In 2023 Nikky Saclamacis reached a bar many entrepreneurs can only dream of achieving. She marked 30 years in business.
The Dance PAC founder started out in the basement of her parents’ home. Today, the Dance PAC is a 6000 square foot studio in a prime location near the 401 and Winston Churchill Blvd in Mississauga.
In March of 2020, like many other entrepreneurs in the fitness, training, and performance industries, Saclamacis saw her business threatened by COVID-19 shutdowns and gathering size limitations. She kept the studio afloat with a mix of rapid digital transformation and her determination not to let the pandemic take the Dance PAC down.
“We probably invested $10,000 upgrading our monitors to make Zoom classes work,” she said in a recent telephone interview. “I also provided my instructors with tablets so they could work with the systems seamlessly when their own laptops or computers were just too old or not compatible with what we had to do.”
While the pivot to online classes helped Dance PAC students with their mental health and ability to socialize, the solution could not replicate in-person dance instruction.
“We had kids who were used to working in a huge studio space trying to do classes beside their beds because it was the only place they could dance on Zoom,” she said. “They tried so hard, we all tried so hard, but when our students came back after lock down we saw so many had lost strength and flexibility, or stamina and endurance. When we came back, one of the first things I did was create a conditioning class to help them recover and regain the losses they’d experienced.”
While returning dance students are regaining their physical conditions and skill losses, the business itself is still experiencing challenges, but Saclamacis has hope she is building more resilience into the business operations. Continued digital transformation is part of that resilience.
“We kept Zoom even though we aren’t using it to teach,” she said. “We are using it to conduct registration meetings and parent meetings so they don’t have to travel to talk.”
Saclamacis also participated in the Digital Main Street Mississauga program where she accessed a Digital Transformation Grant. The funds are helping her streamline the Dance PAC’s operations even further.
“I have a new computer!” she exclaimed! “I was also able to hire a company to upgrade our studio management software that I was scared to update for so long because newer versions wouldn’t work on my old computer. That alone has made my life so much easier. I’ve also learned more about marketing my business, especially using Instagram and other social media to reach more parents and bring in more students.”
As she moves forward, Saclamacis continues to draw inspiration from the Dance PAC’s origins in 1993.
“I was volunteering in a classroom for special needs students and giving lessons for free,” the studio director remembered. “These were kids who had ADD and ADHD who couldn’t sit still. Dance, being part of the group, and being able to perform gave them all an opportunity to be themselves and express themselves while being creative. It was the parents of those kids who asked me for a program to keep going through the summer. That’s how it all started with five kids in my parents’ basement.”
Those parents may have been the first to see the benefit of her instruction, but they were certainly not the last. By the end of 2019, Saclamacis and her faculty of dance instructors were working with over 400 young dancers in a variety of programs ranging from recreational dance classes that focus on building coordination and confidence, to training for acrobatic dance competitions. She had graduated students who went on to study in university dance programs and to become professional dancers with stage productions, cruise lines, and touring musicians.
In the future, Saclamacis is determined the Dance PAC will continue to play an important role in Mississauga’s dance culture. Across all kinds of programming and all levels of instruction, Saclamacis draws on the same energy she experienced in her first class thirty years ago.
“Dopamine is the happiness brain chemical and dance and other forms of exercise help to release it,” Saclamacis explained. “So, when I see being in a dance program make kids feel happy, and multiplying that happiness with being part of a team, and with having a place and a group where they feel they belong, that’s how I know teaching dance was and is still worth dedicating myself to. The joy on those children’s faces is what’s keeping me going!”
