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Construct Nashville is a community based dance studio and venue in East Nashville, open to dancers, visual artists, flow and other performance arts, yoga classes, art exhibitions, art shows, events, and special events.
What does “community based” mean? We are following a slow, community based building process in that many of the activities are run by (often young) people who are just starting to spread their wings as teachers and community leaders. People who hold a tenure at Construct are responsible for their own curriculum, advertising, gathering payment, etc (but we try to help where we can). In exchange, our rates for space rental are quite low. Many classes at Construct are either free or low cost.
Quincy Ellison (“QKong”; dancer & dance teacher, entrepreneur) started studying street style dance in 1999 and by 2002 traveled the Eastern United States to win numerous breakdance competitions,
including Loose Screws, NBL, Get Rooted, and Atlanta Street Jam. A founding member of Illville Crew (2003), he co-started Bashville Stampede, one of the largest breaking competitions in the United
States, in 2005. Aside from breakdance, he continues his studies in House Dance and Capoeira. He founded 615 House of Dance in 2012 as a community resource focusing on breakdance classes for kids, which is now the Construct Breakin’ program.
Miriam Kraatz (statistician, dance instructor, entrepreneur) started her career in the arts as a jazz musician in Berlin in the 1990s, teaching and playing saxophone professionally. Practicing martial arts for many years, she began studying breakdance in 2006 and soon shifted her focus to street style dance entirely. After obtaining a PhD in Statistics from Vanderbilt University and working in the data science industry for 10+ years, she founded Construct Nashville together with Quincy Ellison in 2016 and decided to dedicate herself full time to arts and dance in particular in 2021.
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TED Talks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. (Subject to certain rules and regulations.)
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