One conversation with Venita McLemore and you know you have found a star. Venita took time to sit down with us here at DanceStudioOwner.com and offer a behind the scenes look at how her company, DanzEmergencee began.

Venita: I have been a dancer for all my life. I started dancing when I was three years old -- ballet, tap, and even gymnastics. I'm from South Carolina and danced with Eboni Dance Theater, Columbia City Ballet Nutcracker Productions, Irmo Hi-Steppers and various dance studios in Columbia. I just really enjoy dance. After high school, I thought, "I think that I'm really going to pursue this -- a dance career." I didn't want to go to college. I wanted to come straight to New York and make it happen. But my parents suggested college instead.

DanceStudioOwner: What did you decide after your parents said no to going to NYC?

Venita: I ended up going to Columbia College and majoring in dance. I received a BFA in performance and choreography while also doing a BA in biology. When that was over, I went to the University of Colorado at Boulder and worked towards my master's degree in dance -- all while teaching at the Dance Department in Columbia, South Carolina, which was a brand new studio that my dance team teacher, Lauren Metts, had started.

She started with a one room studio and I taught there one day a week. There were only three teachers and 60 students registered for the one-room studio located in a strip mall. By the time I was a sophomore in college, she had a brand new building with two studios, a dance supply store, and over 15 teachers. This all happened within three years. She had 300-500 kids. Now, when I go back today, she has another brand new building with five studios and 1400 students!

DanceStudioOwner: What did you learn through watching your dance team teacher grow her studio?

Venita: I've always been in the studio and observed how things work. I knew then that it was difficult but that anything is possible! Also while going to school in Colorado I worked for NCA, the National Cheerleading Association. I did more judging and summer camps. That's a whole different environment from the studio. It's way more competitive. I coached and choreographed for college dance teams at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of South Carolina. Then decided to take a break from teaching and moved to L.A. to perform.

I lived in L.A. for about five years and did some videos, a couple of movies, and commercial work. I still couldn't get that New York bug out of my system. You can move across the country, but you still want to move to New York.

I had friends from school that lived there. They said, "You really should come." I did. I love it. I think it's the best thing that ever happened to me.

DanceStudioOwner: What did you see was a big challenge for artists when you came to NYC?

Venita: When I came to New York, I realized that a lot of artists do temp work fulltime. But it's a little harder for artists to get into a temp job and ask to be off the next day for an audition or to have a job for a week and then all of a sudden, you have a callback. You have to leave and the employers don't like that because you've already committed to being there the whole week.

I saw this posing a problem for artists. You can't do the regular temp thing because you commit and then they get upset when you can't do it. You can't control when you have callbacks. I finally said, "All right. I'll teach at a studio." I took a job teaching at a studio. That was fine until the audition season came. The auditions started at two o'clock; I had to be at the studio at four o'clock. That wasn't working out. I continually had to get substitute teachers. At least I had friends that I could call on. Sometimes they were available; sometimes they weren't. It posed a problem.

Then I said, "I'm going to teach only on Sundays." Think that helped? No, I still had callbacks on Sundays. It began to pose another problem, and I was still stuck with choosing between the studio and my career. I said, "There's got to be a solution for this."

DanceStudioOwner: Did you feel like you had to pick between your professional career and making an income?

Venita: Well, as I went to auditions, I talked to more and more people that were having the same problems. I realized that most dancers teach at dance studios and gyms, I was teaching a Pilates class at a gym, we all had the same problem.

Here is what usually happens. There is a sub list. You call down the list. When you call down that list, you pray that someone calls you back. If they don't call you back, you don't have anybody to teach your class. That's not effective.

For studio owners it is stressful. Sometimes you find out the teacher's not going to be there an hour before. Sometimes you find out a day before. Bottom line: you reach out to these people. Most of the time they are strangers. They may or may not call you back. That's the reality of the sub list that you may have in a studio.

DanceStudioOwner: What were you doing about the lack of good subs?

Venita: At the studio where I taught, our sub list was so horrible that I had my own. People were calling me and wanting to get my subs because everyone that I had to come in and teach my classes was beyond qualified. They did a great job. They were on time. They stood for what I want my students to think their teacher should be whether it was myself or a sub.

Basically, my sub list began to get out of control. People were constantly calling me. I would be in the middle of an audition and people were texting me, "Can you get me a number? I have a class that I need subbed out at three o'clock." I said, "Okay. This has to become organized." That's really how it all started. I said, "I need to organize this list" at least, we need to make sure we have a roster and that people could work when they want to work.

As I began to organize it, I said, "This is so much bigger than me. I can't do this on my own." Literally, I was in the middle of the street trying to figure out someone's situation for the next day. I thought, "I'm tired of all these dance emergencies!" That's how we became DanzEmergencee.

I soon enlisted the other directors, who all have degrees in dance and backgrounds in dance and fitness. I've worked with them on numerous other projects.

DanceStudioOwner: How do you know what subs to work with?

Venita: We are based in New York City, and currently serve the NY Tri-State area (New York, Connecticut and New Jersey). There is a screening process. We make sure that we only have the best of the best because they're not only representing DanzEmergencee; they're representing the dance community. They have to have a genuine interest in teaching and furthering education of dance in communities. That's what it's about.

For more information about Venita McLemore and how DanzEmergencee can provide your studio with teachers for last minute emergencies or long-term assignments visit: www.danzemergencee.com