Dance / Features
‘We specialise in joy’: Bristol teacher on her community-first dance studio
If you close your eyes and picture a ballet class, you might see leotards, classical music or intimidating teachers.
You probably wouldn’t imagine Fleetwood Mac, loud laughter and sweatpants.
If you walk into a class at AE Dance and Fitness, expect the latter (although the sweatpants are optional. If you want to wear a leotard, more power to you).
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Angie Edwards, founder of AE, has wanted to run a dance school since she was 15. She taught her first dance classes at age 12 and ran the Dance Society at university.
But when she started teaching dance in 2017, what she instead set out to build was a community.
Dancers at the AE Dance winter showcase 2024 – photo: Tristan Brook
It began with two lyrical contemporary classes a week on Friday afternoons; the students were largely freelancers and creatives. “A real mix of fun characters,” Angie recalls.
“It was just me wanting to teach the style of dancing that I teach. It was lyrical contemporary, which there wasn’t much of in Bristol at the time.
“And I knew I wanted to run the kind of classes I’d been running my whole life, which were fun, inclusive, high energy classes.”
To make “inclusive, community-based adult classes”, Angie knew that socialising couldn’t just be encouraged. It had to be intentional and built into the DNA of the company.
When she first started out, creating that sense of community felt natural to her as its such an integral facet of her identity, but how do you keep that going as new teachers join and the company grows?
“I’m very specific about who I work with. I feel like the teachers at AE all have that same kind of energy that I bring.
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“On a really practical level, it’s things like getting people to work in groups in class, teachers using students’ names and socials as often as possible.
“More than that, it’s understanding that when a dancer comes to us, we are a part of their fuller life, and taking an interest in that.”
Angie has a contagious enthusiasm for dance and the community she’s built, in part due to her experiences growing up dancing in the Netherlands, where she lived from ages 10 to 19.
She felt the other Dutch dancers took her under their wing as a shy, nervous dancer (something that’s hard to imagine now) and benefitted from teachers who “really cared about the quality of work they were doing,” values that she’s held onto as an adult.
However, as a teenager there was a darker side to dancing: “I had the horrible experience, which so many dancers had, when I was 17 maybe, of being told not to gain more weight.”
As a teacher and studio founder, Angie is actively combating this:
“At uni, inclusivity was a massive thing, and I knew when I ran the Dance Society one of my values was inclusivity and you could feel it and sense it.”
This is a value Angie’s brought with her to AE Dance.
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In 2025, AE Dance and Fitness is a community of over 500 dancers and it’s growing all the time.
If you’re a new joiner, or considering becoming one, Angie is keen to impress that “everyone in that room has been a new joiner before. They will know how you’re feeling.
“If you arrive at the right studio at roughly the right time, you’ve done the hardest bit. Let’s worry about dancing next week.”
As well as many adults discovering dance for the first time, there are also people reconnecting with dance as adults, in a space defined by inclusivity and joy: “We’ve set this tone across the dance school that we lead with fun.”
Indeed, the company’s motto is “making good people feel great so they can do amazing things.”
You can see that intention in the classes, and in Angie’s commitment to engaging with her dancer’s as individuals and people.
Performers from AE Dance and Fitness – photo: Tristan Brook
But arguably the place you feel this most is at an AE Dance show. The performers on stage are, of course, fabulous, but it’s more than that.
It’s the teachers who put in so much of their time.
It’s the dancer’s partners who operate the lights, sound and the bar, and the friends and family in the audience.
It’s the attitude of everyone across the community who’s willing to pitch in and make the shows happen.
And it’s that every AE Dance show is raising money for a charity in Bristol:
“I feel like I’m an extremely, extremely lucky person. I think I’m the luckiest person in the world. And I think actually, as a community, we’re extremely lucky.
The joy that we get from something, it’s selfish to keep that joy within us. Surely if we’re creating this much energy and joy and positivity, that should give back to the world.”
If you want to experience some of that joy and positivity for yourself, AE Dance and Fitness will be performing at Bristol Harbour Fest on July 20.
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Expect “high energy, entertainment and sensory scarves. And just some beautiful Bristol humans dancing their absolute socks off on stage and loving it.
“And spreading that love throughout the entire audience. Spreading joy is what we specialise in.”
Main photo: Tristan Brook
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