On a Thursday evening in a converted barn just off Highway 95, fifteen students line up at the barre, their sneakers squeaking against refinished wood floors. The playlist shifts from Count Basie to Beyoncé, and instructor Mara Deluca calls out counts over the music. This is The Rhythmic Studio in Viola City, Idaho—population 98—where jazz dance has taken root in one of the state's smallest incorporated communities.
That a robust dance scene has emerged here, rather than in nearby Moscow or Pullman, Washington, surprises even the locals. Yet over the past twelve years, three independent studios have opened within a ten-mile radius of Viola City's lone stop sign, drawing students from across the Palouse region. The reason, directors say, is simple: affordable rural real estate, a hunger for arts programming in underserved school districts, and a growing recognition that serious dance training does not require a metropolitan zip code.
How the Scene Took Shape
The turning point came in 2012, when Mara Deluca, then a company dancer with Boise-based Idaho Dance Theatre, relocated to Latah County for her husband's faculty position at the University of Idaho. She expected to commute to Spokane for teaching work. Instead, she leased a former dairy equipment barn on her in-laws' property and posted flyers at grocery stores in Troy, Bovill, and Potlatch.
"I thought I'd get five kids," Deluca said. "Twenty-three showed up the first week. There was clearly a need no one was filling."
Deluca's arrival coincided with budget cuts that eliminated full-time arts positions in several rural Idaho school districts. Parents began viewing private studios as their children's primary access to performing arts. By 2016, two additional instructors had opened competing schools, and the informal rivalry—each studio cultivates a distinct philosophy—has helped the scene mature rather than fragment.
The Three Studios
The Rhythmic Studio
Deluca's school remains the most technically rigorous of the three. The Rhythmic Studio offers a conservatory-style track for students ages ten through eighteen, with a curriculum built on Luigi technique and Horton modern dance principles. Deluca requires three weekly technique classes for her pre-professional group, and the results have drawn outside attention: since 2018, four alumni have enrolled in BFA dance programs at the University of Arizona, Western Michigan University, and Cornish College of the Arts.
The studio's annual spring showcase, held at the Kenworthy Performing Arts Centre in Moscow, regularly sells out its 480 seats.
Dance Fusion Academy
Seven miles north, in an unincorporated stretch of Latah County, Dance Fusion Academy occupies a renovated grange hall. Founder and director Jesse Okonkwo, who trained at the Ailey School in New York before moving west, emphasizes what he calls "jazz as living history"—tracing the form from its African roots through Broadway and commercial styles.
Okonkwo's advanced students study West African dance alongside jazz technique, and his choreography for the studio's competition team has earned top adjudication at the Spotlight Dance Cup in Spokane for three consecutive years. "Rural kids deserve to know where this vocabulary comes from," Okonkwo said. "It's not just kicks and turns. It's culture."
Swinging Steps
The newest arrival, Swinging Steps, opened in 2019 in a former feed store on Viola City's Main Street. Director Paula Voss, a former Radio City Rockette, built her program around performance readiness and musical theater audition skills. Her students perform at the Latah County Fair each September and have appeared in Moscow Community Theatre productions of Chicago, A Chorus Line, and Hairspray.
Voss also runs a summer intensive that brings in guest teachers from Seattle and Portland, giving students exposure to working professionals without the cost of traveling to coastal cities.
The Students Who Make It Work
Maya Chen, seventeen, makes the forty-minute drive from Pullman three times a week to train with Okonkwo at Dance Fusion Academy. A senior at Pullman High School, she has auditioned for dance programs at five universities this fall and credits the studio's small class sizes for her rapid improvement.
"In a bigger city, I'd be one of twenty in a class," Chen said. "Here, I get corrected every single combination. That attention changed my dancing."
Chen is not unusual. Directors at all three studios estimate that roughly half their students travel more than twenty minutes for lessons, with some coming from as far as Lewiston and Orofino. The studios have become regional hubs by default, serving a catchment area that spans two states and multiple counties with limited public transportation.
What Comes Next
The challenges are real. All three studios rely on well water, propane heat, and internet connections that occasionally falter during Zoom master classes. Instructors double as maintenance staff and social media managers. Yet enrollment has held steady or grown since
