ONE [DANCE] STEP AT A TIME

Kia Kenney, owner of three Arthur Murray Dance Center franchises, is the epitome of an amazing woman. Her studios, located in Nashville-Green Hills, TN, Cambridge, MA, and Worcester, MA, keep her moving faster than a Mambo. An incredibly talented dancer, savvy businesswoman, and owner of award-winning studios, Kia puts excellence in every facet of her life.

Ironically though, she never saw herself being the well-decorated dance champion that she is. “My first memory of anything dance was a ballet class I went to with a friend when I was 6 years old” reveals Kia. “I thought, nope! I’m out of here. Clearly this is not my forte!” She chose to focus on sports, particularly basketball, and set her vision to being part of corporate America.

Kia Kenney’s dance career began when a friend of hers was in Boston for the summer and looking for dance jobs. He found an Arthur Murray Instructor ad and wanted to pursue it. He asked Kia if she would be interested in joining him for some lessons. “We walked into the Boston Arthur Murray studio, and I felt like I had stepped into the movie, Dance with Me,” recalls Kia.

“The vibe, the people, the decorations….it was a little crazy for me,” laughs Kenney. Kia and her friend took 4 Arthur Murray dance lessons, and in a chat with the studio owner about job prospects for her friend, Kia spoke up in what she describes as “A rare moment of external vs internal expression” and said, “Maybe this is MY niche.”

Having started to get an itch for having the Arts back in her life, the idea of being in the business of ballroom dance seemed like a potential blend of both her love for the analytical skills being honed in her role of corporate consulting that she was currently occupying and the rightbrained artistic training of her youth. Kia grew up in a very musical family with her mom being the Music and Arts director at church. Kia always loved being part of any church musical that was happening throughout her junior high and H.S. years, as well as those highly anticipated summer youth group trips with performing teams.

Kia spent her first year at Arthur Murray Dance Center in Boston teaching new students, as well as, getting the studio automated from manual processes to a new software platform. She excelled at teaching, learning so much about motivating others in a new skill, working with different personality types, and planning personalized dance programs. This led to her becoming one of the Top 5 Arthur Murray teachers in the world. This was all driven by a deep-rooted passion for giving others the belief that they could have the joy and confidence that she herself had gained from learning to social dance. To Kia, this represents the most rewarding thing about teaching dance. “Dancing for so many people present personal roadblocks of fear, insecurity, shyness, and general discomfort,” Kia submits. “Having felt all those things myself and having then experienced the personal freedom that learning to partner dance offers for the rest of one’s life, I love breaking off those handcuffs for others!”

Kia believes that teaching dance is gifting others with more joy in life than they had before dancing, and that comes in so many different forms. “Finding the confidence to dance socially for the first time; feeling the achievement of a personal skill obtained outside of their work life, finding a new connection with their life partner, feeling feminine and beautiful despite the calls for strength all day at work, having the courage to ask women to dance, de-stressing after a hard day, discovering a community of new friendships, watching paralysis fade from the new form of movement, losing weight and feeling great again: the testimonies are endless. These benefits of learning to dance are sometimes simple yet other times very deep,” states Kia.

Commitment, patience, and perseverance with yourself, your partner, and the process is the hallmark of the Kia Kenney philosophy. Kia practices 5-6 days a week for 3 hours. 45 min of that time is physical self-preparation and practice of core skills or personal needs, and the remainder of the time is with her partner Christian Lightner.

She’s competed in Banff, Prague, Barcelona, Cancun & Venice as well as US events in L.A., Naples, Boston, San Francisco, New Orleans, New York, D.C., Texas, Chicago, and Seattle. And although the competition dancing is a thrill for Kenney, she still manages to tackle the daily demands of running, managing and owning her award-winning studios so gracefully.

MYNASHVILLE magazine applauds Kia Kenney for all that she takes on in the business world, while changing people’s lives one step at a time in the dance world.