"Where Dance Reigns"
Your urban dance headquarters for Custom Workshops, Classes, Camps, Choreography, and Music Editing. Located in Leander/Cedar Park area outside of Austin.
What is urban dance? Urban dance comes from hip hop and other street dance styles (house, funk, pop, lock, waacking, break, etc.) and draws inspiration from other dance styles, such as: jazz, contemporary, tap, and more. It allows dancers from different backgrounds, personalities, dance training, etc. to freely interpret different types of music and integrate different dance styles.
Leslie Garcia's story…
I started dancing at 11 years old at Kathy Marfin’s School of Dance as a birthday gift from my amazing parents doing traditional jazz and ballet in San Antonio. I became obsessed with dance. When I was in middle school, I saw a group of boys breakdancing at recess on the basketball court but never saw any girls. I started watching them then going home to practice the moves myself and watched every music video I could to learn more to be able to move like them.
When I was 20 the dance studio, I taught for asked if I could turn how I moved into a dance class and so began my hip hop teaching career. In the summer of 1999, a radio commercial aired advertising a one-of-a kind urban dance studio called Atomic Dance Studio in Austin. I decided to adventure to Austin and check it out. The moment I met the owners, Gino Johnson and David Kellough my ENTIRE life changed! There was so much more to hip hop and urban dance then I ever knew. Urban dance has a history, a community and a lifestyle and they taught me that. Atomic Dance Factory was a studio like no other! It was a place to dance, learn, share, hang out, and of acceptance. The things I learned at Atomic I have carried and continue to pass on everywhere I taught teach since ADF closed.
Fast forward to 2008, I started my hip hop company called 2 Hype HH Co. and I wanted to expose as much history, instruction, and styles of urban dance that I could to my dancers but over the years still felt like something was missing. That is when I broke away from the norm and Urban Dance Empire became a reality. I changed my company to The Empire and created UDE to bring back that uniqueness, education, and love of the urban dance community that Atomic used to share back to the Austin area.
My dream is that UDE will become a dance home and family to many dancers in the future that Atomic was for me and may other dancers that still carry on their legacy out in the world today.
Welcome to Urban Dance Empire! Where dance reigns and is the home of style!