Lack of Funding Causes Dance…Just Beautiful Dance Theater to Close

Dance…Just Beautiful (DJB) Dance Theater, which featured a child and adult dance company and offered adult dance classes, wellness classes and free dance classes to children, has closed due to a lack of community funding.

In an email to parents, friends and community members, Artistic Director Dennis James Breedlove wrote that DJB Dance Theater, located at 3686 Grand Avenue, would remain closed. Breedlove had been looking into other methods of funding or relocating but was unsuccessful.

“The company will not be re-opening its doors in Coconut Grove nor in the city of Miami,” Breedlove said.

DJB Dance Theater had established the Grand Avenue dance studio in collaboration with the City of Miami Police Department’s Miami Police Athletic League (PAL). The city manager, as a result of city-wide budget cuts, would not renew the lease on the property.

DJB Dance Theater will continue to offer workshops and performances in South Florida or at events out of state.

Recently, the dance company performed at the National Council for International Visitors Southern Regional Meeting held in Coconut Grove. DJB Dance Theater was invited by the meeting host the Miami Council for International Visitors, Inc. to perform a short poetic and dance piece.

Despite the closing of the dance studio, Breedlove will continue to teach dance classes for members of the YMCA of Greater Miami Allapattah Family Branch. He will also be teaching a 5-week non-credit contemporary dance class at the North Campus of Miami-Dade College starting July 10. The class costs $79 and will meet on Saturdays.

With the news of the closing, Breedlove also offered his thanks to all who supported DJB Dance Theater and looked back on the success he had during the past few years.

“I thank each of you for your support, time and joining me in my dream,” Breedlove said. “We have had a truly good season and run.”