which they can build to a Level 2 certification, virtually – on their own timing.
The conference will also hold a breakfast for first-time attendees. “First-timers,” especially those coming alone, can be a little nervous – and a chance to connect over breakfast can help make new friends, D’Valda Sirico believes. Many of those friends become life-long, she adds.
Weissman will be back with a costume fashion show this year, offering discounts of up to 30%. “It’s always a conference highlight,” Sirico says. Yet rather than paired with breakfast, their sequins and tulle will come with a cocktail happy hour, he notes. “We try to bring some humor, fun, and levity to it all as well,” D’Valda Sirico shares.
…and what’s brand new
This year’s conference theme is community, and there’s a cornucopia of fresh offerings aligning with that theme. Presentations on wellness – that of teachers, students and all involved in studio life – will address growing areas of focus such as dancer mental health.
New also this year is a pre-conference session, led by Terri Mangiarotti and called “Formulate, Facilitate, Evaluate.” The session focuses on a resource that all conference attendees will receive: a calendar pre-filled with important dates and processes throughout the dance studio year, such as deadlines for gathering costume measurements and recital music from faculty.
“It’s a blueprint that teachers can build on and edit,” Sirico notes – hence “evaluate” (studio owners can change things for the upcoming year if they notice something in the calendar didn’t work well for their studio, for instance).
DTW is also starting a podcast, and there will be live episode recordings at the conference, both with live audiences and in the on-site “Dance Teacher Web Studio.” These live recordings will focus on teachers reaching meaningful milestones and/or with particularly exciting things in the works. That can bring some great exposure, visibility, and multi-purpose content for those individuals, Sirico notes.
Dance Teacher Web Conference and Expo. Photo courtesy of Steve Sirico.
More generally, over time, the podcast will release two weekly episodes, providing informative conversations with all sorts of guests, from all over the industry. That will be costume company owners to registration software developers to curriculum experts…you name it, it’s possible, says Sirico.
DTW is adapting its offerings in these ways, as well as offering programming that’s attuned to the ways students are changing in this increasingly screen-based world, D’Valda Sirico underscores. The goal is to help teachers face the ways in which social problems impact the dance classroom.
Forward from here
Dance Informa spoke with Sirico and D’Valda Sirico soon after their staff’s annual team meeting. “We have a great team, always asking ‘what can we do better?’” Sirico says. “365 days a year, we’re focused on dance teacher development and dance studio business success…I think that’s helped propel us forward, that focus.”
D’Valda Sirico notes that “we have a true continuing education focus; all over the world, teachers can quickly and easily access 18 years of content, at any time…dance teacher life is not a 9-5!” At the end of the day, it’s really about the impact on students, she underscores. “That’s what’s really universal, and we do our best to broaden that impact.”
The 2025 Dance Teacher Web Conference and Expo will be held in Las Vegas, from July 21-25 and Dance Informa can’t wait to be a part of it. To register and for more information, visit www.danceteachersummerexpo.com.
By Kathryn Boland of Dance Informa.
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