Education & Classes in Kansas City

The professional instructors of the Kansas City School of Music pass along musical torches to students learning the basics of strumming strings or tickling ivories during private and group lessons. Private studios insulated with soundproof walls ensure maximum concentration for students sight reading on acoustic pianos or turning the pages of sheet music with their minds. No more than six pupils attend each group session, which takes place in spacious, temperature-controlled rooms. Each instructor follows a comprehensive curricula and encourages students to participate in recitals.

The teaching staff of the Toon Shop, a former Kansas City fixture founded in 1948, now helms the newly inaugurated Village Music Academy. More than 40 independent instructors harness their combined 400 years of experience to immerse students of all levels in rock, classical, jazz, pop, and country techniques. 48 studio spaces—enough for each member of the Partridge Family to practice individually at once—nurture instruction in strings, woodwinds, and horns, and an auditorium showcases the results with appropriate reverence. The staff also helps prepare students for school band or orchestra. Sunny days might find an open-air audience gathered to watch the school's musicians performing in the plaza of the Prairie Village Shopping Center.

After spending 32 years enriching the lives of children as an educator, Dr. Gwen Larson Morris shifted career paths when her passion for photography led her to found Gwen Morris Studio. With an artistic approach that she describes as "painting with light, highlights, and shadows," Morris uses natural elements to create inimitable portraits for her clients, whether she's snapping maternity pictures, senior pictures, or canine law-school-graduation pictures. As comfortable in the classroom as she is behind a camera, Morris leads aspiring photographers and shutterbugs through workshops in the art of memory preservation, helping them grasp the inner workings of their cameras while finding their own photographic style.

Burgeoning artists in their junior and senior years of high school spend four days immersed in the topics of their choice, picking from disciplines such as interior design, game arts, and photography. Sketching, filming, and whisking meringue by day, the students work hard before shopping, dining, pool partying, or beret adjusting at night. Pupils who opt for lodging rest up for back-to-back, intensive courses in the local Holiday Inn Hotel and Suites, in between a packed agenda designed to proffer a taste of art school life.

Spurred by a drive to instill children with a love for the arts and to build their self-esteem, professional actor Miles McMahon helms an array of educational programs at Theatre of the Imagination. He and his staff of local theater lovers build on more than 2,000 successful children's theatrical productions through creative summer camps, acting and performance classes, special workshops, and birthday parties for performers in prekindergarten through ninth grade. Miles writes a completely new work for each class and camp, using the script to immerse students in a cooperative, creative environment while freeing them from the pressures of lead roles, auditions, and autographer's elbow. Staff members can also conduct Movie Star Acting birthday parties, where they shoot a short film with the birthday child as the star.

Many studios teach the art of social dancing, but often omit teaching the art of being social. The instructors at TC Dance Club ensure that guests spend as much time kibitzing as they do foxtrotting by hosting classes and open-bar club parties. Between soirees, they teach group and private lessons in dances such as ballroom, Latin, and swing, expediting the learning process by emphasizing the similar patterns across the range of styles. Dancers can dazzle their peers with their newly acquired fancy footwork during Friday night parties, Saturday socials, and member dance shows.

The studio transports students into an elegant dance-hall setting with softly lit chandeliers and a glowing fireplace. The expansive floating dance floor is surrounded by dining tables, sofas, and built-in bar, where patrons can mingle and pontificate on the evolution of the macarena.