Last year, I wrote about private equity creeping into the dance space: dance studios, membership organizations, software, training platforms, and dance competitions.

Now, private equity isn’t just creeping, it is having a grand old time.

Yes, the trust recession I mentioned last spring is now as active and lively as a group of children playing rambunctiously on the playground.

CAPTURE THE FLAG: BROADWAY DANCE CENTER

I’m going to get straight to it.

Ensemble Performing Arts acquired Broadway Dance Center in New York City.

Pivot Point Securities brokered the deal.

Notice the last sentence of the announcement:

“Bringing together 2 of the most prominent dance institutions in America.”

Richard Ellner and Frank Hatchett founded Broadway Dance Center in 1984.

It is a dance home that many, exceptional artists, from around the world love or have loved at some point in their career, myself included.

Ensemble Performing Arts started acquiring dance related business post-Covid.

They are not one and the same.

Broadway Dance Center is “inspiring the world to dance.”

Meanwhile, Ensemble Performing Arts focuses on acquisition and expansion.

A snapshot of their portfolio includes:

~125 Music & Dance Schools (with a goal of 250 by 2030)
Showstopper Competition
Acrobatic Arts
Accelerate Acro Convention
Artswrk Hiring Platform
More Than Just Great Dancing

This aggressive and expansive footprint was backed by private equity. While the exact numbers were never super clear (they never are in private equity), Juggernaut Capital, a private equity firm, exited Ensemble Performing Arts in August 2025. Juggernaut initially announced the exit, both on their website and via press release; however, it has since disappeared from public view. You can still find documentation of the exit on this archive page.

As we know, private equity follows a playbook.

To create a “youth consolidation platform”, private equity backing is typical.

While there is no current, documented holding company, the Founder, Jeff Homer, is a self-described “private equity guy” that is envisioning an industry roll-up of both music and dance.

You can learn more about the Ensemble plan in his own words on the following podcasts:

The Value of Roll-Ups As Seen Through the Lens of Music Schools

(Harvard Business School; Fall 2025)

Roll-Up Revolution: Jeff Homer on Acquiring and Selling Music Schools

(May 2026)

Notice both of the above titles avoid dance; however, if you listen to them, dance is very much part of the conversation.

Could this be by design to keep the dance piece out of the algorithm and SEO/AIO?

(SEO=Search Engine Optimization and AIO= Artificial Intelligence Optimization)

If this roll-up is great for the dance industry, why not shout it from the rooftops?

And, if there are approximately 125 acquired music and dance schools, why are there fewer than 100 listed on their website?

The lack of transparency is a red flag.

Dance is an art rooted in a human designed experience.

The process of an industry roll-up is counterintuitive to the practice of a performing art.

Ensemble Performing Arts is not alone.

There are many other players on the playground, too.

TAG: CAPEZIO & DANCE MEDIA

Turns out, not all private equity acquisitions related to dance take the quiet approach.

When Argand Partners tagged in and acquired Capezio in 2025, press releases and statements were everywhere.

In fact, this acquisition was so visible that it received the 2026 Mergers & Acquisitions Deal of the Year.

Many noticed that the acquired Capezio quickly acquired Discount Dance Supply, dissolving the platform we once knew and shifting it to a targeted e-commerce site for funneled Capezio brands.

Another move straight from the private equity playbook.

While transparent, there’s no doubt this shift will create ripples in the retail side of the market.

(Capezio isn’t the first dance retailer to be acquired; Audax acquired Revolution Dance in 2018.)

On the media front, in early May 2026, Dance Media was acquired by Rubelmann Capital and Coogee Bay Partners. This includes Dance Magazine, Dance Spirit, Pointe, Dance Teacher, Dance Retailer News, and The Dance Edit. This was a shift from their 2023 merger with Hollywood.com, which was partially backed by private equity.

HIDE AND SEEK: DANCEONE & VARSITY

Since 2023, we’ve known that DanceOne was acquired and backed by TZP Group. The self-proclaimed “NCAA of the Dance Industry”, the group holds the competitive companies Break the Floor Productions and Star Dance Alliance. The current CEO, Dan Galpern, has a long standing history within the private equity space.

Basically, if you enter multiple competitions or attend events under this umbrella (they host over 500 yearly events), the money is all going through the same funnel:

Ovation
Jump
Nuvo
24 Seven
Radix
Kaos
Starpower
Nexstar
Revolution
Believe
Imagine
Dreammaker
The One Nationals
The Dance Awards
World Dance Championships
The World Dance Pageant
Power Pak
DancerPalooza
The DanceOne Summit
Wild

We know what competition invoices look like…so you can do the math.

And, all of that money is all going to the same place.

Getting back to the NCAA, we’ve all heard of Varsity Brands.

This is perhaps one of the most textbook examples of a private equity backed industry roll-up.

For dance, there’s already the Varsity backed UDA and NDA, which activates conversation every winter and spring about the lost artistry in dance.

Now, Varsity is entering the dance space in new ways via recent acquisitions of the following:

CLI Conservatory
OneBeat Dance Brands
- Beyond the Stars
- Groove
- Breakout
- Reverb
- The Studio Line
- USDR (United States Dance Regulators)
- Dance Forward

(Their affiliation is very transparent on the Varsity Brands job posting site.)

MONKEY IN THE MIDDLE: DSOA & DANCE STUDIO PRO

In 2022, Togetherwork acquired DSOA (Dance Studio Owner Association), a studio owner membership organization, and Dancely (a template driven curriculum program) to join its acquisition of DanceStudio-Pro, a software platform. DanceStudio-Pro was acquired by Togetherwork in 2018.

DSOA Founder, Clint Salter, exited the company in December 2024.

After his exit, Olivia Mode-Carter joined as CEO.

Recently, in April 2026, Olivia Mode-Carter left the company, sharing the following statement on social media:

“Over the past several months, DSOA has been reorganized within our parent company, and I’ve experienced a growing misalignment between that direction and my personal vision for the DSOA, the success of our members, and the community we’ve built together.”

Now, the organization uses a “dedicated leadership and coaching team” to run the organization.

DEEP BREATHS

Sometimes, when you play too hard you need to sit on a shady bench and take a deep breath.

And, after reading this, you may want to, as well.

After all, this is not an isolated deal. This is an industry wide structural shift.

The ecosystem is moving and consolidating into different platform conglomerates.

Others are taking notice.

Just last week, the Let Kids Play Act emerged to tackle private equity vulture practices in youth sports. While Varsity is already on their radar, it is important that youth performing arts be included.

For many of us, our job, as leaders, parents, and artists, is to serve as consumer advocates for the people in our care.

We have due diligence to inform them about these shifts.

The majority of the acquisitions listed above have happened in the last 3 years.

There’s no way this list is even close to all-compassing.

It could change tomorrow!

And, mark my words, there are many other negotiations happening that have not yet closed.

It would be naive to think this will not continue to happen, especially in major metro markets.

If you are locally owned, make sure your community knows.
If you are unsure about who owns where your dollars are going, don’t be afraid to ask questions.
If you are confused about any of this, talk about it.

Everyone should garner as much knowledge and perspective as possible.

That’s the only way to be informed.

Playgrounds represent a gathering space of community.

In this metaphorical sense, it is a space of viewpoints, players and knowledge converging.

Private equity playing in the dance space concerns me.

It has for years.

My concern and leading these conversations has created consequences for myself.

And, yet, I can’t look away.

Dance has given so much to me.

I have no doubt it has given so much to you.

When dance becomes this product that has to be amplified, churned, and magnified, it feels less significant than it should.

While everyone on Wall Street could probably use a dance class, are they the people that should be leading dance industry roll-ups and expansions in varying sectors of the space?

What happens when an art form built on community and mentorship starts being viewed as a scalable asset?

And, what’s left when they’re done?

Interested in continuing the conversation?

Check out the podcast Nobody Listens to Chasta.

New episodes every Tuesday with a Private Equity episode on 6/9.

Want to catch up on the conversations?

Move the Needle: World of Dance Edition (February 2021)

The Problem with Private Equity (January 2025)

When Profit Meets Pliés: The Unknown Side of Private Equity in Dance (April 2025)

When Profit Meets Pliés: The Next Move (May 2025)