Head to the Addlib Dance Studio in Cubao to Find Your Groove

(SPOT.ph) To many who live outside it, Cubao can be unsettling, disorienting, maybe even intimidating—but it doesn’t take that much to know your way around the area and make a nest out of its busy intertwining streets. Along General Malvar Avenue, for example, people from different parts of the Metro have made a second home of The Addlib Dance Studio, or TADS for short.

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Building a home in Cubao

“Everything just fell into place,” says Joe Abuda, the force behind the studio, when talking about finding his space in Cubao. When he settled in a unit at Manhattan Parkway back in 2015, he started to look for a place to set up a dance studio, but he didn’t get the “energy” he wanted from the multiple places he was offered by lessors. Little did he know he was going to open the studio right across his unit three years later.

If meet-cutes could be a thing between person and space—and not just a random person you made eye contact with in a coffee shop or a bar—Joe felt that instant connection the first time he laid his eyes on the New Frontier studio. As bare as it was then, “Noong nakita ko siya, I knew na ‘Ito na nga!’”

He admits to not being well-versed in business—he didn’t even have a business model to begin with. But to him, it made perfect sense that Cubao was the area for the studio to grow its roots. It had adequate foot traffic (note, this was before the pandemic) as it was surrounded by restaurants, and the area has always had this middle-ground, artsy energy that wouldn't alienate anyone.

Of course, there's always the fact that Cubao is a hub. Joe exclaims, “Hello, Cubao? Kahit nasa Mindanao ka, may bus pa-Cubao!”

He has always wanted to make dance available to everyone. After all, he knew the struggle of finding and renting out dance studios in places that were harder to get to. Cubao’s accessibility was the pebble to create that ripple of small, significant changes.

Fast forward to the present and people from all walks of life, from different parts of the Metro and beyond, make time to take up space on the TADS dance floor, even just for an hour or so. 

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Come one, come all on the dance floor

In the studio's earlier years, Joe thought the target market was for the varsities, or in his words, “nangangareer na dancers.” Business-wise, this is something Joe had to come to terms with as a professional choreographer. “When students take your class, it’s not about you [teacher]. They don’t care if you’re a multi-awarded choreographer, ganun yung mundo ngayon."

This realization came when his video became viral on TikTok—which featured him dancing with heels on to an empowering, sexy Beyoncé song. He noticed more and more people were taking classes, specifically those with jobs that don't require you to know what a "kick ball change" is.

Taking a class at TADS isn't about competing, and it isn't about becoming professional dancers and choreographers for the new market they found. Although, it could spark an interest to go pro through their beginner-friendly dance classes. “They want to feel alive, have an escape,” Joe asserts.

Most of the students they welcome to their dance floor now—especially after the pandemic when everyone did short, trendy dance videos on online platforms like TikTok—are there to simply have fun and build confidence in an ever-judgmental world.

Joe himself draws from his own experience of being invalidated as a dancer when the world wasn't as woke as it is today. He was once told, "Dalawa lang ang gender ng dancers, babae at lalake."

He was a scrawny and flamboyant man, and this wasn’t something that was accepted for an a la Step Up dance group back then. He would cry every day as he would only be hired to choreograph, but not perform his routines. And this is why Joe places importance on making TADS inclusive—rainbows and all.

Having observed a few of the dance classes held at TADS and experiencing first-hand one of their Femme Beginners classes, it was emotionally satisfying to see how mixed the students in the classes are. Different body types, different age brackets, and different gender expressions, but with a unified goal to just let loose, make mistakes, have fun, and add their own flare, adding your own twists to the routine—hence the "Addlib" portmanteau.

“Nakagawa ako ng place na kahit anong-ano ka, you can afford dance. Hindi naman kailangan fit ka, or yung itsura mo, dapat payat ka whatever. Lahat dapat welcome. Lahat pwede sumayaw," he says.

The next steps

TADS is currently being tapped to expand, but most of the offers are from the north—north-er than their studio. Joe says, “Paano akong mag-eextend eh kung sa una kong bahay, "for padlock" ka pa?” He says that they will eventually expand at the right time when they've established "overgrowing" roots in the Cubao studio.

And when that "right time comes," he does want to open the next studio in the center of Metro Manila. Alongside these plans is to eventually offer more advanced classes to help the community improve. "I can only grow with my community. Hindi ako pwede mag-grow na iniiwanan ko yung community ko."

For now, Cubao is where it's at—whether you want to learn female-style dancing, K-pop dance covers, or hip-hop, or like Joe, wear your highest heels and exude all the charisma, uniqueness, nerve, and talent that you're hiding. But there's only one rule.

Joe always reminds his students: "If there’s this inner voice telling you you can’t do it, lagi ko sinasabi sa kanila na, ‘Tell that inner voice, thank you for your suggestion, but I don’t need you tonight.”

Not tonight, and most especially not on Cubao's dance floor.

The Addlib Dance Studio (TADS) is at 2F, Theater Arcade, New Frontier, Araneta City, 7 General Malvar Ave, Cubao, Quezon City, Metro Manila. Visit The Addlib Dance Studio's website for class schedules and class bookings.

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