Rising Up: New mission, new studio for area dancers

Strut USA has long had a presence in the community — 32 years, to be exact. It was the celebration of owner Lynn Barron’s 60th birthday that sparked conversation with her son about rebranding the company.

“I really want to bring more of the arts into the studio,” she told him, desiring to include musical theater, piano and voice along with dance.

“Why don’t you do something new and exciting?” he responded.

The result is a place of multi-faceted talents with a focus on giving back and rising above the status quo.

Rising up is the essence of the newly rebranded Strut USA, now called Relevé. It’s all in the name.

“Relevé is French for rising up,” Barron said. “We went through probably a thousand words looking for a title, but when I saw relevé, I immediately knew it was what I wanted to call it. I like to feel my studio is rising up. We teach our students more than dance, we’re involved in the community.”

It was through former Strut USA student, and now trained ballet teacher, April Sexton that Relevé received its expanded offering of arts, plus a little more. When Sexton told Barron about an organization she had been working with in Gulf Shores, Barron set her sights on the new studio’s philanthropy.

Project Grace, a product of its founder’s traveling to Haiti in 2010 with Soles4Soles after the large earthquakes, brings dance to the nation’s children. Relevé quickly partnered with the organization to teach dance, yoga and Pilates to residents of a Haitian orphanage in Port au Prince, as well as the village of Montrois.

“We’ve worked really hard to get it where it is,” Sexton said of Project Grace. “It took a long time to understand why they need ballet. You want to see kids do something happy and fun.”

Sexton also spoke of yoga’s impact on the children, both physically and emotionally.

“The yoga keeps them calm,” she said. “I wasn’t a big yoga person until I saw these kids crying because they were so relaxed.”

Project Grace students also receive dance costumes and supplies through Traveling Tutus, an organization for which Relevé is an international ambassador. Through and through, Project Grace and Relevé partner to ensure every detail of the organization is covered so the children can have something to look forward to without worry.

“It’s a very well-rounded situation,” Sexton said.

Sexton and Barron ensure the philanthropy is year-round, selling wooden bracelets at the studio, connecting sponsors to Project Grace and receiving other donations throughout the year to fuel the classes in Haiti. The women make sure to share often with their Relevé students the struggles of people in other areas of the globe and to always be grateful. Their students are listening.

Sexton recounted instances of students writing letters, drawing pictures and staying in touch with children they have never met personally. Older Haitian children who can read and write English will read letters to the others to share encouragement from Relevé students.

“It’s very rewarding,” she said. “This is something that will continue beyond us in these younger generations.”

As the students have been packing boxes to send with the group traveling to Haiti, Relevé’s new studio in Attalla has been under renovation and preparation for move in. First Church of Nazarene in Rainbow City offered its location for the students’ classes and box packing, as well as donating food and supplies to send to Haiti. Dance teachers, donors and sponsors around the nation and world have also been preparing to send supplies and themselves to assist Project Grace.

“It takes more than a village, I’ll tell you that,” Sexton said.

The team travels to Haiti not simply to teach dance classes, but also to ensure the supplies reach their desired destination. A large population of pirates around the Haitian coast means almost nothing shipped into the country lands where it was initially sent.

All in all, Sexton and Barron said there is no doubt Project Grace and Relevé are a perfect pair. A mutually encouraging partnership, both women are certain they and their students are just as blessed by Project Grace and Relevé as the Haitian children they serve.