Namari Dance Center is leaving an imprint in national competitions and Metro Atlanta’s dance community, but the owners say it’s an uphill climb to get noticed in its home of Sandy Springs.
Owners Antwan Sessions and Shervoski Moreland say they are still feeling a sting of disrespect from Mayor Rusty Paul following a dance center performance at City Hall on Feb. 1. Paul has since apologized for the mistake of suddenly interrupting an announcement of the young dancers’ accomplishments following their performance.
“I’m sad that it happened, disappointed in myself for not reading (the talking points) before I went into the room,” Paul said on Tuesday.
Credit: Jason Getz
Credit: Jason Getz
Namari Dance Center, located in the nook of an office in Sandy Springs’ North End, teaches beginner to advanced levels of ballet, tap, jazz and more to students ages 3 to 18. Students of the center are being recognized at national competitions. Namari families will travel to Ghana, West Africa with Sessions and Moreland in 2025 to learn dance styles of African culture.
Last July, Namari dancers won first prize or placed in several categories in the Southern Finals of Showstopper national dance competition in Orlando, Florida.
And last weekend, many of the dance students were finalists or won contests at the Radix Dance Convention held in Atlanta at the Signia Hotel. The national competition was a divergence for Namari students and required cutting edge dance moves that can be seen on a concert stage, Moreland said.
Credit: Jenni Girtman
Credit: Jenni Girtman
“The one thing that I love about Namari aside from them being phenomenal dance educators, they treat our girls as if they are their own,” said Althea Howery, whose 10-year-old daughter, Dallas Lillian, is in her second year as a student of the dance studio. “They teach our girls a level of professionalism to where they don’t take away the fun.”
Sandy Springs is an ideal location for a unique dance school owned by two men who are Black and a gay couple, Sessions said, compared to the city of Atlanta where there are more dance studios owned by people of color.
“It’s important to stay here in Sandy Springs and have a Black presence,” Sessions said. “We hold our kids to the highest expectations.”
As a child, Sessions played football and travel-baseball in Milton before graduating from North Springs High School in Sandy Springs. It was at the performing arts charter high school that he learned to dance.
He founded Namari in 2018 in Johns Creek. A year later, Sessions moved the center to Sandy Springs where Moreland became his fulltime partner.
Moreland, an Athens native, said he started dancing at the age of 8 and has worked with acclaimed photographer and producer Derek Blanks.
Credit: Jenni Girtman
Credit: Jenni Girtman
Sessions and Moreland say building up Namari took a financial toll, as well as grit. Sessions said he had two cars repossessed before buying his current vehicle.
But today the school is established with nearly 50 students, most of whom travel to Sandy Springs daily from other parts of metro Atlanta — including Midtown, McDonough, Canton and Douglasville.
“We haven’t been able to penetrate Sandy Springs,” Sessions said of raising awareness locally.
Howery said she drives Dallas to Namari from their home in Midtown six days per week for ballet, jazz, hip hop and lyrical dance classes. Dallas wants to one day dance professionally and join the Debbie Allen Dance Academy in California.
“We were at another studio (before Namari) that was a little bit more recreational,” Howery said. “I did not feel that studio could cater to her needs, cater to her dream and cater to the livelihood of being an African American brown skin girl that dances.”
Credit: Jenni Girtman
Credit: Jenni Girtman
Namari dancers have been accepted to the “summer intensive” workshops this year at such prestigious ballet schools as The Cincinnati School of Ballet, the Joffrey Ballet and the School of American Ballet.
Dallas will receive training this summer from the Joffrey Ballet in New York and California, Howrey said.
Ashley Sander’s 14-year-old daughter Peyton has been a student of Namari since 2021. The South Fulton teenager received a full scholarship to attend the Ailey School in the summer, which is the official school of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York.
“What I love about Namari is the diversity in the studio. There are all types of students: different backgrounds, different races,” Sanders said.
Sandy Springs residents learned of Namari dancers in early February when they performed at City Hall to help kick-off a tribute to Black History Month and an art exhibit by local artist Dakoro Edwards.
The event was held in the lobby and reception space where Namari dancers performed a repertory piece.
Credit: Jason Getz
Credit: Jason Getz
While the dancers’ performance was lauded, Sessions and Moreland said the young performers were “let down” and “confused” afterwards by the mayor, who interrupted Le’Dor Milteer, the event organizer, as she was announcing Namari’s accomplishments to the crowd.
Milteer was beginning to tell the crowd of Namari’s national wins and plans to travel to Africa when Paul, unexpectedly, stepped into the open space where the dancers had just performed.
“Now we want to go over and see the art that the artist has produced and why we’re here tonight,” Paul said.
Sessions and Moreland describe the mayor’s actions as dismissive.
“It was rude,” Sessions said. “We prepared our girls for that. We said, ‘You are going to be dancing for the mayor of Sandy Springs.’ For him to basically shoo us off. It left a bad taste.”
Paul received a backlash of emails criticizing his actions, some of which were shared with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
During the Feb. 6 City Council meeting, Paul apologized for interrupting the announcement of the dancers’ accolades.
“I messed up...I apologize to all the participants, particularly the young lady that I interrupted,” Paul said.
Milteer and the Namari owners say they still don’t feel sufficiently recognized by the mayor and that the event left the dancers confused.
“I told them we came to perform at City Hall to have an impact, and that’s what we did,” Moreland said.
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