When Maria Santos opened Holden Lakes Ballet Academy in a converted 1920s grocery store on Maple Street, parents told her the town was too small for serious ballet. Twenty-two years later, her students have gone on to train with Miami City Ballet and American Ballet Theatre's summer intensives—and she's no longer the only game in town.
Three miles south, in a warehouse district near the interstate, The Modern Pointe Studio has spent the last eight years proving that tradition isn't the only path. Together, these two institutions have transformed Holden Lakes City, Florida—population 14,000—into an improbable hub for dance education that draws students from three counties.
The Traditionalist: Holden Lakes Ballet Academy
Santos, a Cuban-American former dancer with the National Ballet of Cuba, still teaches six days a week. Her academy now serves 180 students, from age three to adult, in a building that retains its original hardwood floors and exposed brick.
The training here is unapologetically rigorous. Intermediate and advanced students log 15–20 hours weekly, training primarily in the Vaganova method. Pointe students must pass a written ballet history exam before advancing to pre-professional status. Last spring, Santos's teenagers reconstructed a 1914 Les Sylphides solo from Stepanov notation for the academy's annual showcase.
"I came here because I wanted to be pushed," said Elena Voss, 16, who commutes 45 minutes from Lakeland and will attend the ABT summer intensive in New York this year. "At other studios, it's all about the recital costumes. Here, it's about the work."
The academy's annual full-length Nutcracker—performed at the Holden Lakes Community Theater since 2008—has become a regional tradition, drawing audiences from Tampa and Orlando. Alumni have gone on to company positions at Ballet Austin and Oklahoma City Ballet, though Santos is equally proud of students who became physical therapists and pediatricians.
"We're not a factory for professionals," Santos said. "We're building people who understand discipline, culture, and heritage."
The Disruptor: The Modern Pointe Studio
In 2016, choreographer and former commercial dancer Jordan Reeves returned to their hometown after touring with a pop act and couldn't find a local studio that matched their vision. They leased a 4,000-square-foot warehouse, installed sprung floors and industrial lighting, and opened The Modern Pointe Studio with 12 students.
Today, the studio enrolls 110 dancers and has built a reputation for work that confounds expectations of what small-town ballet can look like. Reeves's winter showcase this year included Tread, a piece performed on actual treadmills, and Body Memory, a collaboration with a University of Florida neuroscience researcher that used motion-capture technology.
"I had a student who was told at another studio that she had the 'wrong body for ballet,'" Reeves said. "She's now one of our strongest performers. We don't do 'wrong bodies' here."
The curriculum blends ballet technique with contemporary, improvisation, and composition. Students choreograph their own pieces beginning at age 12, and the studio maintains a partnership with the Ringling College of Art and Design, bringing in guest artists for weeklong residencies.
Reeves has also made accessibility central to the mission. The studio operates on a sliding-scale tuition model, with 40 percent of students paying below the standard rate. No student has ever been turned away for financial reasons, Reeves said.
Making Ballet Available to All
Both studios have invested heavily in erasing the economic barriers that typically restrict dance education.
Holden Lakes Ballet Academy awards $45,000 annually in merit and need-based scholarships, funded partly by a dedicated gala and partly by a local family foundation. The academy also runs Ballet in the Schools, a free outreach program that serves 900 students across four public elementary schools each year.
The Modern Pointe Studio, meanwhile, hosts quarterly Open Floor events—free community classes for absolute beginners, including a recent session specifically for seniors with mobility limitations. Reeves is currently fundraising for a van to transport students from rural areas without reliable transit.
These efforts have produced a dance community that looks markedly different from the stereotype of ballet as an elite, homogeneous art form. At the academy's most recent spring performance, 62 percent of student performers identified as Latino, Black, or multiracial. Modern Pointe's student body is similarly diverse, with significant Filipino and Haitian representation reflecting the region's changing demographics.
A Rivalry That Built Something Bigger
The relationship between the two studios hasn't always been smooth. Santos initially viewed Reeves's approach as a dilution of ballet's standards; Reeves once described the academy's methods as "preservation without evolution." But after collaborating on a 2021 hurricane relief benefit performance, the directors developed a grudging
