“I used to go to Russia four or five times a year teaching competitive [dance] couples. Olga was 5th in Russia and 14th in the world. She came in for a lesson. I thought, ‘She’s far too good to compete, I’ll take her home with me,’” John said. “It didn’t work quite like that but we met through dancing.”
John, Olga and Craig Elsbury opened the first franchise of Dance Vision in Plano in 2018 followed by a McKinney location in 2020, Flower Mound in 2022 and Frisco in 2024.
The backstory
In 1995, Wayne and Donna Eng founded Dance Vision, which is governed by the National Dance Council of America. The Engs started the business after retiring from being competitive dancers.
“Dance Vision originally taught dance by VHS tapes, then by DVDs, and then by apps and in seminars,” John Elsbury said. “The Texas area was the first franchise studio model.”
The gist
A variety of dances are taught at Dance Vision. The top three requested dance styles to learn are country western, Latin and wedding dances.
Dance is taught in a three-tier system. Private lessons are followed by group classes then practice parties.
“You have the facility to be in a group environment, where you get to see how your skills are developing,” John Elsbury said. “You put it into practice before you take it out in front of friends, family and work colleagues.”
Who it’s for
The father-son duo said the ages of their students and reasons why people come to them to learn to dance are varied. However, a large percentage of their customers are between 40 and 60 years old.
“They stopped chauffeuring kids and they turned to each other and ask, ‘What can we do together?’” John Elsbury said. “We hear all the time when we ask, ‘Why are you guys here?’ The lady says, ‘I'm learning golf for him, and he's learning dance for me.’”
Quote of note
Craig compares the mindset of teaching competitive dancers to those taught at Dance Vision.
“When you're working with the competitors, you're working on making them better with one end goal— to win a trophy,” Craig Elsbury said. “Whereas [here] we get to see that we change people's lives. It sounds super cheesy, but it's so unbelievably true. We have couples tell us we saved their marriage. We have people sent to us [by physical therapists] who need to do new forms of low impact cardio exercise. That's very rewarding.”
- www.dancevisiontexas.com
- 1901 Long Prairie Road, Ste. 304, Flower Mound; 5813 Preston Road, Plano; 3300 Eldorado Parkway Ste. 500, McKinney; and 8822 Teel Parkway, Ste. 400, Frisco
