Sue and Paul Savary of Alexandria, Virginia, became dance parents in 1994 when their daughter put on her first pair of ballet slippers.  Inspired by her love of dance (and realizing that the only way they'd ever spend quality time with her again was to hang around the studio more), the Savarys became active members and then officers in their studio's Dance Company Parents Association.  As years passed the Savarys honed their dance parenting skills -- rhinestone application; music editing; peanut, lollipop and honeybaked ham sales; website development; and recital volunteers in assorted capacities.  They also organized studio performance trips to New York, Orlando and Bermuda, and coordinated the dance company's annual cast party and other social events.  In 2002 they took the ultimate dance parenting plunge, enrolling in an adult tap class.  Sue continued tapping at higher levels, while Paul was lucky to survive one recital performance and promptly retired his tap shoes.

Having witnessed years of mama drama and the ugly side of dance competitions, and hoping to leave a positive mark on the larger dance community, the Savarys conceived and introduced through their daughter's studio "The Dance Button Project" -- a program that promotes goodwill among dancers by encouraging them to award "Awesome Dancer" buttons to dancers from other dance studios.  Within two years more than 2,500 "Awesome Dancer" buttons had been handed out one button at a time to dancers across the United States, Canada and Australia.

Finally, recognizing that there were thousands of other dance parents around the country who share many common experiences and challenges, the Savarys developed and launched DanceMom.com in late 2003 as their contribution to their fellow dance parents everywhere.  It took a week for the first dance mom to even find the site and nearly two months for registration to reach one dozen members, but by 2007 the DanceMom.com community comprised more than 1,000 registered members across the U.S. and Canada and beyond, and that year alone recorded over two million page views.  The Savarys continue to develop much of the site's original content while soliciting and publishing articles from other dance parents and dance-related sources, making DanceMom.com a collaborative creation of the dance parents, by the dance parents and for the dance parents everywhere.

Membership on DanceMom.com is and always has been free and open to anyone interested in the subject matter.  The site is visited primarily by dance moms, dance teachers, studio owners, a few brave dance dads and occasionally by dancers. 

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