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Photo by Jon Anderson
Genia Waller, left, leads Sophia Chen, Ellie Bird and Bronwyn Hicks in a ballet class at The Dance Factory in the Cahaba Heights community in Vestavia Hills, Alabama, on Wednesday, April 23, 2025.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
Genia Waller leads Bronwyn Hicks and Ellie Bird in a ballet class at The Dance Factory in the Cahaba Heights community in Vestavia Hills, Alabama, on Wednesday, April 23, 2025.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
Bronwyn Hicks, left, joins Ellie Bird and Sophia Chen in a ballet class at The Dance Factory in the Cahaba Heights community in Vestavia Hills, Alabama, on Wednesday, April 23, 2025.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
Genia Waller, right, leads Sophia Chen, Bronwyn Hicks and Ellie Bird in a ballet class at The Dance Factory in the Cahaba Heights community in Vestavia Hills, Alabama, on Wednesday, April 23, 2025.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
Genia Waller, right, leads Sophia Chen, Bronwyn Hicks and Ellie Bird in a ballet class at The Dance Factory in the Cahaba Heights community in Vestavia Hills, Alabama, on Wednesday, April 23, 2025.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
Genia Waller, right, leads Bronwyn Hicks, Ellie Bird and Sophia Chen in a ballet class at The Dance Factory in the Cahaba Heights community in Vestavia Hills, Alabama, on Wednesday, April 23, 2025.
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Photo by Jon Anderson
Genia Waller, center, gives instruction to Ellie Bird, Bronwyn Hicks and Sophia Chen in a ballet class at The Dance Factory in the Cahaba Heights community in Vestavia Hills, Alabama, on Wednesday, April 23, 2025.
Genia Waller started dancing when she was 6 years old after begging her mother to let her take dance classes like her sister at a studio in Bluff Park.
By age 13, she had become a student teacher. She went on to take dance classes at Birmingham-Southern College and the University of Alabama at Birmingham and worked for another studio for seven years before deciding to launch her own studio called The Dance Factory in Cahaba Heights in June 1987.
Thirty-eight years later, she’s still at it. Her studio has taught thousands of students how to do ballet, tap, jazz, pointe and hip-hop.
“I just love giving the kids the joy and confidence in themselves and knowing they can accomplish something,” Waller said. “It’s just a joy to see these kids grow and what they can do with it. It gives them so much confidence for so many things in what they do in life.”
When Waller started, she had a single studio in a shopping center on Overton Road across from where Publix is today, but she quickly outgrew that space. Three and a half years later, she moved into her current location on Bearden Court about half a mile away.
She now has two studio classrooms in a 3,000-square-foot space and offers about 24 classes a week to 135 students from age 2½ to adults. She also teaches classes at the Journey preschool at Mountain Brook Community Church and the Chabad of Alabama preschool, and one of her instructors, Jeninne Poe, teaches a class at the Hilltop Montessori School.
Poe has been with her since the beginning. Waller also currently has two other instructors and several student teachers.
Waller said she can teach all the dance classes they offer except hip-hop. She feels more comfortable letting one of the younger teachers lead that class, she said. She handles a lot of the baby classes and an adult jazz class.
Most of her students are ages 3 through high school, but she has about half a dozen adults in jazz and tap classes, she said. Most of those have been coming for 15 years or so, she said. Many of the adults benefit from the social interaction as much as the dance instruction, she said. Sometimes, it’s more of a therapy session than a dance class, she said.
Most of her students are from Vestavia Hills and Mountain Brook, but she also gets students from the Oak Mountain, Spain Park and occasionally Homewood school zones, she said. She also has home school and private school students.
The Dance Factory doesn’t do competitions. It’s more recreational dance. A lot of her girls are part of their dance teams at school or play sports but still like to dance recreationally, she said.
The cost of classes ranges from $75 for one class a week to $110 for six classes a week. “I have quite a few of my high school girls that take everything,” Waller said.
The classes run from August through May, but The Dance Factory also offers some summer programs in June and July. The students currently are preparing for their spring recital scheduled for May 17 at Mountain Brook High School.
“I love my girls. I feel like they’re mine,” Waller said. “I try to tell the girls to leave all the negative outside and to let this be their happy place.”
For more information, visit thedancefactory.biz or call 205-967-3384.
