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With music thumping in the background, a two-and-a-half-year-old Amy Cave dances in the studio, practicing dance forms from tap to ballet. From that moment on, she grew to fall in love with dance and the many styles of it. Skip to now, Amy not only studied fine arts in school, but she has owned and taught at Amy’s Studio of Performing Arts since July 1, 2005.
Amy’s doctor recommended that her parents enroll her in dance to help her work through physical development in her hips and feet. When she was 10 years old, she switched to a different studio – which is now Amy’s Studio of Performing Arts.
“I loved [dance] – I love to move on bodily kinesthetic [intelligence], I found it was easier for me to learn things when I was in motion,” Amy said. “It's great for memory, patterns and tap, in particular, is great for math, because it's all rhythms and you're subdividing the beat. I noticed that dance was another way for me to learn other things – It was kind of a pathway for me.”
Amy trained primarily with dancer and instructor Jackie Troup Miller, who was discovered at the age of 13 by Bill Robinson (also known as Bojangles). And though Amy bought the studio from Miller in 2005, Miller still teaches for her every Tuesday.
“Tap has a really long history, it's an original American art form [and] I think all of that history is really special, because it's not like I'm reading it in a book or reading it online – I'm getting it firsthand from her,” Amy said. “Tap has evolved so much, and I love that we get to keep restyling tap over and over… that's probably what's kept me hooked all these years, it hasn't stayed just one way.”
Though Amy didn’t open her studio until 2005, she started learning how to teach dance in 1988 when she was 14 years old, as Miller was very big on “training teachers how to teach.” Amy said she knew early on that teaching dance was what she wanted to do, and she took over her first classes by herself when she was 17
“I really enjoy sharing something that I love and something that I'm passionate about with students,” Amy said. “I love seeing them get joy out of it. I love seeing them experience success when they learn skills that they can apply to other places… I think that's what I really enjoyed – the people more than anything else.”
Amy originally started going to Miller’s studio because she was also interested in pursuing musical theater, which was an uncommon class for dance studios to offer at the time. Since taking over the studio, Amy – who studied theater in college – added a full-on theater program, meaning the studio offers dance, theater and voice. Amy said she believed this would give kids more opportunities to “be their authentic self.”
Amy teaches both children and adults, with the youngest of her students being 3 years old and the oldest being 83. Kathy Higier, one of Amy’s adult students, started taking tap dancing with Amy in 2016.
“It's a family studio, [and] people really care about each other,” Higier said. “Amy has a remarkable ability to see the best in everyone and everything… She's just so reassuring and she says, ‘even professional performers are not perfect.’ She said that Jackie taught her that we tap because we can, and we tap to bring joy to others.”
Following in her footsteps, each of Amy’s three kids also pursued dance to some extent; Amy’s eldest son danced from ages 3-18, her other son is currently a BFA musical theater major at the University of Texas at Arlington and her daughter Caroline Cave currently teaches ballet and tap at Amy’s Studio of Performing Arts on Tuesday nights.
Caroline said that dance has helped bring her and Amy closer together, as it’s always been something the two could bond over. A specific thing the two enjoyed doing was watching other dancers together, such as on the reality TV show “So You Think You Can Dance.”
“It just brought us closer throughout life,” Caroline said. “That was just something that was so special, because my brothers didn't do that with my mom, and I didn't do that with my dad. It was something that she and I did together, because we just love having that passion of dance with each other.”
Amy said she enjoys how dance and theater allows for people to feel inspired, tell stories and get any angst and frustration out. Even while working with her students on their current play, “Seussical Junior,” she said she uses theater to teach her children about how their ideas matter.
“Part of what I love about ‘Seussical’... is that story of believing in yourself – It's okay to be different, your ideas matter, what you think is important, stand up for yourself,” Amy said. “I use theater to teach all those messages to the kids… I'm hoping to empower them to feel confident in their own voice, to stand up for what they believe in, to stand up for what's important to them, to tell their own story.”
