MEET THE OWNER - LILY BOXALL

Taking on a dance school is a big thing! How did this come about?

I attended Harwood Dance as a student from the age of 6 where I learned tap, jazz, modern and later some ballet, and started volunteering there as a helper in younger classes as I grew up. When I left school I was torn between going into dance as a career or going to university so I took a gap year which I spent teaching at Harwood Dance. I then went to the University of Bath to study Social Policy but straight away joined the Dance Society where I was successful in joining their jazz, tap, contemporary, hip-hop and wildcard competition teams. Covid restrictions then happened which made my uni time very difficult and not being able to dance made it even worse.

After graduation in 2022 I came back to Harwood to teach whilst I considered my career options. Zoe Harwood, who has been the owner and principal for the last 7 years, had been training to be a mindset coach and decided a few months ago that she needed to step away from the dance school to enable her to develop her new business in this field. She was anxious that the Harwood ethos carry on and offered me the chance of buying the business as she knew I was Harwood through and through.

It was a scary decision to take at the age of 23 but I talked it through with my family and decided I’d regret it if I didn’t give it a go. Luckily my mum Fenella has been doing the books for the company for the last two years so she was able to talk through the finance side and give me a realistic view of what I was buying! I’m obviously much less experienced than Zoe was but she’s offered to mentor me for the next year and help me out whenever I need. 

What will you keep the same about Harwood Dance and what new ideas are you introducing, if any?

It’s really important to everyone at Harwood that the ethos stays the same. We are a holistic school that prides itself on nurturing the emotional, mental and physical development of all our pupils, and everyone is treated with the same respect and their talents are recognised regardless of ability, appearance, sexuality, gender, heritage or religion. Most things will stay the same in terms of timetabling as I want the changeover to be seamless for the parents and students alike. Going forward I would really like to add some more adult classes to our timetable. We currently offer contemporary and improvers' tap classes for adults but I’d love to add ballet and jazz as options. I also think a daytime dance fitness class for adults would be really fun and maybe some daytime classes where parents and toddlers could come together.

As a mother and daughter team, do you find that you take work home with you or find that it affects your relationship; how do you achieve the work-life balance?

Working with mum has been a very steep learning curve! She wakes up really early and has done loads of work by the time I wake up. I am not keen on discussing work over breakfast so we’ve had to put some boundaries in place. Similarly, she’s not keen on working at bedtime which is what my body clock likes. The other difficulty has been separating her role as a mother from her role as a bookkeeper and reminding myself which role is nagging me! We do get on really well though and I couldn’t have done this without her help.

Starting at a dance school might be overwhelming for a little one. How do you make them feel welcome and relaxed? 

A child’s first dance lesson can be a really overwhelming experience (especially for our preschoolers who can be as young as two and a half) so we make everything as fun and relaxed as we can. There’s lots of imaginary play and we use props like hoops and scarves to help engage them. Pre-school parents are welcome to come in and watch the first lesson if that helps the children settle in, although we encourage them to wave goodbye at the door as soon as they’re comfortable with us. Obviously not all our new students are that young so with older children we encourage our existing students to welcome new starters warmly and encourage them to make new friends. If a child is particularly nervous about starting a new class, then we do all we can to buddy them up with someone who will answer their questions and help them along.

What are your favourite things to do in Gloucestershire? (eg places to eat, country walks, or whatever you enjoy)

I don’t have a lot of time for fun at the moment, as you can imagine, but I’m a big fan of a nice brunch! I’m a vegetarian and my favourite thing to eat is halloumi. If I’ve spent a lot of time working I really enjoy a nice long walk up Leckhampton Hill or Cleeve Hill to blow the cobwebs away. I also really love the theatre (especially musicals) and I’m really excited to be choreographing Kinky Boots for CODS next year.