About CCJ Conservatory
Mission Statement
It is the mission of CCJ Conservatory (CCJC) to become a leading United States college preparatory and pre-professional dance training center by maintaining a qualified and highly skilled in house faculty, and by hosting nationally and internationally known guest instructors as guest teachers who are in the professional world of Dance. CCJ is home to an award winning ensemble of highly skilled pre-professional dancers, CCJC will provide exposure of a variety of different styles of dance to the under-served arts audiences of South Carolina. We provide a series of live community performances and through community outreach programs and have offered scholarship opportunities to underprivileged dancers with single parent incomes.
About CCJC
CCJ Conservatory is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit dance conservatory formed in 1999 by artistic director Dale Lam. In addition to recreational dance programs for students ages 3 to 10, we are one of the few pre-professional and college preparatory programs in the S.E. United States.
Under Dale's direction, Dance Spirit Magazine named CCJC as one of the "Top 50 Jazz Dance Companies in the U.S.". Dale was named "Top Private Studio/Conservatory Teacher" by Dance Teacher magazine, and was also appointed as an ambassador to the The Dance Teacher Summit in 2015. Formally a professor of dance at USC in Columbia, S.C., Dale has taught internationally at the Kiradjiev Cultural Center in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, Danz Studio in Costa Rica, and the Singapore Dance Association at Lasalle College of the Arts in Singapore.
Our primary focus with our dancers is "what comes next", whether it's attending a dance program in college or auditioning as a professional dancer. We advise our students on colleges that may feature the best programs for what they're looking for and talk to master teachers and alumni from those particular colleges in order to help prepare our students by assisting them with the audition tools needed and the application or contract process.
CCJ Almuni have had great success after graduation. They are featured dancers in Alvin Ailey, Saarländisches Staatstheater in Germany, on Broadway in shows such as Lion King, Hamilton, Cats, Elf, and the upcoming production of Smash. They have received dance scholarships to the Conservatory of Dance at SUNY Purchase College, USC Glorya Kaufman, and Point Park University. Others have appeared on TV in So You Think You Dance, Dancing with the Stars, Glee, LaLa Land (the movie) Hairspray Live, and more.
CCJ has represented the City of Columbia during the European Union Cultural Month festivities in Plovdiv, Bulgaria; performed during the 1999 Tanzsommer Arts Festival in Innsbruck and St. Johann, Austria; conducted a ten day tour of Singapore consisting of 33 separate performances; performed at Piccolo Spoleto for over 14 years; and a 5-week multi-city tour in China by invitation of The Chinese Ministry of Culture.
CCJ Conservatory is supported in part by the South Carolina Arts Commission, which receives funding from the National Endowment of the Arts. In addition, corporate donations, grants and member fund-raising efforts are one of the chief means of subsidizing CCJ Conservatory dance education. Our outreach and after-school programs have brought the joy of dance to students in urban Columbia as well as outlying communities such as Eastover, Sumter, and Batesburg-Leesville, St. Matthews and Orangeburg. Our Master Class Series and Summer Dance Intensives, attended by dancers from all over the United States, feature internationally known choreographers and master instructors, and has brought national attention to CCJC, along with helping make connections with professional and our students. There is truth to the statement, “It’s not just what you do , it’s also who you know”.