Chasta Hamilton
Owner/ Artistic Director at Stage Door Dance Productions
Education: North Carolina State University
Raleigh, NC, USA
Biography
Chasta Hamilton believes the performing arts can change the world, and she's on a mission to make it happen. As the owner and artistic director of Stage Door Dance Productions, Chasta is reinventing the dance education model by focusing on character development and community involvement in addition to technique and performance attributes. This journey is detailed in Chasta's inaugural book: Trash The Trophies: How to Win Without Losing Your Soul and her TEDx talk "You Weren't Built to Break".
Chasta is also the founder and president of the nonprofit, Girls Geared For Greatness, and the former founder and former editor of The Dance Exec. A 2007 Park Scholarship Alumna of NC State University, Chasta was also recognized by the Triangle Business Journal as a 2014 40 Under 40, and in 2016, a Women in Business, Future Star. Proud to call North Carolina home, Chasta lives in Raleigh with her husband John, their son Bash, and their Scottish terrier, Elvis.
Passion
Empowering and Inspiring Others, Primarily Through Dance, but Also Through Dogs and Developing Intrinsic Potential
Featured Video
I am willing to travel
More than 100 miles
When it comes to payments
Everything is negotiable
Topics
Best Story
My best stories involve a summation of my experiences which center around shifting horrible into happy and building something out nothing.
I can talk about the tragic loss of both of my parents in my childhood and how I used that to propel my success and empathize with others.
I can talk about building my business dream and passion, watching it thrive, and saving it from collapse, not only once but twice in a 5-year period.
I can talk about the beauty of humans coming together to achieve a common goal through performance and how it can be applied to your teams and workforce.
I can talk about the darker, less discussed experiences of life, including divorce, gender discrimination, and miscarriage, and how we can positively push through to the other side.
I can share the joys and challenges of combining entrepreneurship and motherhood.
I can confirm that breaking societal expectations is rewarding.
At the heart of each story are the discovery of joy, passion, focus, and a dedicated commitment to living each day of this life to the absolute fullest.
Origin Story
I have danced since the age of 2- I know it better than anything in this world. Yet, when I received a full academic scholarship to college, I felt like I need to pursue something "more serious" alongside my peers that were getting in on the ground floor at Google. So, I decided to be an attorney. One internship later at the NC Attorney General's office, I knew that wasn't the path for me. I exchanged the LSAT for a leotard and never looked back.
At 22 years old, I opened my first dance studio. I didn't really know what I was doing. I was checking the boxes from all of my experiences. We were successful. But, I didn't want to just be successful. I wanted to create something great. In order to do this, I recognized I needed to extract my company from the competitive dance industry. After a difficult, multi-year rebrand, we found our voice and a success, setting a new pace for the dance education industry and the children's extracurricular market as a whole.
Example talks
The Art of the Zig Zag
Perceived "failure" can be your platform to success. The Art of the ZigZag focuses on the adaptability and resilience required to succeed in personal and professional endeavors. Topics to be discussed include: reading the room, trusting your gut, and anticipating market trends. Change management is an art, and this topic will help you master it!
Perform: Applying Lessons from the Stage to Your Business
Life is a performance! How can we take skills from the stage: adaptability, resilience, quick thinking, preparedness, collaboration, empathy, and catharsis and apply it to the success and execution of our everyday lives?
This talk can be presented as a personal experience based keynote, lecture, or an interactive workshop.
The topics will challenge listeners to expand their presence and performance in their personal and professional lives.
If All The World's A Stage, What's Your Play?
Purpose. Meaning. Intent.
How do you navigate external and internal noise and pursue your most authentic story?
Once discovered, how do you to commit to the pursuit of excellence in the face of failure, chaos, and fear?
More importantly, how do you cultivate a legacy that's rooted in passion, shared with others, and approached with an elevated level of social consciousness and impact?
Using examples from a life lived passionately in the performing arts, Chasta will share examples from her experiences and will challenge the audience to apply them to their experiences, as well.
Turning No Into Go!
Grit is a superpower. It allows you to break the mold, navigate challenges, persevere, and achieve the impossible. Master the art of turning challenges into opportunities and failures into wins.
Chasta shares tough experiences from her childhood and life, ranging from being an eminent oprhan to expereincing divorce and miscarriage to managing business challenges and Covid resilience, all while maintaining an optimistic outlook on life.
Do you or your team feel like you are:
Stuck in a rut?
Getting in your own way?
Allowing external influences or perceptions to hold you back?
Feeling defeated after a misstep?
This talk will inspire you to look those bumps in the road in the eye, paving the way to your fullest potential and your success story!