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Dancing days are here again
By: CARL
ROTENBERG , Times Herald Staff
08/17/2004
UPPER MERION - The happy chatter of
children excited about their gymnastics camp experience echoes
off the walls of the Upper Merion Dance & Gymnastics
Center.
The
10,000-square-foot facility at 421 Feheley Drive was built by
Dave and Michelle Evasew in the former BKL Inc. manufacturing
factory. The center has a 7,500-square-foot gym crammed with
gymnastics equipment and blue crash mats and an adjacent,
900-square-foot dance studio. The summer camp session
started June 14 after a two-month renovation process, co-owner
Dave Evasew said. Thirty-five gymnastics coaches have been
teaching 560 children and adults this summer. Five dance
instructors have been teaching dance classes for 21 children
and adults. From 1993 to May 2004, Dave Evasew served as
the gymnastics director of the Upper Merion Parks and
Recreation Department. His wife, Michelle, has served as the
dance director in the same program for the past three years.
She now teaches dance at the center. The Upper Merion
couple submitted the winning, $8,000, bid to purchase the
township's gymnastics equipment this spring. Their gymnastics
and dance center on Feheley Drive is continuing to teach
gymnastics to Upper Merion residents through the Parks and
Recreation Department. The Evasews have invested $200,000
in the center, including $115,000 for gymnastic and dance
equipment. Dave Evasew believed the township's gymnastics
program at the Gulph Road gym located at Henderson and Gulph
roads could not expand because of limited space and
competition for practice time with other recreational programs
at the center. "We had very limited space there. We had
only seven hours a week for gymnastics," he said. "We had 250
gymnasts using the gym seven hours a week." After-school
and evening gymnastics classes at the Upper Merion Dance &
Gymnastics Center will resume Sept. 13. The cost for the
12-week gymnastics classes ranges from $120"pper Merion Area
High School in 1993 and earned a psychology degree at Temple
University. When he was between the ages of 12 and 18 he
learned gymnastics at the Pancott Gymnastics Center in
Malvern. He was the boys' compulsory coach there from 1996 to
2001. Michelle Evasew grew up in Glencoe, Ill., graduated
from Newtrier High School in 1990 and earned a communications
degree at Emerson College in 1994. She was a trainer at Brew
Moon from 1994 to 1999. She started taking dance lessons
in ballet, tap and jazz dancing at a young age. During high
school she was a dance teacher at the Lehman School of Dance
in Glencoe. In 2001, she became the dance director of the
Upper Merion Parks and Recreation Department and in May the
Upper Merion couple got married in Chicago. On Sept. 11,
the center will provide dance and gymnastics demonstrations at
the Upper Merion Community Day at the township building. They
will use an inflated Airtrak mat for tumbling
exhibitions. "We offer Irish, step, swing and salsa dance
classes, in addition to the ballet, tap, jazz and hip-hop
dance classes," Michelle Evasew said. The center also
offers adult classes for gymnastics, birthday parties for
children and a competition gymnastics team for boys and
girls. Carl Rotenberg can be reached at
crotenberg@timesherald.com or 610-272-2500, ext. 350.
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