MADISON, Wis. — When Clyde Mayberry moved from Houston, TX to Madison, WI as a child, he noticed there was no performing arts outlet for Black people. As a lover of dance, he opened up his first dance studio on Park St. at just 700 square feet, tailored towards Black and brown kids.
“I wanted a studio ran for them, by them, and by people that look like them. I want little ballerinas to walk in and be taught by Black ballerinas,” Mayberry said. “A lot of my families come in and say, ‘Hey I enrolled her in this school and she was bullied, she felt uncomfortable, the instructor didn’t know why her hair had to be braided to protect her hairstyle versus put in a bun every rehearsal.’ Those things destroy Black kids.”
The studio, known as The House Inc., and its dancers have caught the attention of BET. Mayberry said his dance teams have performed on Broadway, for former President Barack Obama, and have gone on to compete in a handful of national championships.
As his business grew, Mayberry moved into what’s now a 2,000 square-foot space along the West Beltline Highway in January 2020. But on March 12, 2020, he was forced to close due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, Mayberry has faced an eviction threat and lost half his students due to their families’ financial hardships through an unprecedented year.
Through community fundraising, Mayberry said he was able to evade being evicted from his space. But now, he said he needs to come up with $50,000 to stay open for his students who rely on his studio for a safe place to go.
“I love what I do, but financially it is so hard. I don’t know if we can take another 30 days of this,” Mayberry said. “This is the only thing they have. It’s so important that this community steps up and helps us.”
Mayberry currently has about 43 kids still signed up for dance classes but many of them face incredible financial hardships. Mayberry said most are below the poverty level, constantly show up hungry pleading for a meal and use his space as a form of relief and comfort from the troubles they face at home.
“We had a kid suffering from harming herself. Because we are a physical program, they have to wear practice clothing, we noticed it. We were able to wrap our hands around her and just remind her of how beautiful she was and that she was important.”
Mayberry said he provides meals and toiletries to kids who show up hungry and without essential items. Mayberry also gives kids rides homes or to nearby shelters when needed.
The lease on The House Inc. is up in June. Mayberry is hopeful that the community will help raise $50,000 by then to support overhead costs, create scholarships for kids who want to join his dance studio, and eventually save enough to move into a bigger and better space.
“I want to have a performing arts space and we also want to expand a community center space so that we can offer food pantries,” he said.
Mayberry said through future fundraisers, he’s hoping to be able to offer 100 scholarships to kids in need so they don’t have to worry about the cost of attending his studio and can just come dance in a safe space, in the only outlet many of the kids have.
“Every kid that we have endured since 2003 has left and went to college. Every single one of them,” he said.
Mayberry said he’s heartbroken because right now, kids can’t go to school, afterschool programs and haven’t been able to do extracurricular activities. He is pleading for help from the community to save a space that has helped save so many kids’ lives by taking them off the streets and keeping them in the studio.
“Every kid that we have endured since 2003 has left and went to college,” Mayberry said. “Every single one of them.”
If you would like to donate, you can do so through a number of ways:
Donate to the GoFundMe here.
Donate to Mayberry’s friend’s fundraiser for the studio here.
Send money through Cashapp to: $thehouseua
Send a check to:
The House Inc.
313 A. Beltline Highway
Suite 49
Madison, WI 57313
Or you can visit the Dynamic Badgerett’s Facebook page and look for the links to donate.
Mayberry said if you can’t donate, but want to help in another way, he suggests writing letters to the kids. Mayberry said the money is important but “love is bigger than everything.”
COPYRIGHT 2021 BY CHANNEL 3000. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. THIS MATERIAL MAY NOT BE PUBLISHED, BROADCAST, REWRITTEN OR REDISTRIBUTED.
