On a cold, drizzly night in mid-December, despite a laundry list of misgivings, I find myself standing between two large pillars in the Capitol Hill location of PopRox dance studio. Clad in a workout set and tennis shoes, and surrounded by seven or eight similarly dressed individuals, I follow along as our instructor leads us in an enthusiastic warmup. 

Neck rolls, quad stretches, hip openers — we cycle through a series of injury-preventing movements meant to prep us for the session. Titled “The No Brainer | Introductory/Follow-Along,” the hour-long session is a dance fitness class in which the instructor teaches a series of “follow-along” moves in a low-pressure, encouraging environment. I danced ballet (with a few years of hip-hop and jazz thrown in) from the age of 2 until I was 17, and yet I feel nervous and self-conscious. I’m known to get down at weddings and parties, but I haven’t been in a studio, as a student, in more than a decade. 

As we move on from warming up to learning choreography, I find myself loosening up and not completely fixated with my blundering steps in the mirror. (It helps that we’re listening to the likes of Mariah Carey and Beyoncé.) It’s like that old saying about riding a bike — once you learn it, you never forget. The same applies, it seems, with dance. Because here’s the secret: Dancing is just moving your body. Turns out, everyone can do it. A delightful neon sign at one end of the studio confirms this, reminding us in giant pink letters that “Dance is for Every Booty.” 

“We see this as a people’s dance studio, not a dancer’s dance studio,” says Cathy Barnett, who founded PopRox with Kinsey Flores in 2018. Although the two have extensive dance backgrounds — Flores studied jazz until her late-teen years, and Barnett was a professional dancer in the 1990s and beyond — they stress that they founded PopRox as a community for anyone looking to move their body, whether it’s their first time stepping into a studio, or they work in the industry. 

“We wanted to create a place where people like you could come back and reconnect with dance in a way that’s not as serious as a traditional experience,” Barnett says. “But it’s also for people who never got a chance to dance when they were younger and feel intimidated by the idea of just starting because they haven’t been dancing since they were five. We see dance as a fundamental human need. Our bodies need to move to music.”

Kinsey Flores and Cathy Barnett, cofounders of PopRox Studio.

Photo courtesy of PopRox

Barnett and Flores met through mutual friends. One year, the two found themselves at a Christmas party, which was where they discovered their shared love of dance. “You could not peel us off the dance floor,” Flores recalls. Shortly after that, the women grabbed beers at a local dive bar and started talking about the idea of opening a studio. Their first location was a rented space in Eastlake, where they taped up a poster with the company name and logo on the wall for each class. 

“At the beginning, six to 10 people would show up and dance with us,” Barnett says. By 2020, when PopRox opened its first permanent spot in the University District, that number had ballooned to dozens. “Some of our students have been on this ride for the last four of five years.”

PopRox’s first permanent studio opened in the University District and quickly became a hit with local students.

Photo courtesy of PopRox

At the beginning of 2024, Barnett and Flores opened their second PopRox location, tucked into Capitol Hill’s Chophouse Row. With two cheekily named studios (Biggie boats a 3,000-square-foot wood dance floor and is where most classes take place, while Studio Smalls is 350 square feet and available for private lessons and rentals.) A candy-colored lounge includes space for hanging out, and an adjacent boutique offers fun merch and snacks for purchase. 

Most group classes take place in the Biggie Studio at PopRox’s Capitol Hill location.

Photo courtesy of PopRox

Class-wise, PopRox has a drop-in system, where students can purchase credits that don’t expire. New students can buy three hours for $30, or three 60-minute classes. In addition to adult courses, there are youth and teen lessons as well. Styles from hip-hop and jazz funk to a multi-week K-Pop series, Bollywood, and artist spotlights like last December’s Billie Eilish workshop, inspired by the singer’s personal performance style. Instructors come from a range of dance backgrounds, and they follow a set of protocols that help make students feel more at ease, from keeping the lights low and turning around to face students during choreography lessons to personally introducing themselves to each student before class starts. They encourage frequent water breaks, don’t single out people to make corrections, and most of all, work to make the class atmosphere fun and inviting by dancing with you.

“We’re not looking for the best dancer. We’re looking for the best teacher,” Barnett says of choosing instructors. “Those are two different things. Some of the best teachers we have were pulled out of our classes because they have experienced what the students are going through.”

And, as I experienced too, what they are going through is often rooted in the fear of looking foolish — which almost everyone feels, but no one actually does. Did I have moments when I flubbed a step, lost count, or turned the wrong way? You bet — a lot them. But ultimately I realized that no one else in the studio cared, or was even watching me. Regardless of “messing up,” I actually had a great time and felt like I was really catching on by the end of the hour. I plan to return and try other classes. 

“Most conversations I have with people who are ‘not dancers’ is about how dance is so fear-inducing to them for a multitude of reasons,” Flores says. “Everyone has their version of something that crushed it for them. But at PopRox, people are going to cheer you on from start to finish. We created something that was initially what we needed, and over time it’s proven to be what other people needed as well.”