Paquita Dance Center to open in first space of its own

Paquita Dance Center is expanding in a couple of big ways with the first space of its own later this fall.

Amy Derstein started the business in her home seven years ago and then began renting space a couple of days a week at churches.

“I wasn’t able to be open all days of the week or whatever days I choose,” she says.

So now she’s moving the center into about 3,500 square feet at Westlink at Central and Tyler.

“It’s allowed me to open my range of dancing classes that I offer,” Derstein says.

She teaches all forms of ballet and some tap, and now Derstein is adding lyrical dance, jazz and hip hop. She’s also hired a certified teacher of progressive ballet technique.

With the new space, Derstein says she’s able to accommodate more students. Last year, she had 48. Now, she has 72 and has hired three more teachers.

Paquita is a type of ballet, and it’s the first one Derstein performed in as a paid professional dancer.

She’s a St. Louis native and was formerly with the St. Louis Ballet. She also had short stints doing ballet in New York and Chicago.

At some point, Derstein says her parents convinced her she needed to pursue a higher education.

“My parents kind of put their foot down.”

Derstein considered schools with dance programs and chose Friends University. She earned degrees in dance and psychology “to please my parents.”

She pursued a career in psychology for several years until switching to dance full time.

At her new space, Derstein will share space with her husband, Christopher, who owns Relevant Audio & Visual.

He’ll have an office and conference room within the space, but it will be separate from the dance studio.

“It allowed us to actually have both our businesses in the same space, which is kind of neat and fun,” Amy Derstein says.

She says she wanted to stay on the west side, but Derstein says some building owners weren’t open to a dance studio because of noise and other concerns, which she says she couldn’t understand.

“They made it sound like we were running a racket instead of a dance studio.”

Tyler Nepote of Wedgewood Capital Partners at KW Commercial helped her find the space, which should open in November.

This story was originally published September 24, 2018 at 4:15 PM.