Dance Til Dawn: From post-lockdown dreams to centre stage

Posted on 28 November, 2025

Three years ago, Chloe Niu and her dancer friends were just looking for something fun to do after COVID lockdowns ended.

This Sunday, the studio they built from those casual weekend classes will take its biggest step yet: a full end-of-year showcase featuring everyone from their youngest students to guest performers.

Dance Til Dawn (DTD) will present performances from students, guest artists, and even its youngest dancers this Sunday 30 November, marking a significant moment for founder Chloe Niu and her team.

DTD emerged in 2022 from what Chloe describes as a simple desire to “do some fun things” after lockdown. She and her dancer friends started offering classes on a casual basis, initially just K-Pop and jazz funk on weekends.

“We received more and more inquiries,” Chloe recalls. Many students were international or from multicultural backgrounds who wanted to dance but found it difficult to connect with local dance communities.

“Our vision started from building a bridge between these groups and the local dance community.”

What began as weekend classes has evolved considerably. The studio moved into its permanent Braddon space about 18 months ago, now offering a whole lot more classes than the K-Pop classes it became known for – the style serving as an excellent gateway to other dance forms.

“K-Pop is such a mix, they have a bit of hip hop foundation, have a bit of jazz, and absolutely there’s some teamwork,” says DTD teacher Emily Huang.

Students often discover which styles resonate with them through K-Pop before branching into street jazz, hip-hop, or other genres.

The growth of K-Pop culture more broadly hasn’t hurt either. Emily has noticed an uptick in new students recently, particularly children whose parents are enrolling them based on their kids’ interests. You can thank KPop Demon Hunters for that!

It’s Chloe’s desire to make dance accessible for all that was the motivator behind DTD. She saw a gap between complete beginners and dancers who’d been in classes since childhood – people with passion but perhaps only “two to three dance classes” under their belt, who’d struggle to keep pace in more advanced settings.

The studio now offers classes across multiple styles, with teachers from other cities who hold dance degrees bringing more professional training pathways.

“We want DTD to be known as a boutique studio with quality classes, and we want to build up this immersive and inclusive environment for dancers,” Chloe says.

To do that, the team is focused on what DTD does well: commercial jazz, jazz funk, and K-Pop in an open-class format that welcomes both casual drop-ins and committed students. Several new teachers are joining the roster, including well-trained Korean dancers new to Canberra.

Ask Chloe about her five-year plan and she laughs – she doesn’t really have one. But she does have a vision. She thinks about established studios that have built generations of dancers, each cohort inspiring the next.

“If we can build up the culture of dancing with DTD… they bring the next generation, the next generation, they have this very well-trained dancer cycle. That’s something we want to achieve.”

For now, the focus is on Sunday’s showcase, which will feature student performances alongside guest acts, with behind-the-scenes content screening between pieces. During intermission, there’ll be activities, door prizes, complimentary class passes from Team Pilates, and market-style tents outside the venue that guests can explore and learn more about businesses like sponsors AusDream, a leading Canberra-based migration agency.

With students ranging from children to adults, and styles spanning multiple K-Pop eras and influences, it promises to be an energetic celebration of how far the studio has come.