EDGEWOOD, Ky. — There's a saying that goes, "Dance is the hidden language of the soul."
Those words are true for 15-year-old Liam Martin, a freshman a Dixie Heights High School in Edgewood. When he's not dedicating time to his academic studies, he joins 16 other students a mile away at Strive Dance Collective to fuel his extracurricular passions, one step at a time.
"I just always like to make sounds ... it really makes me so happy just trying to dance to the song that I'm listening to, or like my favorite song, and just make the sounds. It's just my favorite," Martin said.
Martin's favorite dance style is tap, though he dabbles in others. He loves it so much he owns 10 pairs of tap shoes, all in different colors.
Martin started dancing when he was 7 and has taken classes at different studios throughout his life. He was one of the original 12 students when Strive opened its doors in August 2024.
Currently, he's the only boy at the studio, but that doesn't stop his rhythm. He's danced with some of the girls before they all joined Strive.
"It feels like a home to all of us in many ways, with, I mean, Kae, as one of our teachers, Michele — especially because she all kind of brought us here," Martin said. "It just feels nice having, you know, all my family together in one place."
Strive is about more than just dance. Sometimes, extracurricular activities like sports, music and dance can consume a child's life to the point where they lose time to focus on themselves and their relationships with friends and loved ones. WCPO spoke with owners Michele Hargis-Bramlage and her husband Mike Bramlage about why they wanted to offer a studio that valued balance above all else.
"Giving them very good quality instructions by some experts in the dance field, but then also allowing them to have the opportunity to participate more in other sports, as well as outreach in the community," Michele Hargis-Bramlage said. "Sports have been a very big part of our family and part of our lives growing up, so we looked at it as an opportunity, as a giveback, to make sure that we created a culture, in an environment that allowed kids to have life skills, as well as to keep things in balance, you know, for later in life."
You can watch more of WCPO's story about Strive Dance Collective here:
Strive's business model allows its young dancers to own more of their time by providing a more open architecture platform for dance training. They believe in the efficiency of time, allowing these dancers to participate and train appropriately for their sport while still providing an opportunity for them to be active participants in their families, schools and community, Hargis-Bramlage said.
Martin is an example of how that balance works. He often brings a gym bag and his basketball sneakers to the studio because he's either getting there from a basketball game or heading to an evening practice.
"I started basketball this year. I've played — I mean, in my front yard — I've played at like Griffin Elite and all those places where you just got to get to sign up and play basketball for fun. But now, getting to actually have a team and really, really compete for and games and stuff really makes me love that as well. Not just dancing, but also playing basketball at the same time," Martin said. "It just helps both out and me being a dancer, I have quick feet, and playing basketball really helps me get up there when I jump and try to block it or shoot the ball."
Caroline Bramlage calls the open architecture structure a blessing. She's the owners' daughter and the inspiration behind Strive.
"It makes the time we spend here much more productive. When we're here, we're here to work, and we get it done, and then when we're not we can do other things," Caroline said. "I'm my class president at school, so I get to be a lot more involved in that. I volunteer at Children's Hospital and ... I get to spend so much more time with my family."
Erin Bucher can play softball for Conner High School for the first time this spring and, along with Mallory Rommel, participate in her school's Hope Squad. Mallory Clifton can participate as the lead in her school play at St. Joe’s Grade School. Joy Scott, a senior dancer, was able to teach a tap class for the first time this past fall and choreographed a piece for a group of young dancers for a Christmas show.
Audrey Fraley used her design and art talents to design the programs for Strive's showcase in January. Senior dancers, Olivia Koop, Nadin Asad, Audrey Zuziak and Joy Scott learned how to write a grant to apply for funding with the Toyota Foundation.
"I'm a senior, right? So thinking about applying to colleges, like building my resume, like I want more activities. More things to put on it. And so that allows me to just like, add to the list and continue adding to the list as I keep filling my time with other things," Olivia Koop said. "Just like the general time to spend with friends, like having a more, definitely more of a social life, more family time, the amount of like family dinners I get a week compared to last year, let's just say it's significant."
Not only do Strive's dancers give to each other, they have a strong focus on giving back to the community. In their first weekend as a team, they participated in the Hope to Dream outreach event at the Reds Community Fun Facility hosted by St. Vincent Depaul, Morris Furniture and WCPO.
"We were all there, and we were building the beds and we gave them to all these kids who didn't have any and there was just a bunch of fun stuff on the beds, like stuffed animals, and it was a baseball bat and stuff like that," Martin said. "But it was such a cool experience getting to, you know, have a sign and have a kid's name on it, and then come up to you like, they like, appreciate you. And they're like, thank you so much for building this for me. I mean, it makes their world way different."
Strive has a team participating inCancerFree KIDS' Night for the Fight event Saturday to help raise money to support pediatric cancer research.The studio will also be adopting St. Augustine Grade School in Covington, KY during spring break by providing food for the students to have while school is not in session.
"We wanted to help grow the entire child. We know that that dance — they're going to get in fantastic instruction and grow their ability to perform there — but really just to develop the whole child," Mike Bramlage said. "And we know that as they sit down to interview for jobs in the future, or even try to get into college, like they have to have a well-rounded being, and we know that that's an important part of what we want to help create here is help them find ways to give back, ways to have an impact, other than just in one area of their life."
Strive offers a variety of classes to kids and adults, including tap, ballet, jazz, salsa and Pilates. You can register on the studio's website.
"I do want to keep dancing here throughout high school, but eventually, when I'm done through high school — you can't compete anymore when once you're in college — I do want to teach here and kind of give back to Strive because they helped me so much with my dance journey and just my journey through life," said Martin. "And I really am excited to be able to give back and maybe teach some little kids, and, you know, just teach them what I learned from the great teachers here."
Watch Live:
