Today we’d like to introduce you to Tanjim Rahman.
Tanjim, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
In 2008 I created a high school dance club known as Dancing for a Cause. It was just a student club where at the end of the year I noticed something remarkable. Dance serves as a powerful medium to unite people. In high school where cliques separate all of us, DFC is where all that goes away. I noticed by the end of the year how much closer we all became. The popular girl was best friends with the nerdy guy who on any regular day they probably would never speak to each other. Since then DFC has been created at various other high schools such as Plano West Senior High, Plano Senior High School, Clark, Jasper, UT Dallas, Soka University, and many more. That is only one of our three sectors we grew into today. From the student sector, I auditioned the best of their dancers/students to create teams that would represent DFC as an organization at major events like World of Dance. Today we have 4 teams: Sleepwalkers, Impact N Change Crew, Alliance Crew, and the Neighborhood. This is our competitive sector. Since we had grown so much with over 400+ members I decided to take over a studio that was closing down February of 2015. I was a senior in college at the time, it was difficult but with some quick math on my calculator of my phone and some market analysis of the organization I took the risk and created the first Hip-Hop Community Center of Dallas, TX known as DFC Headquarters. This establishment will be home to the non-profit dance organization Dancing for a Cause and will be the third sector of our organization. The HQ Sector.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
It has been chaotic, beautiful, messy, bumpy, and so many other things. Looking back to it though it seems like such a well written novel how everything worked out to where we are today. The struggles I faced along the way was the challenges in balancing my decisions out. I have to make decisions everyday, decisions that affect many people, the viewpoint of our organization, and my own life as well. I have to make many sacrifices with my time, energy, and personal pursuits for the greater good of this organization because I know how many lives it affects is bigger than myself. The struggle I had to deal with above all is being a first generation American, having parents who do not support this pursuit, and the constant pressure of completing a degree that I had no interest in while focusing on what I truly cared about.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Dancing for a Cause Headquarters – what should we know?
Dancing for a Cause is an organization uniting individuals under one common interest, that is dance, and with that common interest creating a large student volunteering body to make an impact on the community, by the community, and for the world. We specialize in dance, education, and mentorship of the young generation of dancers. We are advocates of volunteerism, and fundraising to support any charity beneficiaries. What sets us apart from others is our student sector, where it all started. We have many student clubs each of which have 20-30 members, due to this our family is very big!
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
DFC has mentors, supporters, cheerleaders, advocates, clients, and teammates that all play a big role in our overall success. Student sector directors are Brian Lim, Daniel Choi, and Kevin Middleton. HQ studio manager is Anthony Anello. Event coordinator is Amy Nguyen. The growth of our entire competitive and performance sector was aided by Luis Anzualda, Christopher White, Kevin Middleton, Pat White, David Zhang, Kaylee White, Alan Lam, Kristi Ngun, Phillip Livingston, and Andrew Sun.
Pricing:
- $15 – 1 Class Card
- $40 – 3 Class Cards
- $75 – 6 Class Cards
Contact Info:
- Address: 2109 West Parker Road,
Plano, TX 75023 - Website: dfcheadquarters.com
- Phone: 469 403 1200
- Email: dfcheadquarters@gmail.com
- Instagram: dancingfchq
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/danceforacausedallas/
- Other: https://www.facebook.com/DFCHQCC/
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