Today we’d like to introduce you to Natalya Nightshade.
Hi Natalya, we’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Hi, I’m Natalya. I’m a married 30-something with 6 pets and no kids. I’m originally from Washington State, but have called Tampa home for the last 15 years. I started pole dancing 7 years ago after being inspired on a trip to New York. I saw a baroque-burlesque performance troupe called Company XIV, and they had an artist who was pole dancing and singing opera. Prior to that, I had never seen pole dance as performance art, but once I did, I instantly knew I had to try it. A few weeks later, I came back home, took a class, and that was that!
As I got deeper into my love of pole dance, I noticed that most local offerings catered more to pole tricks and pole fitness style movement, not so much the soulful, authentically sexy dance side of pole, which is what I loved. Once you got to a certain skill level in dance, there was really nowhere to go. My most disliked feeling on this planet is stagnation, so I started traveling extensively to train. And then, I started traveling to teach my style of pole dance to others.
After a few years of teaching locally, virtually, and traveling to teach, I figured that if I needed more soul in my pole dance life, perhaps there are other people out there like me here in the Tampa Bay Area, too. So finally, after a lot of hemming and hawing over it, I opened Studio Nightshade on November 17th, 2022.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Fortunately, the operational side of it has been quite smooth thus far! This is my first brick-and-mortar, but my second business. Five years ago, I opened Nightshade Designs, an online business where I make custom glitter heels for pole dancing. That experience definitely taught me a lot about myself and how to run a business. I’d like to think it prepared me for this new phase of business ownership because it’s been surprising smooth sailing thus far.
Of course, there are always struggles, but most of our struggles were in the build-out phase. My husband and I, along with the occasional help of my assistant and some friends, demoed, built out, painted, and decorated the studio space all by ourselves. None of us were particularly handy prior to this, so it was a huge undertaking! We did hire a contractor for a few things we weren’t comfortable doing ourselves – like repairing and smoothing subfloor, building some dividing walls, and hanging doors. But as is typically the case with contractors, it ended up being a lot of money down the drain as we had to fix and redo just about everything they touched. Big lesson learned! But on the upside, we built a wall that was leaps and bounds better than the contractor’s wall, learned that smoothing subfloor actually isn’t all that hard or expensive, and laying flooring isn’t rocket science. So, it gave us a lot of confidence in having to undertake future projects!
We’ve been impressed with Studio Nightshade, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Studio Nightshade is a pole dance studio and embodied movement boutique for adults. We are proudly BIPOC-owned and welcome students of all levels, ages, sizes, and shades.
What sets us apart is our focus on self-expression and shameless sensuality, all grounded in solid technique. It’s important to us that our students have options to be well-rounded pole dancers, so in addition to dance classes, we also offer conditioning and tricks classes- but the tricks classes always have a dance element. In traditional pole fitness classes, it’s commonplace to learn cool tricks but never actually learn the skills to dance into and embody them. While any style of pole dance is undeniably a workout, we intentionally don’t call ourselves “pole fitness”. For us, pole dance goes much deeper than just the latest exercise craze. It’s about having the audacity to own your movement, your sensuality, your confidence, your strength, your body, your magic, and your sexuality without shame.
One of the things that I’m most proud of is intentionally creating a space that not only welcomes but celebrates and fosters diversity in the local pole scene. As I mentioned, I’ve been pole dancing locally for 7 years now, and one thing that always felt strange to me as a woman of color was how devoid of diversity most pole spaces were. Tampa is an incredibly diverse city, so I always wondered why every pole class I’d taken would only have maybe 1-2 people of color in a class of 12 or more or a single brown instructor on a staff of 7 or more. I can’t vouch for prior to 2015 as that’s when I started pole, but until 2022, there were zero black-owned pole dance studios in the entire Tampa Bay area. Now I’m very proud to be one of a few and hopefully our presence will continue to grow and shine!
Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?
I am notoriously introverted and awful at networking, to be perfectly honest. It’s definitely something I need to work on if I can ever peel myself away from the comfort of my own home and pets. As for mentors, I’m a very stubborn “I’ll figure it out myself” kind of person – blame my Capricorn Moon for that- so I typically don’t really seek out help or advice. My dad owns a business, and I didn’t even ask him for advice when starting my first business. Unwise? Maybe! When opening the studio, however, that felt like a much bigger undertaking. Fortunately, the pole dance industry feels really big when you’re in it but is still quite small, so I was able to reach out to a few friends who own or owned studios – one in Omaha, one in Indianapolis, and one in Orlando – and pick their brains a bit.
As for what’s working, the biggest thing for me has been putting myself out there on social media. Being very true to who I am as a person, what my passions and beliefs are, and building a brand identity based around that. It’s been amazing because not only has it brought clients that are already in alignment with who I am, but I can also be exactly who I am in life and in business, which is very important to me. I’ve had many conversations with other business owners, and one thing I hear often, no matter the field, is how trapped they feel by this “perfect, always positive persona” they’ve created online for their business and how sometimes they just want to be angry, or controversial, or political, or sad. I feel extremely lucky that I had the forethought to build my businesses on who I am as a full, flawed person rather than who I think people may want me to be. Plus, perfection is boring. We’re all a bit of a mess sometimes. It’s human.
Pricing:
- Single Drop-In Class $29
- 4-Week Course $150
- Multi-Class Packs from $60-$360
- Recurring Memberships from $95-$315 monthly
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.studionightshadeonline.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/studio.nightshade/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/studionightshade
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/studio-nightshade-tampa
- Other: https://www.instagram.com/natalya.nightshade/
