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| East Grinstead's Town Mayor, Cllr Julie Mockford, with Nexgen's dance students |
East Grinstead - Last week, 18-year-old Sophia Elias from East Grinstead officially opened her dance academy called Nexgen with a little unexpected help from East Grinstead's Town Mayor.
Nexgen Dance Academy operates out of Solan Fitness, the award-winning gym within the Atrium in King Street, East Grinstead.
In this video just released by Sophia to mark the launch of Nexgen, Cllr Julie Mockford is seen cutting the ribbon to what appears to be another business within the Atrium when she suddenly hears music coming from inside Solan Fitness, so she goes to investigate.
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| Click here to watch the video: https://t.co/TZQc07FxOu |
She is drawn towards where the music is coming from and when she pushes open the doors to Nexgen's dance studio to satisfy her curiosity, Sophia takes the Mayor by the hand and starts teaching her the dance moves of the dance class she is in the middle of. The Mayor irresistibly joins in with great gusto and has a great time with Sophia and the kids.
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| Sophia Elias with Cllr Julie Mockford, East Grinstead Town Mayor |
Sophia started Nexgen in May 2017 when she was only 17 years old. She has been dancing since the age of 2, starting with ballet, contemporary dance and tap. She later attended local dance schools, notably Hayley Bullock's Street Dance classes and then trained at Sarah Benton's Step Up and Sing Academy where Sophia learned musical theatre and singing. She started Nexgen to inspire others with the same passion for dance as her to get dancing.
Sophia has danced and acted in local theatre groups, appeared on Hellenic TV, and been on stage at the Hawth Theatre in Crawley and at Chequer Mead as well as performed in front of some 8,000 people at Saint Hill Manor, East Grinstead. She has a very positive go-getter attitude to life and her passion to help youngsters through dance and her love of children led her to create Nexgen.
"One of the reasons I wanted to start Nexgen is that I see too many kids with their heads buried in social media 24/7 or watching TV, and no longer interacting with others. Some kids mix with the wrong crowd and sadly get into drugs and alcohol. Nexgen gives them something really positive to do in the real world and teaches them a useful skill too. But most of all, it's great fun! So I say 'Nexgen not Netflix' and 'Dancing not Gaming'!"
"I would like to thank the Mayor so much for her support and for helping us officially open Nexgen. We had such a good time dancing with her when we were filming the video!" said Sophia.
Nexgen started with 3 students in May but now has around 30, which isn't bad, especially when you take into account the fact that dance classes only take place 2 days a week at the moment. The company is growing fast and is proving to be very popular with local young people due to the fact that Sophia has a fantastic relationship with her students, and their parents are extremely happy with the results too.
Sophia will soon have to start looking for bigger premises to operate from! Here's one of Nexgen's many Facebook reviews:
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| Facebook review of Nexgen |
"My daughter had tried other classes but didn't like them. First class with Sophia at Nexgen, she was hooked! She always has lots of fun and [the dancing] has built her confidence enormously! Sophia is fantastic with the children and a great teacher. I would recommend to anyone."
Nexgen is so called because Sophia is teaching the Next Generation how to dance.
Recently, the very talented dancer and Brit School graduate, Adison Austin, who used to be part of the well-known dance troop, Khronos Agoria, joined Nexgen to teach the upper academy (16+ age group). He is a great asset to the academy.
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| Adison Austin with Sophia Elias |
Sophia's plan for the business is to, soon, introduce performing arts and singing to the academy and so create the next generation of artists and enable them to gain enough confidence in life so they can adopt a positive attitude in order to reach their goals in the arts.
Sophia's mother, Minie Elias, helps Sophia run the business and has played a big part in its success to date. Minie is an entrepreneur too who owns Aspiring Angels Professional Ironing Service and has run other self-built businesses in the past.
Minie also introduced Sophia to the work of American sales trainer and best-selling author Grant Cardone. Sophia loves the advice Grant Cardone gives and, in fact, attributes much of Nexgen's success to following the advice that Grant gives in his books such as "The 10X Rule", and on his TV show called "Whatever It Takes".
Sophia's plans for the future include taking Nexgen to London and all over the UK as a franchise, modelled on her first academy in East Grinstead.
Fees are paid termly and are very reasonable, starting at only £100 for a 3-month term, with some classes lasting 1.5 hours each, rather than the usual 1 hour.
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| Sophia Elias |
For further information, please contact:
Sophia Elias
Solan Fitness
1st Floor, The Atrium
King Street
East Grinstead
West Sussex
RH19 3DJ
07538 971862
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