Ideas in the Wild: How Chasta Hamilton is Trying to Shift the Competitive Dance Industry’s Focus to What Truly Matters

In the world of competitive dance, biased scoring, skimpy costumes, and toxic rivalries are the additional line items of a bill that exceeds thousands of dollars. Time and money are at stake for parents, but reputation is also at risk for students and studios. With no regulation, this third-party industry leaves those involved asking the same question after every competition: Is it worth it?

For Chasta Hamilton, six years of sending dancers to competition was six years too many. She swore off competitive dance and rewrote her curriculum to focus on the whole person within each dancer. In her new book Trash the Trophies, Chasta shares how she challenged preconceived notions of success in the dance industry and embraced camaraderie, effective leadership, and philanthropic initiative to transform her studio. I recently caught up with Chasta to learn what inspired her to write the book and some of her favorite ideas within.

What happened that made you decide to write the book? What was the exact moment when you realized these ideas needed to get out there?

In 2018, I was speaking at an industry conference in Scottsdale, Arizona. It was my first time back in the secular dance industry/market since leaving the competitive dance industry, and I was nervous. Stepping away had made it all feel so foreign, and I felt like an outsider.

Would I be judged? What would they think about my story and my experiences?

Over the weekend, there were two major moments that affirmed my need to write this book:

A studio owner approached me after the end of one of my sessions. With tears in her eyes, she said she wished she could have the confidence to make this type of change in her programming, but she was fearful of the way her clients might react.

I so desperately wanted to lay all of the information out there for her and help her with this transition. I shared some words of encouragement, and we parted ways.

I spoke at another session about my time creating and running The Dance Exec. Afterwards, two sisters approached me with a notebook that contained all of my articles, strategically printed and stored so they could use them to open and operate their successful dance studio.

When I left the conference, I couldn’t stop thinking about the power of my story and the power that my words had on perfect strangers. If I could have this much impact in a weekend, the impact could expand and grow even more if I was transparent, vulnerable, and bold.

The book was born, and the process was fueled with every text, call, and social media post I viewed about discontent breeding within the competitive sect of this industry.

What’s your favorite specific, actionable idea in the book?

My favorite concept is taking charge of your personal and professional narrative, even when it is inconvenient, unpopular, or misaligned from general societal expectations and constructs.

We avoid change because it isn’t easy. It’s not convenient and it creates disruption. The status quo is easy. But if we’re willing to take the risk, we can reap the greatest rewards from change.

What’s a story of how you’ve applied that idea in your own life? What has this idea done for you?

The idea of embracing chaos and change has evolved into a personal life mantra that has helped me work towards being the best version of myself. It has guided me to a place of acceptance for my childhood trauma, helped me prioritize meaningful relationships, and cultivated a fiery passion for making a unique mark on the children’s extracurricular market through meaningful programming and a heightened return on investment.

It has enabled me to confidently take charge of the narrative and execute fast, well thought out pivots and decisions to stay in the entrepreneurial game.

Recently, the pandemic has given us the opportunity to make a number of fast pivots. In March, we flipped to digital learning in 48 hours. In April, we changed our end-of-year recital to an outdoor movie shoot. And, last week, in looking at the more recent needs of our community, we decided to add The Academy at SDD, a remote learning program for grades K-12, and Perform, Learn, Play, a Pre-Kindergarten experience, for the 2020–2021 Dance Season.

People are often paralyzed because they are stuck in the school of thought that they have to do what they’ve always done. If we strip away that notion, we gain so much power and innovation.