More than 15 years ago, Ofelia de La Valette, at age 35, was a highly successful entrepreneur with her own insurance brokerage in Atlanta. Despite her accomplishments, awards, and respect within the Atlanta business community, her professional life was not what she wanted it to be. She decided to take a leap, literally, and direct her energy and passion to something she had longed to do since she was a little girl: dance.

Born in Cuba, Ofelia moved with her family to New York when she was 3. She always dreamed of being a dancer, but her family's financial situation -- they fled persecution with nothing more than a single suitcase each -- they could not afford to send her to dance classes in the United States.

Exhibiting the independence and resourcefulness that has endured throughout her life, Ofelia spent hours dancing salsa, jazz, and ballet in her parent's living room, choreographing her own routines with friends and putting on neighborhood performances. In middle and high school she joined dance troupes, and later, when living in Spain, she put herself through Flamenco school.

When she married and began a family, she once again put her dancing dreams on hold. For the next 15 years she dedicated herself to raising her two children and becoming a successful businesswoman in Atlanta. By 1994, her de La Valette & Associates insurance company was a success, and she was recognized by the Georgia Hispanic Chamber of Commerce as Businesswoman of the Year.

Yet, like so many who work hard in fields that don't fulfill emotional needs, Ofelia longed for passion in her work. It was time to make that leap.

She began taking evening and weekend dance classes at local studios. One class quickly became five, then 10. Next came performances at the Alliance Theater and eventually, a local studio owner asked her to substitute for a sick teacher. After 10 years of formal training, at age 45, she was asked to teach adult dance classes at Emory University. That same day, Ofelia closed her insurance company and became a full-time professional athlete/dancer.

In 2004, after 2 years of teaching at Emory, Ofelia decided it was time to meld her entrepreneurial drive with her passion for dance. With her life savings and support from her students and family, Ofelia opened Dance 101 in a space that had housed an art gallery in Atlanta's Miami Circle design district.

The studio would not only bring unique and accessible dance classes to Atlanta -- classes inspired by those she'd taken in LA and NYC -- but she deliberately sought out a hip location and a stylish space to appeal to an increasingly urbane and sophisticated exercise clientele.

With its beautiful paintings, stylish furnishings, and elegant aesthetic, Dance 101 distinguished itself from the bare bones dance studios and generic fitness gyms available in any city. And the formula worked: With only 2,400 sq. ft. and a rapidly growing client base, Ofelia was being forced to turn away students. She had to relocate to a larger space just a year after opening. In 2006, Dance 101 moved to its current, 10,000 sq. ft. location, making it the largest dance studio of its kind in the country.

In only 4 years, the studio has grown to serve 12,500 registered students with more than 120 diverse classes a week taught by 38 talented instructors. With our celebrity artistic director, Bubba Carr, at the helm, we stage two sold-out performances a year, and continue to redefine what an all-adult dance studio can be.

Dance 101 is a place where beauty is expressed in beautiful surroundings. It is a safe and welcoming environment for the novice and the initiated, where students are radically transformed by motion and movement -- just as Ofelia was and continues to be.

Ofelia, now  50 and in the best shape of her life, manages all aspects of Dance 101. She teaches weekly classes and is currently working on expansion of the studio both locally and nationally. Pioneering a brand new path in the dance industry, Ofelia is changing the landscape of dance as both a form of fitness and a form of expression.

She is providing the public with an opportunity to do for themselves what, until now, they could only watch others do on TV: to make their own leap -- from their living room to a class room, from the audience to the stage. Stay tuned and prepare to be transformed by the power of dance at Dance 101!