Young dancers spending hours a day at the studio, then moving on to something more “realistic” when it’s time for college and a “stable” job: it’s a common story. So is hard-working career folks going from work to home and back again, movement and health taking a backseat to a boatload of other “adult” responsibilities.
Yet Julia Sykes, Cape Cod-area dance artist and educator, has a different vision. In 2021 she founded in Studio 721 (Buzzard’s Bay, MA): a space that welcomes all to move, express themselves, and live their healthiest lives. The studio’s purpose is to “ignite passion and inspire creativity through movement and community.” I recently caught up with Sykes to learn more about the studio’s origin story, mission, her vision for it going forward, and more.
A mother’s legacy
Studio 721 began in grief, a grief that few have experienced as young as Sykes has. Her mother, Lisa Forlivesi Amaral, passed away in 2019 after “a courageous battle with ovarian cancer,” shared Sykes. What had been Amaral’s photography studio became Sykes’. “The family decided to give it to me to keep it used as a creative space (what is was intended for).” After renovations, Julia opened the studio for a new purpose: accessible movement and health.
The name “Studio 721” even honors Sykes’s mother; July 21rst (7/21) is Amaral’s birthday. As one could imagine, that’s all extremely meaningful to Sykes. It’s even a way that she maintains a personal connection with her mother and her memory. “[The studio] feels like a complete continuation of creativity, and that part of her – which I also got from her – lives on. In a way, it makes it feel like she’s still here. I feel her in the room all the time,” she shared.
Julia Sykes
Dancing into adulthood: why not?
Opening the studio fulfilled another purpose that’s been significant to Sykes, for her personally and beyond her: offering accessible opportunities for adults to keep dancing past their childhood studio and college days. “Living in the town right before the cape, I struggled to find places to take dance classes as an adult that weren’t in Boston….I wanted a place for myself to take dance classes for adults (ages 16+), a place to go to take class for people in the South Shore and Cape that weren’t over an hour away,” she said.
She’s not the only one who’s appreciated having somewhere more local where adults can dance. “Each week I get people who come in who tell me they haven’t danced in years and they miss it, or they teach at studios around the area and have been looking for a place to continue their training and have a place to dance for themselves,” she noted. For her, all of that is incredibly rewarding and plain amazing. “I have had multiple people who have told me they could cry it feels so good to dance again.”
There’s those dedicated (or formerly dedicated) dancers, but there are also adults who’ve always wanted to dance but were never able to. Some of these people had thought it was too late in their lives to start dancing. Studio 721 has showed them that’s not true. Several of these beginning adult dancers come in for class every week, and have “transformed themselves into dancers with technique,” affirmed Sykes.
A space for all to move, get stronger, get healthier
Another part of Sykes’ original vision for the studio was regular classes in movement/exercise forms such Pilates, Barre, Cardio Dance Fitness, and yoga – those related to dance and which can help dancers be stronger, more well-rounded artists. She explained how many dancers these days don’t only take dance class. They also have to cross-train, “to strengthen muscles that help with dancing, improve cardio [capacity], et cetera.”
Sykes has “always enjoyed” working out at the gym in conjunction with dancing. She’s “seen how the two benefit each other.” Yet she knows that not everyone is like that; traditional “gym” exercise forms – such as lifting weights or intense boot camp-style classes – are intimidating and/or simply not enjoyable to some people.
Whether or not they dance, Studio 721 offers classes in fitness forms that might resonate more with such individuals, Sykes says. Even if they do lift weights or take those boot camp workouts, taking something like Pilates and/or yoga at Studio 721 is a way for people to get “more well-rounded in their fitness regimes,” she added.
Moving forward as a community
Dancer or not, hardcore yogi or a fan of weightlifting with Pilates on the side, all of these individuals have come together to create a true community. In fact, that community started to grow not long after the space opened. Sykes described that as nothing short of “pretty magical.” It’s right in the studio’s mission statement: to “establish a community of people who enjoy moving their bodies in ways that inspire their hearts and feed their creative spirit.”
In a time when adults can find themselves with fewer social connections and more loneliness, that sort of community is something that can keep people coming back to class. It’s a key benefit above and beyond physical health and fitness. As such, Sykes can look towards that when considering the sustainability and longevity of the space – not to mention the difference that it can keep making in students’ lives.
She would “also love to see the studio expand not just with clients, but physically.” It’s a relatively small space, and a larger space would allow for “more people and more room to move,” she said. Sykes would also love to add virtual classes, which would open classes to those beyond studio’s local community.
One thing is for sure: all who join the studio’s community can find opportunities to move their bodies and work towards their health/fitness goals. On an even deeper level, they can make friends, express themselves, and be creative. There’s no reason why all of that shouldn’t be available to anyone at any age – not if spaces like Studio 721 and artists/entrepreneurs like Julia Sykes have anything to say about it.
Studio 721 students and Sykes
Want to learn more about the studio and its class offerings? Check out the website here.
All images are courtesy of Studio 721