A Dance Studio is Born

Laughter, loud music... stomping, there is no better sound to a dance teacher than hearing students giving their all and clearly having a wonderful time. Particularly when teaching comes from the heart, as it does for Valentina Mileto.

Dance is, after all, a ritual of romance, something Mileto knows first hand. She met the love of her life, Alexander Wildham, while dancing salsa one night at Club Floridita in the 1st District. They danced, but left without goodbyes. Four months later they met there again, and have been together ever since. They don't have much time together in their busy lives as teacher and doctor, so they dance. They had a dream of opening up their own studio one day, where she could teach dance and he could be the doctor on call.

That dream came true on Jan. 27 when they opened the dance studio Casomai.

It is the only 'dancing studio' in Vienna. They can't call it a 'school' since they are not members of VTÖ, the dance school association, and don't have the fitness equipment to call it a fitness studio. It doesn't matter much; Casomai teaches everything from hip hop, afro, pilates and yoga to jazz and contemporary dance and sparta training.

'I was sent back and forth between the chamber of commerce and the district magistrate, where they had a trouble defining it as a dance studio, but not a dance school or a fitness studio,' said Mileto. In fact, describing it as a dance studio costs them double in taxes. Dance teachers need a license to teach ballroom and Latin dances but not pilates and yoga. 'We'd like to give clients the kind of place where they love to spend time -- and where they like our way of teaching,' said Mileto. The opening week was free and around 250 people from ages 3 to 70 came to dance. Casomai also respects their teachers and clients:

'We pay teachers even if there is only one person coming; while there is a minimum of three in other dance schools and fitness studios.' In the end she went to a notary, the tax office and the magistrate to finish the paper work.

Located in Hörlgasse 4 in the 9th District, which Mileto came across in an announcement in Kurier online, Casomai is a 300-square-meter space -- a former wood-working factory -- near the Votivkirche. After seeing the place and talking to the owner, they raised the €250,000 they needed to buy it.

There was a lot of work ahead. The space was very run down and infested with pigeons inside, with the floors beaten down like a street outside. In the end, they had to renovate the whole building.

'For the first few days, I just sat there wondering, how do we do this?' said Mileto. They took pictures and wrote down ideas.

When it came to plumbing, she called her father. He had bought a 15th century house in Italy and fixed it up. When they started, she was so inexperienced that she couldn't even change a light bulb. But now after getting help from two men at her father's company, she can do anything.

One of the most difficult things was finding the right flooring, since there is a big difference between fitness and dance floors. They ended up with a theatre floor, wooden planks in one direction and parquet the other, so people can jump and not feel it.

The school is very international; teachers are young -- between 24 and 30 -- and all speak English and German fluently. Mileto herself is Italian, her partner Wildham is half Austrian and half Japanese. The rest are from China, Italy, Germany, Iceland, Switzerland, Austria and the former Yugoslavia.

'It was interesting to see how much passion young people put into their work,' said Mileto. 'This is exactly what I wanted: passion!' Classes can be attended by anyone, beginners to advanced.

All in all, it took about a year of preparation and renovation and a lot of money and help to turn a wood working factory into a dance institute, with two studios, the best equipment, comfortable and clean changing rooms, and a front hall lounge with bar, decorated by Mileto herself. But it was all worth it.

'Each year, more people are becoming more isolated, sitting in front of their computers,' said Mileto. 'Why work out alone, when you can be dancing, having fun getting to know other people?'

Casomai

9., Hörlgasse 4,

(01) 650 86 35 201

Classes Daily, see website

www.casomai.at

vale78@gmx.at