Dance is not just about steps, it’s about life skills, says dance instructor and owner of Pivotal Academy of Dance in Buda, Jade Greenough Powell. For Jade, dance has never been just about movement. It has been a source of belonging, resilience, and purpose through every season of her life.
It all began with her first dance class at age four and with one special teacher–Miss Trish, whose kindness and sparky personality left an imprint that still echoes through Jade’s own studio today. The goodbye song Miss Trish sang at the end of every class is the very same one Jade now sings with her students, passing along a tradition that spans generations. “I always say it starts with one teacher and the impact that one teacher can have,” she says.
She’s witnessed that impact come full circle several times when students like her become teachers and continue to pay it all forward in the form of imparting wisdom, joy, and healthy life lessons through the fun of dance.
Growing up in South Austin and attending the Shirley McPhail School of Dance, Jade feels lucky that even while she pursued dance on a more serious level through middle and high school, it never felt like work, or something she couldn’t wait to escape.
“I definitely came from a studio that was more recreational first and competition came second,” she said. “I never felt pressured, and I never had an ill taste of dance.” As a teenager, Jade wasn’t too concerned with nailing down her future career path, but she did know it would have something to do with dance. And then she began assisting instructors and discovered she loved leading a room.
“I think at first I just wanted to be the boss,” she laughs, noting the Capricorn in her. “I wanted to be in the front of the room. I wanted to lead.” Over time, leadership became more about mentorship and relationship.
Today, whether she’s teaching preschool dancers, college students at Texas State University, or coaching dance educators through Talks with Jade, her focus remains the same: people first. Those teacher-student relationships, and the pure joy of dance, kept Jade going through some of the most difficult challenges of her life.
Her journey included leaving college when it became financially unfeasible, returning years later to earn her BFA, an early marriage, divorce, and a cancer diagnosis at twenty-eight, followed by a decade of treatments that took a serious toll on her body.
“The only constant was dance,” she says. During treatment, the studio became the one place where illness didn’t define her. “It was the only thing I never quit while I was sick. It was the one place that I was normal.” While chemotherapy changed her appearance and left her exhausted, her students only saw Miss Jade. “The kids didn’t see me as a sick person,” she said. “They saw me as a dance teacher.”
That experience reshaped her perspective, teaching her to spend less time worrying about tomorrow and more time investing in work that mattered and people she loved. In 2016, Jade and her now-husband purchased the studio where she had spent years teaching, creating the kind of place she once needed herself–a place where students are known, encouraged, and challenged to become their best selves.
One of her greatest joys has been watching former students return as teachers, one of whom teaches alongside her every day. Years of shared experience have created a connection only teachers and longtime students can fully understand. “If you work with them long enough, you don’t ever finish your sentences,” she says. “You can look over and go, ‘Hey, what if we did that?’ Yes. We’re going to go there.”
Now in her mid-forties, Jade is working to embrace some transitions as her body can’t do what it once could. She’s had to let go of being the youthful “cool teacher,” but is so grateful that her trusted team of teachers has made it possible for her to branch out, mentoring young instructors, knowing each generation builds on the one before it.
In and outside of her studio, she loves seeing people rediscover the simple joy of movement. Whether it’s a child’s first choreographed dance, an adult tap class, or a couple dancing in their living room just because the music is on, Jade believes dance offers something everyone needs: connection and an enduring spirit of playfulness. It’s about finding confidence, building relationships, and discovering the kind of teacher—or person—whose influence lasts long after the music ends.
“I always tell the kids I’m going to be that eighty-year-old with a walker that’s still teaching tap dancing,” says Jade.
To learn more about Pivotal Dance go to their website. https://www.pivotalacademyofdance.com/