Hello there!  My name is Mandi Smith and I’m the Owner and Director of Artistic Motion Dance. To really know the full AMD story, you need to know MY story. I’ll try to give you the short and sweet version.

I’m one of the rare Arizona natives (3rd generation actually) and grew up in Tempe, Az.  As the story goes Miss Peggy, our amazing office manager and my mom, signed me up for dance at the studio closest to our house because it was right next door to Jazzercise.  Little did she know she was signing up for a lifetime of dance!  I spent the majority of my childhood dancing and always knew I wanted to open my own dance studio someday.  After graduating high school I began dancing professionally with Center Dance Ensemble and teaching all over the valley.  Well someday came much sooner than anticipated and one night after teaching I called my parents and said I had the perfect location to open a studio.  So with just a little convincing we signed a lease on 4,000sf and AMD was born!

AMD opened in late 2007 just has the country was headed towards a recession.  Maybe it was my young age but I was determined to stick it out and we held our first recital with just over 100 students in June 2008.  Fast forward to 2022 and we just moved into our new gorgeous 13,000sf facility. Our new location is perfect and will be our home for the foreseeable future. Now, we are better able to serve our students with ample dance space, a huge lobby for parents, and locker rooms for our girls and our boys!!

2021 also a new addition to our AMD family with the birth of my baby boy. You are sure to see his sweet smile around the studio!!