About Sanctuary
Sanctuary Dance Academy LLC was founded in 2023 to offer faith-based dance education of the highest quality to Roane County, Tennessee, and the surrounding areas. We train our students in classical technique in a safe and encouraging environment while also challenging each student to reach their full potential as a dancer, whether it is their very first class or their tenth year en pointe.
Our class offerings have grown well beyond where we began. Today we teach ballet, pointe, lyrical/jazz, contemporary, and worship & international dance, along with hip hop, tumbling, karate, and Mommy & Me, plus our Junior and Senior Dance Companies for dancers ready to take the next step. We also offer adult classes, including Adult Worship & International dance!
Our heart
We believe in challenging our students while placing the highest priority on proper technique, flexibility, and strength training in order to prevent injuries and propel dancers to the next level. Strong training is never about rushing toward tricks. It is about building healthy dancers who will be able to keep dancing for years to come.
We also believe in protecting the innocence of children and honoring God in all that we do. Because of this, we choose only costumes, songs, and movements that are age-appropriate and glorifying to Christ. Parents trust us with their children, and we hold that trust as a sacred thing.
And we believe in having FUN in class and enjoying the amazing gift of dance together! Discipline and delight belong side by side, and it is our goal that every student who enters the classroom will feel encouraged, safe, and loved.
Our founder
Sanctuary was born out of a lifetime of dance. Christen McCuiston was born and raised right here in Roane County, and her own journey began in 1991, when she was six years old. She fell in love early, not only with the beauty of dance, but with its purpose: worshiping and glorifying her Savior. She grew up performing with the Knoxville-based Christian dance company For Zion's Sake, dancing locally, nationally, and internationally.
In 2004, Christen was invited to begin teaching at the very school where she had grown up, and a passion for sharing the gift of dance was set in motion that still drives her today. Over the next two decades she taught students of every age across Knox, Blount, Loudon, and Cumberland Counties. She served as assistant director of the For Zion's Sake dance company from 2004 to 2018 and of Lighthouse Artistic Ministries from 2011 to 2012, and she directed the Bezalel School of International Dance & Pageantry from 2017 to 2019.
Her training runs deep. Christen is trained in ballet, pointe, jazz, lyrical, and international folk dance, and she continues her own education year after year, including through Ballet Magnificat's Summer Teacher Intensives. Because she is passionate about keeping dancers healthy, she traveled to Colorado in 2016 to complete multiple levels of injury-prevention training under the well-known Australian dance physiotherapist Lisa Howell. Her degree carries a concentration in Exercise Science, deepening her understanding of anatomy, physiology, strength training, and injury prevention.
In 2020, Christen was given the opportunity to teach dance closer to home. After three years of teaching in Roane County, and nearly two decades of teaching overall, she felt the Lord leading her to open a studio of her own in her hometown. In 2023, Sanctuary Dance Academy began. What started inside the Shape Up Gym has since grown into a home of our own, and today we are proud to teach in our own space with three beautiful studio rooms. The studio has grown in so many other ways too, adding a full team of teachers, a Junior and Senior Dance Company, summer camps, and a yearly recital at Roane State Community College's O'Brien Theatre.
Christen's heart for the studio grew out of three loves: her love for the Lord, her love for dance, and her love for her community. She wanted Roane County families to have a place where strong classical training, a Christ-centered foundation, and a childhood-honoring environment all belong together.
The name
The name was chosen with intention, for two reasons.
First, a sanctuary is a place of worship. We long to teach our students to use dance as a means of worshiping, rejoicing in, and glorifying our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, just as we are called to in Psalm 149 and 150.
Second, a sanctuary is a place of refuge. It is our goal that every student who enters the classroom at Sanctuary Dance Academy will feel encouraged, safe, and loved.
That is the heart behind everything we do. We are passionate about using dance to honor God and sharing this gift with children and adults alike.
Join us
We would love to have you join us!
Our space
Before Sanctuary ever opened its doors, a beloved group of family and friends gave their summer to us. They drywalled and painted, laid our sprung floor, and poured in more hours than anyone could count to make this space ready. This studio was built by their hands and their hearts, and we could not have done it without their time and support. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.
