"Djoniba's is closing this week!" The words were shocking. With little public notice, Djoniba's dance center in Manhattan closed its doors during the days before Christmas. The email messages flew back and forth, marshaling resources for the displaced dance instructors and gathering listings of alternative spaces. Finally, someone asked the million dollar question: why was Djoniba's closing?

As it turns out, Djoniba's was not immune to a super heated real estate market followed by the overall economic climate the country is experiencing. The landlord wanted an exorbitant increase in rent and overall class attendance had fallen as class prices increased. The sad thing was that the community of people who dance at Djoniba's seemed unaware that harsh negotiations over the space were taking place or perhaps Djoniba did not think to ask the community for assistance. The details are not known to us at the Cultural Beat, but we can hazard a guess that the community was not consulted. Our dance organizations and instructors routinely fail to take advantage of the professional expertise available within the community of dancers to help advance the professionalism of dance offerings.There are many reasons why this may be so: lack of trust between instructors and their patrons; lack of experience in complexities of doing business in NY, or in the US in general, and the overall lack of proritizing business essentials that prevails in many of our dance communities.