Black-owned businesses | Culture & Community | Dance | Hamden | Arts & Culture
James Brockington (top photo, with Jamilah Prince-Stewart to his left) and Tia Russell Brockington (bottom photo), who have led TRDS/TRAC for the past 13 years, and have deep roots in New Haven. Lucy Gellman Photos.
Just off a quiet, rain-splattered Marne Street, Tia Russel Arts Center was wide awake. Inside, friends embraced each other, coming in for hugs that were tight, fraternal. Beyond columns of bright balloons at the front door, teachers Jocelyn Freeman and Earron Williams cheered as young dancers took the floor, and did impromptu solos to DeBarge’s “Rhythm of the Night.” Across the space, 9-year-old Reighna Johnson emerged in orange sweats and a leotard, and joined in the festivities.
Part dance party, part testimony, and all heart, Tia Russell Arts Center (TRAC, also known as Tia Russell Dance Studio or TRDS) marked its one-year anniversary in Hamden Saturday afternoon, with a ribbon cutting and short speaking program that celebrated the creative and cultural village it has built through dance.
Throughout, co-owners James Brockington and Tia Russell Brockington exuded gratitude, noting that none of their journey would have been possible without both their faith and the faith of the community they have behind them.
Over 200 people attended, from dance parents and students in all make and manner of pink lycra to Hamden Mayor Adam Sendroff, Hamden Town Clerk Karimah Mickens, and State Rep. Laurie Sweet, who represents Connecticut’s 91st district in the state legislature.
“I’m grateful for this moment,” said Russell Brockington, a daughter of New Haven whose dream, rooted in dance, sprang to life with a small studio in Woodbridge 13 years ago. “James and I are used to pushing, plowing, pushing forward, and sometimes we don’t take the opportunity to just pause and realize all that God has given us.”
The community that gathered, from tiny-slippered “Tia Tots” to high school students, TRAC alumni, parents, and grandparents, is a testament to the vision they have had. In almost a decade and a half, TRAC has grown from a few dozen students to a few hundred, with some young people who are there five or six days a week. Its teachers, many of whom grew up alongside Russell Brockington, have helped grow class offerings for both young people and adults.
The studio’s model, meanwhile, is intergenerational by design: students who started with TRAC in its early years now teach its youngest dancers, passing on the craft as they hone their own skills as dance educators.
Chase McCarter, who runs the ChoZen Generation Mentorship Program for young men.
Williams, a school social worker who studied with teachers Robyn Handy and Dee Dee Handy-Morris at the legendary Dee Dee's Dance Center, knew Russell Brockington first as a friend and artist through the dance community. A few years ago, she was thrilled when Russell Brockington asked her to begin teaching the studio’s youngest students. It was an easy yes for her, she said: TRAC is family. And New Haven—and now Hamden—is home. She now teaches two days a week, after a full day of work.
“It’s coming home,” she said. “It’s like home for me. They’ve poured so much into these students … they make every kid feel like a star. Like they can do anything. They’re intentional about getting to know each kid.”
She trailed off as Brockington hopped on the mic with an ebullient “Tia Russell what time is it?”
“It’s time to get loud, it’s time to get lit!” hundreds of young voices cheered back in unison. In the very front of the studio, a cadre of tiny dancers pumped their arms and bent their knees in time with the call-and-response.
Over and over again Saturday, speakers made clear that TRAC is in the business of building not just dancers—although it does that very well—but also creating a safe space where Black and Brown young people, and particularly young women, can be fully themselves. On any given day, for instance, TRAC might offer support and affinity groups, mentorship opportunities, a space for girl talk, and a pop-up class for adults in addition to its roster of ballet, jazz, tap, acro dance, lyrical, West African, and the Horton technique.
The new Marne Street building, meanwhile, is large enough for parents to stay and co-work in a designated lounge while dancers (and teachers) spread out across multiple studios closer to the back of the building. In between, a black-and-red front desk greets young artists, letting them know it’s time to put down their phones and get into the right headspace for dance. There are currently over 250 dancers enrolled at the studio, according to Brockington.
Hamden Mayor Adam Sendroff: "It's so wonderful to introduce young people to the arts, but what I'm really thankful for is that you're creating community right here in Hamden."
“This is a Black-owned, woman-owned, family-owned business in our community,” said Jamilah Prince-Stewart, a dance mom who is the founding and current chief executive officer of FaithActs for Education. “I just ask that God continues to bless the vision, continues to bless your leadership, and cover everything that you do … this is only the beginning.”
Prince-Stewart remembered meeting Russell Brockington “back in the 90s,” when she was still just four or five years old, and Russell Brockington was a teenager. At the time, Prince-Stewart was a student at the Dixwell Community Arts Center, a program that the Rev. Dr. Edwin R. Edmonds launched and ran during a transformative 35-year tenure at Dixwell Avenue Congregational United Church of Christ.
There, in the basement of the church, Prince-Stewart saw Russell Brockington perform for the first time. There were four or five other dancers on the stage, all of them young Black women in whom Prince-Stewart could see herself. It changed her life.
“You could not take your eyes off of Tia,” she said. In part, that was because Russell Brockington had a grace and presence that was unmatched, and still is decades later. But it was also the sheer power of Prince-Stewart seeing herself reflected on stage, a gift she has since passed on to her young daughter, Leona-Naomi. “It wasn’t just what she was physically able to do, but you could feel her movement. And now, she is instilling that in every single young dancer in this community.”
That same sense of community inspired Prince-Stewart to encourage Brockington to think beyond the studio’s space in Woodbridge, which could feel cozy on its good days, and tight on its harder ones. At some point, she turned to Brockington—who is the financial and entrepreneurial mind behind the business—and suggested that the studio needed a bigger building.
Teacher Jocelyn Freeman, who teaches some of the studio's youngest students and is also a full-time educator in the New Haven Public Schools.
“And I said, okay,” Brockington remembered to knowing laughs and a few utterances of yes! that rippled through the space. He turned toward fellow dance mom Janina Tauro, a Hamden resident and therapist who became part of TRAC’s journey in 2020. Prior to the move last year, Tauro would take her daughters to other spots in Woodbridge, like the public library and the JCC, between classes, because the studio was too crowded. Now, she works from the Marne Street studio five afternoons a week, when her kids are in class.
“Watching this growth and true change has been unbelievable,” she said. “You know, watching all these little girls being in community, doing their homework together, being taught by strong, amazing teachers every day just touches my heart … I thought it was important to have this ribbon cutting to let Hamden know that we’ve arrived!”
“That’s right!” a voice came, clear as a bell, from a sea of people that had assembled for the event. Back behind a thick red ribbon, Brockington pointed out the synchronicity of the moment: Prince-Stewart and Tauro had never met, but had both talked to Brockington and Russell Brockington about growing their space in the same week.
That’s what TRAC does: it brings people together through the arts, and keeps them envisioning a shared and vibrant future for their families.
Even as the rain fell in sheets outside, Russell Brockington kept that momentum going, leading the room in prayer before she and Brockington cut the ribbon, and invited attendees to stay for lunch and music. Looking around, Russell Brockington thanked every attendee that came out, taking in the hundreds of smiling, joyful faces looking back at her.
As a woman, a mother, an artist and a business owner who rarely pauses, she took a beat to take stock of everything she and Brockington have built in the past 13 years. She is the first to say that they have not done it alone: they have dozens of teachers, and hundreds of students, parents, and alumni on the journey with them. They also have their faith, which she called the foundation on which they are able to stand.
“This is a moment for us to stop and just reflect on what God has done over 13 years in business,” Russell Brockington as the room exploded into cheering and applause. As she spoke, the couple’s daughter, Londyn Brockington looked on, beaming. A sixth grader at Betsy Ross Arts & Design Academy, Londyn is already a rigorous dancer and teacher to some of the studio’s youngest students, following in the footsteps of her mom.
State Rep. Laurie Sweet, reading a proclamation to the studio. Behind her are Janina Tauro and Jamilah Prince-Stewart.
Russell Brockington looked around, at walls that seemed to glow with bright photos of TRAC dancers and alumni on stage, at recitals, in the studio and doing their thing in downtown New Haven. In a recent series, by New Haven-based photographer Ebony Mckelvey, dancers pose against the red brick of Yale’s Kirtland Hall at dusk, their faces fierce and radiant.
She remembered walking into the space at 35 Marne St., and feeling a short, temporary tug of uncertainty. The spot, which had formerly been a multi-purpose party rental spot called Monkey Joe’s, still had bright purple and yellow paint. The floor sprawled out in all directions, without the slightest hint that balletic leaps, propulsive rhythms, or wall-to-wall mirrors could ever exist in it.
She took a breath, and then took a leap of faith. One year later, it has blossomed into a new chapter of growth that neither she nor Brockington could have fully imagined.
“Lord, this is so much bigger than dance,” she said. “This is our ministry … We are pouring into these children. They might not be in dance forever. But they might be empowered when they leave here. So I say father, thank you for the gift to encourage, to empathize, to build up.”
As TRAC students, parents and alumni reveled in the afternoon, student Reighna Johnson sat quietly for a moment by the front windows, collecting her thoughts. Four years ago, she walked into TRAC—then Tia Russell Dance Studio (TRDS) in Woodbridge—with a love for dance. Now, she spends afternoons learning West African, tap, jazz, hip hop and ballet. It has allowed her to grow not just as a dancer, but also as a student and a social butterfly—TRAC is her home base for making and maintaining friendships.
When asked if the space feels like family, she nodded emphatically and smiled.
At a table nearby, Lora Russell soaked it all in, grateful for a moment to share in her daughter’s accomplishments and full of both joy and faith for the future. As Russell Brockington’s mom, she’s seen and lived the whole creative journey alongside her daughter, there literally from day one. Saturday, she remembered Russell Brockington at just three years old, looking up with a certainty that she was going to be a dancer.
“And she said, ‘Ma, I want to teach ballet,’” Russell remembered with a smile. That was that: Russell Brockington was soon dancing formally, first with choreographer Larry Farrell (Farrell for years was a teacher at the Bowen/Peters School of Dance), then at Dee Dee’s and Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School. She was an early teacher, full of compassion for her students, and never lost that generous touch. To this day, Russell said, she marvels at how her daughter knows not just the name, but also the story of every dancer who walks through the studio’s doors.
“I know who my daughter is, and she is so full of God’s spirit,” Russell said, adding that Brockington has been an amazing other half as she builds her vision. “I feel that God is just continuing to bless them … they love what they are doing, and they continue to give so much [of themselves].”