Shuffle ball changes echo around the Jill Listi dance studio in Lafayette, but instead of girls in black leotards and pink tights, the room is full of adults dressed in their casual dance attire. Students exercise their muscles and brains while learning new steps and practicing the routine.
Lisa Breaux, 70, is the adult tap teacher who has been in dance since she was 2 years old. From 1964 through 2004, fer mother, also a dance teacher, owned five studios. Breaux has lived much of her life in the dance studio.
As a dance specialist who teaches students of all ages and with wide variety of mental and physical disabilities, Breaux is a nationally certified dance instructor of Dance Masters of America in ballet, tap, jazz and acrobatics. She has been invited to teach tap at the Dance Masters national convention in Los Angeles. She also is a licensed speech, language and hearing specialist having worked in the Lafayette Parish School System for several years.
On Tuesday nights after her adult tap classes, she teaches a Dance Challenge class for dancers with special needs.
Teaching new tricks
These days, Breaux’s focus is on teaching older dancers new tricks. She choreographs and teaches a new routine each week to her adult tap students. Instead of counts, she instructs by sound…