By Kenli Schoolland | Where Can I Dance

This afternoon we drove for over an hour into the hills of Medellín, Colombia, to visit one of the oldest dance academies in the city, El Balcón de los Artistas.

Next to a shop selling Colombian pasteles de pollo and buñuelos sat two young kids in a stairwell. Our friend, Waldy, greeted them by name and led us up the stairs to the academy.

It was a simple place, with three separate rooms with normal tiled floors not suited for dancing, but it was bustling with dancers all the same.

A couple dozen students were already there in their uniforms, which consisted of a black dance shirt and unitard. Some were chatting and some were practicing individually in the separate rooms.

Two walls of the waiting room were lined with trophy after trophy. I instantly recognized about seven from the World Latin Dance Cup and saw others from competitions across Colombia as well as Ecuador and other neighboring countries. 

The founder and principal instructor at the academy, Señora Marita, a serious but kind woman, came to greet us. After she’d begun her students' practice, she sat down with us for an interview. 

Twenty-five years ago, Marita started the academy as a means of giving the young kids in the neighborhood a safe place to go in the afternoons. 

Medellín, once the home of Pablo Escobar, has a strong reputation for drugs. Thus, she felt that providing these kids with a strong community and good influences was crucial to helping them stay out of trouble.

In the academy, there are kids from ages 3 to 22 — some having been there for over 15 years! Every day, they come to here to practice from 6-10 PM. 

Marita’s impact on the community is by no means trivial. There are currently over 450 students enrolled in the academy, and every single one that we met was happy, healthy, and friendly. We even met one student with Down syndrome, who was an absolute star.

Already we were beyond impressed… but then they danced!

We entered the team practice and asked the kids if we could film an improvised dance. There were about 30 of them, and we asked them to pick a song and then take turns performing. 

As soon as the music began, the whole team was clapping and cheering each other on. 

Each dancer came out with complete confidence, rapid-fire dance steps, and impressive flips and tricks. This was clearly an incubator for future champions. 

It was hard to film properly because I just wanted to watch them… I wished the song would never end!

This was only topped when we went next door to their other dance hall to find another classroom filled with little ones — all with perfect hand positions and postures, in their little black uniforms. 

We thought these kids were absolutely adorable — until they performed one of their choreographies for us, and we then realized that these kids are actually beasts!

They were only 6-10 years old but were already doing flips and tricks that most would never even dare to try. 

After one of the littlest couples fumbled on a trick, they went off to the side to practice it together, all of their own initiative. And the second time around they executed it perfectly.

They, too, happily did an improvised dance for us. And it was amazing to see how the kids followed the different rhythms flawlessly and improvised without hesitation. They are clearly learning much more than choreographies at El Balcón de los Artistas.