Philomath native Brittney Kampfer loves to dance. It started years ago as a 6-year-old in ballet, continued through high school and college, and then into her adult working life, which included the opening of her own studio 17 years ago.
Kampfer’s background revolves primarily around ballet, jazz and hip-hop. If push comes to shove, she might tell you that hip-hop has become her favorite. But if you spend some time with the longtime Philomath kindergarten teacher, you’ll conclude that she basically loves all styles. So the name that she chose for her Philomath dance studio makes a whole lot of sense.
Dance With Me.
The studio, located at 132 S. 17th St. across the parking lot from Eats and Treats, opened in November 2007.
Kampfer grew up in Philomath — her dad owned the original pharmacy in town — and feels like she can give back to the community through teaching — whether it’s kindergarten or dance.
“One of my main purposes and reasons for building the studio was because I wanted to try to help keep the Philomath High School dance team program going,” Kampfer said. “I originally started with the middle school dance team, Velocity, and then I ended up deciding to go lower into the elementary as well and start with Pure Energy.”
But the studio is about a whole lot more than those competitive teams. Dance With Me also has classes and programs for adults and youth of all ages, even those as young as 2.
Kampfer said that in her younger years, she discovered dance to serve as a foundation for success in school and learned skills such as working with others in a cooperative environment. Kampfer’s mom enrolled her in dance at age 5 at the Corvallis School of Ballet — which later changed its name to Regional School of Ballet when current owner Shelly Svoboda took it over.
“I didn’t really care for it and then she (her mom) waited a year and put me in when I was 6 and I absolutely fell in love with it,” Kampfer said. “I started out teaching for Shelly when I was just 15 with little kids’ ballet classes. Then by my sophomore year in high school, she added in jazz.”
Kampfer soon started teaching jazz to others as well. In fact, for several years, she taught a jazz and hip-hop combination.
“Dance was such a self-esteem builder for me … It taught me how to work towards goals,” Kampfer said. “There are so many great, lifelong lessons learned through dance … it’s a positive, valuable experience.”
Kampfer continued dance at Western Oregon State College (it has since been renamed Western Oregon University).
“I started up a dance team there called JAM — Just About Moving,” she said. “There were six of us that were friends and we performed all the halftimes for football. We did all the choreography, just our own little group.”
Kampfer has been teaching in the Philomath School District for 26 years — 21 years in kindergarten classrooms. After receiving her college degree and landing back in Philomath, she started helping with Philomath High’s dance program.
“I realized the amount of time commitment that school takes — it was hard to keep up with the dance team being like an 11-month season,” she said. “I decided to just teach my own dance classes on the side.”
Kampfer started teaching five classes out of the Philomath Elementary lunchroom with a peak enrollment of about 75 students.
“When the property came up across from Philomath Elementary School, on a whim we just decided to build the studio in 2007 and go for it and see how it can build and grow from there,” she said.
Dance With Me will accept boys and girls ages 2-14 through the end of March with a June recital on the horizon. Previous dance experience is not necessary and anyone in the local area is eligible to be on a team.
The various class offerings include Tippy Toes (ages 2-4), Introduction to Ballet (ages 3-6), Introduction to Hip-Hop (ages 3-6), Princess Ballet (ages 3-7), Ballet 1/2 with barre work (ages 6-10) and Hip-Hop 1/2 (ages 6-10).
“Our dance teams are what separates me from the local dance studios,” Kampfer said. “I’m the only local area studio that offers competitive dance teams — as far as I know from here clear through the Monmouth area.”
Dance With Me usually has two dance teams — the aforementioned Pure Energy (grades 2-5) and Velocity (grades 6-8). Because of low numbers, only Velocity is currently running with Kampfer lumping together the two programs — it has students currently in grades 3-7.
Kampfer also offers tumbling and noncompetitive cheerleading, the latter including pom routines and some stunting. In fact, a new instructor was hired just last week.
Velocity performed recently during halftime of an Oregon State women’s basketball game and at a city show in South Albany. The team’s next appearance is scheduled for April 3 at a Philomath High Shining Stars fundraiser.
“I feel like dance is a great opportunity to help build kids’ self-esteem, improve their memories and give them structure and discipline,” Kampfer said. “It’s a great way to improve flexibility and skills that could be used later on towards sports, as well as can help improve, academically, due to choreography that has to be memorized.”
Like many businesses, Dance With Me struggled to get through the pandemic. In fact, Kampfer is still trying to get it back to pre-2020 levels.
“Enrollment is down at least 50%,” she said. “I think just with the economy, people are choosier about what activities they can afford. Honestly, I haven’t raised my prices hardly at all. I’ve tried to keep them really fair to encourage people to come out.”
During a normal class schedule, Kampfer in the past has had six to seven instructors at the studio but as of two weeks ago, that number had been down to four. However, some classes are beginning to come back.
“I’m hoping to add some more adult classes in yoga, ballet barre and pilates — those types of classes to draw in more adults,” Kampfer said.
Group and private ballroom lessons, as well as Chinese dance, are current options.
For information about current or future classes, get in touch with Kampfer at 541-760-6821.
