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Kinderdance®...A Brief History
In 1979, Carol Kay Harsell was busy running the American Academy
of Dance, a successful dance school she founded in Scottsdale,
Arizona. Harsell, who had great expectations for the school, was
eager to expand her offerings and clientele. She looked to
Bernard Friedman, a semi-retired businessman and entrepreneur,
for ideas. After several months of hard work, Harsell and
Friedman had more than tripled the size of the dance studio and
raised the school's enrollment to more than 600 students, but
enrollment in the academy's pre-school dance program, aptly named
Kinderdance®, was still low. While talking one afternoon,
Friedman asked Harsell why she thought that participation was
limited? Harsell replied that it was because many young children
were in child care centers and preschools. Friedman thought a few
minutes and said "then why don't you bring the program to the
children?" It was at that moment that the concept for Kinderdance®
International was born.
The very next day, Harsell
approached a local child care center and signed up six children
for her Kinderdance® program. Thirty days later, more than 60
children were enrolled. Sensing that they were on to something
big, Friedman marketed the Kinderdance® program to all of the
child care centers in the greater Phoenix area. Six months after
the original "on-site location", the Kinderdance® idea was
off and running. Harsell and dance teachers from her studio were
instructing classes in more than 30 child care centers around
Phoenix, and were teaching in the Phoenix public school
system.
By 1981, Harsell and Friedman
were thrilled with the success of the Kinderdance® program.
Clearly there was a demand for their innovative "on-site
location" education through dance programs. Friedman and Harsell
put their marketing and business experience to work, researching
and developing an expansion plan for their new endeavor.
Establishing Kinderdance® as a franchise organization seemed
like the obvious answer-both knew that other motivated people
like themselves could successfully market the Kinderdance®
programs to child care centers, preschools and other viable
locations around the country.
In late 1981, Kinderdance® International was incorporated
and in 1985, the first Kinderdance® franchise was opened in
Houston, Texas. Today there are over 100 Kinderdance®
franchises operating in 38 states throughout the United States, Canada, Singapore, the Bahamas, Puerto Rico, Switzerland, and Australia.
KINDERDANCE INTERNATIONAL,
INC.
Corporate Offices are
located at:
1333 Gateway Drive, Suite 1003, Melbourne, Florida 32901
1-800-554-2334
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