Ofelia de La Valette, owner and founder of Dance 101 didn’t find
her calling to the dance world until the age of 35. A successful
insurance agent with her own company in Atlanta, Ofelia had been
pounding away on the treadmill at her gym when the sounds of a
cardio dance class caught her attention. Though humiliated at her
own lack of skill, Ofelia jumped right in. Despite her
embarrassment at being the worst in the class, Ofelia found a
strengthened sense of self and scorched 20 pounds in the process.
After 10 years of intensive dancing, she was asked to teach a
class at Emory University, and after two years there, she took a
huge leap. At the request of five of her students, Ofelia dropped
her lucrative career and opened the original Dance 101 location off
of Miami Circle in Buckhead. The first studio of its kind in the
WORLD, Dance 101’s unique offerings and accessibility made it an
Ofelia teaches weekly dance classes and manages all aspects of
the business. Currently, she is working on expanding her studio
both locally and nationally. Driven by a passion for dance and an
innate need to make the world a better place, Ofelia has picked up
numerous awards in her years at the helm of Dance 101. With the
advent of her new Alpharetta location, Ofelia is looking to develop
Dance 101 into a franchise—so fellow dance fanatics can reap the
benefits of adult beginner classes nationwide.
Her efforts have been featured in several local as well as
national publications, webisodes, podcasts and recently in CNN
Small Success Stories, Passion to Portfolio, Making It In America
(both CNN domestic and International) as well as Headline News. In
July, 2011 Ofelia was invited by the White House to deliver the
afternoon key note speech at the Atlanta Urban Entrepreneurship
Forum and was presented with The Phoenix Award by Mayor Kasim Reed.
She was recently featured in the top 10 Atlanta Best Self
magazine’s Over 40 and Fabulous Atlantans and was one of 50 women
profiled in Marlo Thomas’s book, It Ain’t Over…Till It’s Over.
Ofelia is providing the public with an opportunity to do for
themselves what, until now, they could only watch others do on TV:
to make their own leap — from their living room to a classroom,
from the audience to the stage. Listen and prepare to be
transformed by the power of dance at Dance 101!