I Feel You, A Fortify Wellness Production
Bettina Mahoney the Founder/CEO of @atfortifywellness is a rape survivor who started her brand after struggling to not only find a therapist, but multiple mediums to heal through her trauma. Fortify Wellness is a 360 holistic platform offering therapy, coaching, fitness, and meditation on one subscription platform. We dive deep with our trailblazing guests about overcoming adversity.
I Feel You, A Fortify Wellness Production
Dance Beyond Movement: Transforming Lives Through Art with Suzanne Citere
Suzanne Citere, a lifelong dance educator from New York City, shares her journey of transforming dancers' lives through compassionate education that extends beyond technique to holistic development and confidence-building.
• Exploring what it means to "take up space" both in dance and in life
• How dance studios become sanctuaries where students find refuge from daily stresses
• The transformative "aha moment" at a student's Sweet 16 that revealed dance's deep impact
• Using movement as therapy to release endorphins and transcend anxiety
• Embracing change and discomfort through lessons learned during pandemic pivots
• How dance training translates to success in unexpected careers and life skills
• Advocating for safety through legislation requiring background checks for dance instructors
• Creating lasting legacies by making students feel "enough" and valued beyond their technique
Stay empowered and join us next week for more insights to elevate your wellness journey. Your well-being is your greatest strength—nurture it, honor it, and watch yourself thrive.
About Suzanne:
Suzanne Citere, originally from New York City, studied dance with some of the nation’s top instructors. She moved to Lighthouse Point in 1996 and has since taught at Dance Theatre of Parkland, Dance Theatre of Broward, and Broward Dance Academy. A dance educator for 40 years, Suzanne founded RealDance in 2003, which has trained hundreds of dancers and won numerous regional and national championships.
She is a graduate of Dance Masters of America and Dance Educators of America’s teacher training program. Suzanne spent five years as Director of Entertainment for Club Med and has choreographed across Europe and the Middle East. A certified judge with the National Dance Council of America, she judges for prestigious competitions like the American Dance Awards and Starquest.
Her students have appeared on Broadway, in films, on cruise ships, and in national tours. RealDance alumni have gone on to top university dance programs, and in 2014, one graduate, Connor Yockus, was named a U.S. Presidential Scholar of the Arts, crediting Suzanne as his most influential teacher. She’s a breast cancer previvor, women’s health advocate, and was named a “Keeper of the City” by Lighthouse Point in 2020 for her contributions to the community and the arts.
IG: @suzannecitere
Tiktok: @realdanceLHP
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**This information is not to be misconstrued as medical or psychological advice. Please contact your medical team if you have questions or concerns pertaining to your medical or psychological well-being. All of the linked products are independently selected, and curated by the fab Fortify team. If you love and buy something we link to, we may earn a commission.**
Welcome to I Feel you a Fortify Wellness production season seven, where we explore the real stories and strategies that help you strengthen your mind, body and soul. I'm Bettina Mahoney, your guide on this journey to a healthier, more vibrant you. Before we get started, here's a quick reminder this information shared today is for your inspiration and knowledge, but always consult a healthcare provider for any medical concerns. I am so excited to welcome today's guest, suzanne Sitare, a lifelong dance educator, originally from New York City, where she trained with top instructors before moving to Lighthouse Point in 1996. She's been on faculty at several prestigious studios and founded Real Dance in 2003, raising hundreds of dancers and winning national titles. A certified judge, international choreographer and proud women's health advocate, suzanne's students have performed on Broadway, on screen and in top conservatories nationwide. She's a keeper of the city of Lighthouse Point and truly a keeper of the arts.
Speaker 1:Please welcome Suzanne. Suzanne, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. I'm so excited that you're here. I'm so excited to be here. So I always love to start really strong, like ripping off the band-aid, which I know is also your style, yep, when you're alone, without all the labels I'm including, like if you're a mother or a sister dance studio owner, without all the expectations, just in the most natural state, what brings you the most comfort and how do you define yourself without the titles?
Speaker 2:That's a great, great question. Well, it's like you said, we have all these titles in life mom, wife, a studio owner, teacher but at the end of the day, at my core, I am a person in this world taking up space who hopes to leave a legacy. My biggest fear in life is that no one will ever know who I was, and so when I go through my day, I really try to make a conscious effort about who other people perceive me as, because I might perceive myself one way, and then I've learned over the years that it's not always the way other people perceive me. And a lot of people go through life saying, well, I don't really care what people think. But I think we all do really care what people think. And so the more holistic picture for me is what is this world getting from me? What am I giving to it? How am I not just taking up space and being a consumer, but what am I putting back into the space? Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yes, and I love that you use the word taking up, like the term taking up space, because I say that a lot as a dance teacher. Yes, also, I think about what we teach our students in the studio, about taking up space and how that transfers over into real life Learning how to own yourself, and that confidence is super, super important. It transitions over into everyday life. Not every student that enters the studio will end up performing forever, right, exactly, they might end up working in a corporate office, but they're going to take that with them.
Speaker 1:For sure and I always think about. I grew up at the gold school with Renny Gold my favorite people. I love them. It's the best experience I've ever had. I've taught a lot of studios no disrespect to any other studio. I've never had the experience replicated in the sense that we were taught the crossover between dance arts and social justice and awareness at a really young age and it changed my life. Talk about taking up space. I learned how to really love myself through dance as a teenager and that's something that I haven't seen anywhere else and it really made a long lasting impact on me and really set the stage for me for setting for really like owning myself and taking up space.
Speaker 2:For sure. Your teacher was, somebody, is somebody who is very conscious of us as who we are as humans and what we're putting out into this world and what our responsibilities are as just citizens of the world, and I know that he always takes that very seriously and passing that message on to his students has always been a really big mission of his. I admire that very much about him.
Speaker 1:Yes, and it changed my life. He continues to change my life. Yeah, so you've spent 40 years in the dance world, yeah, teaching the choreography. How did dance first shape your understanding of personal transformation? We kind of already talked about it, but what was that like aha moment when you realized you were not just teaching dance but you're shaping lives?
Speaker 2:I want to say the aha moment for me. I really gave this a thought it was. It was. I was at I think it was a Sweet 16 party of a student of mine and you know, at Sweet 16, there's like slideshows and party favors and they call up all their friends to like candles on the cake and it was all about dance. Her theme was about Broadway, her friends were mostly the kids from the studio and all the little speeches that the that people gave and her mom gave about how the time in the car driving back and forth to dance was so precious to them.
Speaker 2:And I could get choked up thinking about it, because we really mean we have a big place in the lives of a lot of kids and sometimes we take it for granted.
Speaker 2:You know we get upset with kids and stuff, but sometimes we see them more than their own parents and or we get to, you know, in that day course of the day because they've been in school all day long and then they come to the studio and spend hours with us.
Speaker 2:We are a huge part of a lot of kids' lives and it's such a big responsibility as a teacher, as a studio owner, what you know when they are 30, 40 years old and they look back at their time in the studio, what memories are they going to have? Are they going to remember? You know, there's no perfect situation. There's always going to be maybe something that happened with a friend or with a teacher that could be perceived as negative, but is that going to be a little tiny blip on the radar and the rest of it's going to be just an overall comforting feeling and great memories. And so that Sweet 16 party was that aha moment for me where I was like wow, I never realized how important dance was to this girl, and it's that way for most of them, I think.
Speaker 1:Yes and I think about that as a dance educator as well that I just want the students to obviously grow, but to also feel safe to be themselves. Yes, no, I think that's a because 2025 is an interesting time to be alive. Yes, and you know again, you don't know where they're coming from, what's going on at home, how their day at school was, and so I never take it lightly that they have this. Some of the kids have this one hour with me, and I want to make it meaningful because, I know how meaningful it was for me over the years.
Speaker 1:And then I danced in college and, by the way, like I, I haven't again and I know I keep saying I'm a broken record, but my time at the gold school shaped me as an artist, as a human being, and again, I haven't seen it replicated anywhere else and so, in my eyes, I want to give that to other kids. This like that, like dance, can be used as your therapy, as it means to help other people ask questions, giving them hope, giving them happiness. It's something that people underestimate, but I think during the pandemic we realized how much we really need the arts, absolutely.
Speaker 2:Really, as a teacher, to look at the whole person, the whole dancer. Dance might be something that they do, but maybe they're great on their debate team or maybe they are an outstanding. I love to celebrate all of those other parts of those kids. I am so impressed with them and how brilliant they are and what the other things they're doing in school. And I think sometimes as dancers we get into this tunnel vision like it's all about dance. Well, it's really not.
Speaker 2:They do a lot of other things that I think is so fascinating and I love to hear about. You know all of their lives and what they're doing. Once they walk out the door of the studio and I feel like when you do that and you get to know them on that different level, they feel appreciated, they feel like you see me, you see who I am. You don't just look at me as the girl with the great extension who can do that great developpe on the bus with you to really maintain that mission, to feel that mission, to have that strong, uplifting energy in the studio and I am, I think, because I'm so passionate about a lot of things, that when I get rolling, I do have an ability to get people on board because I'm excited, because it's real.
Speaker 2:It's not I'm not trying to make money from them. I'm not trying to get more students. I'm trying to get give them something, way more than just dance. So, you know, for example, if we're advocating, we had a very sadly in 2018 in my community was the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas school shooting, and so it affected a lot of kids in my studio, and I used to teach at the dance studio where Jamie Guttenberg grew up dancing, so I have a connection to that whole situation and so, even though it could get very political those issues we really managed to advocate for students in this community, and I was, you know, a lot of the dance studios.
Speaker 2:We joined in and did a big fundraiser, but it was a way, like you said, to get people on board, because this is their kids, these are their children and we are people, the adults, that are responsible for them. And it really didn't take too much convincing on my part, but, because I was so passionate about it, we managed to get a great law passed in this community. A lot of great fundraising went on. So I just feel like when you really believe in what you're doing and when you do it with your whole heart, it's much easier to get people on board.
Speaker 1:I agree and I know we kind of touched upon looking at a dancer holistically. Yeah, about a lot with my wellness app, and then also I'm a chairwoman of a dance competition called I Am Dance and building out that board and talking about safety at competition, which is so. Oh my God, yes, you know. And looking at a dancer and thinking about the correlation between mental wellness and physical movement, yes, how in your eyes can movement?
Speaker 2:in the studio and competition setting be really like a tool for dancers to heal both and emotionally in your eyes. Well, there's a more scientific part of that where I do know we all know that dance will release those endorphins. When you have had really the most terrible day, just moving, just getting up and moving is going to automatically I don't care what it is, you're going to feel better. But we have this great gift that we've been given the ability to lose ourselves. In music and in movement you really do sort of transcend to another place, and unless people have done it well though, I would say like if you speak to somebody who's really into running, runners will experience that as well where they're not thinking about oh my God, my knees are killing me, or it's so hot out here, or these shoes aren't the best they're really transported to somewhere else, and so dance.
Speaker 2:I feel the same way. It's such a gift for that, because kids, you know not kids, adults too, everybody we all have stress and anxiety in our lives. I think it's exacerbated at different periods, and to be able to have the dance studio to go in and just have that be your refuge. It is a refuge and we try to get that through to the kids when you step over the threshold whatever it was that you dealt with at school all day long or at home all day long do your best to leave it there and step into a new place, even if it's just for an hour and a half. Step into a new place, even if it's just for an hour and a half.
Speaker 2:I know a lot of kids, for example, will have to miss dance because they're having an exam the next day or multiple exams, and I try to tell them, even if you come out of the house for one hour, take a break from studying, come in the studio for one hour and give your brain a bit of a break. You'll actually probably absorb more than when you go back home and go pick up the books again and go to study Because it's again. I think it's been scientifically proven that it does help enormously with all of that stuff.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and I think that it can be really tough in the digital age, especially the teen age, the college age. They feel everything so hard and I wish I could just tell them it's going to get better. I know it's so tough and it's so funny because I teach every age and I learn so much from the babies yes, I love them. Three-year-olds that come in and like life is amazing and everything's so funny and it warms my heart.
Speaker 2:And then you have the teens that come in and like oh, Everything's so dramatic I know Now is the time too is like a lot of the kids are hearing back from colleges and like what college they get into didn't get into their dream school, if they got into it or not. And I, I always try to tell them like you'll go somewhere, everybody goes somewhere, and if you don't get in where you're supposed to get in, the universe knows what it's doing. Trust the universe, like you'll, but you know, at the in that moment it's devastating for so many of them. Well, it's rejection.
Speaker 1:It's rejection and it feels like, oh, I'm not as worthy. Yes, you know, and so it manifests in that way. Yeah, you know, and so you're someone that like seems to just like step out of your comfort zone left and right, right, seems to just like step out of your comfort zone left and right, right and you know, working across the globe, overcoming fear. How can maybe dance educators or just people in general embrace change and are personalized? We're, we're facing change left and right in 2025. Everything is changing. How can studio owners, owners, dance educators really embrace that change, leverage the change and grow and overcome it?
Speaker 2:I, I will. It's very funny you talk about this because I it's been a journey for me. I don't love change, and the one good thing I think that came out of COVID was that pivot that we all had to do to online learning. Here's something I had been doing for 35 years at that point, one way, going into a studio and, you know, contact with the students and now suddenly we're transitioned to this new way of doing things and we all survived and being uncomfortable. Here's the other thing is that as humans, we have to learn to be okay, being uncomfortable at some points in time because it does pass, but if you never get through that period, you'll never get over the hump, and so we're just conditioned to be like, oh my God, I got to get out of this situation. This isn't good, like I can't do this, but if you can just find it within yourself to push through something, it's huge growth. I could see, like student colleagues of mine that are older than me that really stuff suffer with you know, technology is not their thing being so proud of themselves because they were able to get through a Zoom class, you know, and they did it, and so it really did give them a lot of confidence to push through a lot of different things. I think it also taught us that you know things can change in a heartbeat and they'll be okay, like it used to be the end of the world for me if, like a kid was going to miss a competition because she was sick, I was like, oh my God, what do we do? We can't put this number on stage.
Speaker 2:Well, covid taught us that the show will go on. Somebody will jump in their spot. You'll re-block, you'll redo. It's not that dramatic when you look back at a lot of the obstacles, say things that you faced 10 years ago. You'll look at that and say, oh my, at that time I thought this was the most dramatic, horrific thing. I was never gonna get through, but I did get through and maybe something good even came of it. So that's now looking back. It's how I choose to look at covid. I try to like not really dwell on all the bad stuff, but look at what it did for us in a positive, what things that it taught us basically.
Speaker 1:I love that and it also changed, like the, the entire competition industry changed since COVID it did. And I'm curious, as a dance educator, as a studio owner, what are trends across the competition industry that you are, that you love, that you're seeing post-COVID and things that you'd like to change since COVID?
Speaker 2:So I think that's interesting. One thing I think COVID taught people remember when we had to compete in blocks. Yes, so when some studio would compete in blocks, you would sit and watch all their numbers in a row and I think a lot of people looked at that and said, wow, we could use more variety in our choreography. Everything starts to look the same after a while, and so I think that change came about. That was a positive thing in the competition circuit. It taught people to train differently. Maybe use student choreographers, give them a chance to set some things, just to change it up a little bit to keep things fresh.
Speaker 2:I think as dancers, I love the whole being able to audition by video. I think that was a huge thing. It saves people a lot of money, a lot of time. But then the competition world is.
Speaker 2:I think one super negative thing is that industry lost a lot of money during that time and are doing things now to try and recover still five years later, like packing the competition to the gills. You know three, sometimes starting on Thursdays, kids having to miss school, being there at you know midnight on a Saturday and having being back in the morning at 7 am on Sunday. It's that stuff is really difficult. A lot of people seem to be complaining about it. It's just it's. Some of them are getting a little greedy, I think, and I understand as a business owner trying to recover financially, but it's going to backfire. I think People will start to avoid those competitions that you know seem to be just packing kids in too long, too long days. Even the judges too. You're not getting the same critique from that judge. You know at 11 o'clock at night that you got at 11 o'clock in the morning. That's something that we need to change.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 100%. And I think what I'm excited about, at least with I Am Dance, is um, they love we are giving out almost over $220,000 worth of scholarships. That's amazing I'm excited about and I am someone that is really, really like. One of my biggest missions is safety and having people in the company that embody that and it's just, it's important to me, it's, you know, that's my biggest concern over the course of being in the industry as a dancer. Seeing it from a judge perspective Sure, From a cheer women perspective is that kids come into this competition, this convention, and they need to leave feeling better than when they came in. Yeah, and they need to leave feeling better than when they came in. Experience from top to bottom should feel empowering, yep, and so that you know again a little. You never really that's the coolest part about growing up at a studio, that part, the mission that you learn. It never really leaves you.
Speaker 2:That's true.
Speaker 1:And that's something that I really wish more teachers would embody, Like they, a little piece of what they teach their children in the studio. It will carry with them, and so I think about that a lot. Yes, for sure. So you've touched so many people's lives, and when you think about creating your legacy we kind of already talked about that but what's that? One message or lesson you hope that people carry with them long after the studio. You know what is something that you want people to really remember about you.
Speaker 2:I hope that I made them feel like they were enough enough that, even if they weren't the you know quote unquote best dancer in the room, that I recognized their talents and their abilities and I helped bring those to the surface, whether it was that they had great leadership qualities and maybe helped us with the younger kids' classes.
Speaker 2:I have a lot of alumni now that'll come backstage and help us at recital and say you know, if it wasn't for you throwing me in as an assistant when I was 13 years old and 14 years old I wouldn't feel empowered to be a teacher. Today I have one student that is an attorney. She is a trial attorney and she credits dance competition with the ability to get up and speak in front of a jury, and I remember that she told me when she was in law school that her classmates would get physically sick before having to do that in front of their professors, and she was like this is nothing, this is the easy part. I got this, and so that's what I hope I can give them from just even if it's being a better mom one day. Maybe they experienced something with me that made them feel great and can pass that on to their own children as a mom, any little piece that they could take out of there that added somehow added to their life that they'll remember where it came from. That's what I hope most.
Speaker 1:I love that. And isn't that so interesting, the way that the arts prepare us for life? It really is. A few seasons ago I had on my cousin Andrea. She's an executive at Estee Lauder. Wow, her training is in opera. She was an operatic singer, she has her master's in opera and they would have her in front of the camera giving the education videos for corporate and whatever. And they'd go how do you memorize? And she's like I used to memorize Italian, an entire opera, exactly right. So she like that was so. So we had this whole discussion about how you know corporations need to hire artists, because the way that we're able to pivot, the way that we're able to really perform and present and sell, is like top notch there's a little viral video that is Josh Groban.
Speaker 2:Have you seen that? Hire a theater kid. No, I mean, I'll send it to you. It's so great. It's like, if you need to do something on no budget, hire a theater kid. If you need, like it's all these reasons he gives about why you should hire theater kids that have nothing to do with theater. So it's, it goes back to what you're saying.
Speaker 1:It's all those skills that they learn you know working with us making up space. You know presenting. You know like pitching in front of vcs. I'm like, please. I was, like you know, on competition stage.
Speaker 2:Come on front of judges when you were like 10, right exactly it's great, it's so cool and my recital. I always say um, uh. We give trophies at the end of the year and there's that mentality about everybody gets a trophy. And I tell the parents you know, if you're willing, when you were five years old, to get up on a stage, perform several pieces of choreography three minutes long in front of 800 people, I'll be happy to give you a trophy too.
Speaker 1:You know it's like why not why? Not I mean, we're approaching recital season. You know, like I can't even believe it. I feel like we blinked. And now here we are. Yes, the kids, they love it. They get you know, they get their, their trophy. They get so excited, they get so proud, especially the babies. Yes, I love it. It's amazing. It does so much for their confidence. Like, why not?
Speaker 2:You know, it's absolutely, and I love that we have the opportunity to create such great memories for families, especially grandparents. The thing again going back to COVID that killed me was that year that we couldn't have a recital. And all I kept thinking about are all the grandparents, and you know that was a scary time for a lot of people with their health, and I just prayed to God that they would all be around for next year's recital, because it's such a, it's such a great gift that we get to give people all those memories. And you know the little kids that steal the whole show. You've got the competition kids that spend, you know, 10 hours a week, 15 hours a week in the studio, and then the three-year-olds steal the show you know, oh, yeah, they.
Speaker 1:You know, the three-year-olds are just like adorable up there, the mommy and me classes, little kids that don't know what's happening. Great, all of it has its place and it's all about that development of life. Yeah, and they will remember, like maybe as teens they won't care, but one day they'll look back and go. That was amazing. Yes, they will Absolutely. But one day they'll look back and go. That was amazing, yes, they will Absolutely. So what's going on in your studio or in your personal life that you're really excited to share, and how can our listeners stay connected with you?
Speaker 2:Okay, well, you know it's recital time, which is a crazy time in the studio. My side hobby is politics, and I spent a year volunteering on Pete Buttigieg's presidential campaign back in 2019. And so I have a couple of friends here in the state that are gearing up for races of their own that I'm their super volunteer and I'm excited for them to get started, and I worked really hard with a friend of mine. I have a friend who is a state representative shout out, christine Honchoski. For a long time I've wanted to. There's only the state of Pennsylvania has a law that dance teachers and karate teachers and cheer coaches people that aren't necessarily employed by a school or a daycare they're not required to have background checks. Only in Pennsylvania is it a requirement, and so I have been begging for this bill for a really long time. My friend Christine wrote the bill, sponsored the bill, and what happened? It's a kind of a long story. Right now, for this session, this legislative session, it's been decided that right now, they're going to have a website where there's recommendations that parents can look for. You know what people should be offering in terms of background checks when it comes to the instructors that deal with their children. It's not really what I was hoping for. I'm hoping that next year.
Speaker 2:That's how government works. The wheels of government turn really, really slowly and it takes a really long time to get a law passed. So this was just kind of step one. But what it did all the legislators this was wild. The legislators in Florida, state of Florida wild. The legislators in Florida, state of Florida themselves had absolutely no idea that dance studios are not required to have background checks. Do you know, bettina, I'm not even required to carry insurance. The only person that cares is my landlord who wants to be sure that there's liability insurance so if someone gets hurt on the premises that he doesn't get sued. But no one ever comes to check to see if I have an insurance policy, to see if my instructors are background checked any of it. It's completely, completely unregulated.
Speaker 1:Well, let me know how I can help with that, because that's something that I care a lot about. Yeah, and it's a little it needs to become an industry standard, Especially in competitions.
Speaker 2:It's not I know it's a shame. And so that's what's on my radar right now is the transition, because I'm getting to the point in my career now where I'm thinking about handing off the studio one day maybe to a former student or retiring, but I'm not done. I really do love politics, I really love campaigning, which is like, because it's so close to they say, politics is like show business for ugly people, but it's not so mean, but that's, you know, it's an expression, but I really do love that, and so I'm looking forward to becoming to. You know, gearing up, getting started again. Kind of wind down for a little bit that the last election is over and now we're starting back up again.
Speaker 1:Well, if I'm ever in the ring, I want you right there.
Speaker 2:I'll be your campaign manager.
Speaker 1:I love that. Thank you so much for joining me today. I appreciate it. Thank you.
Speaker 2:This was awesome and you asked the most amazing questions. Hats off to you. These were great, thought-provoking, super interesting questions. I hope people enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Thank you for listening to. I Feel you, a Fortify Wellness production where we empower mind, body, body and soul to reach new heights. Your well-being is your greatest strength. Nurture it, honor it and watch yourself thrive. If today's episode inspired you, subscribe, share your thoughts in the comments and come back next week for more insights to elevate your journey. Stay empowered, stay true. Remember you're not alone. I Feel you is a Fortify Wellness production. All rights reserved 2025.