{"id":2576,"date":"2016-10-24T10:00:19","date_gmt":"2016-10-24T10:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fredastaire.com\/bloomfield-hills\/?p=2576"},"modified":"2016-10-24T10:00:19","modified_gmt":"2016-10-24T10:00:19","slug":"meet-michelle-allen-fads-student","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fredastaire.com\/bloomfield-hills\/blog\/dance-info-news-trends\/meet-michelle-allen-fads-student\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Michelle Allen, FADS Student"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>A few words with our student, Michelle Allen&#8230;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong><\/strong>Dance is more than rhythm and steps; it is a vehicle to a welcoming and understanding community.<\/p>\n<p>For Michelle Allen, ballroom dance brought healing when her husband passed away but it also brought her closer to his memory, since they danced together throughout their 20-year marriage.<\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cWe were married for 20 years and until you\u2019ve gone through losing your spouse, you all of sudden get sidetracked,\u201d says Michelle. \u201cYou just have to sit back and you have to let go, but you don\u2019t let go right away. You work through it. Sometimes you can\u2019t go around the fire, you have to go through it. \u201c<\/em><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fredastaire.com\/bloomfield-hills\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2016\/08\/Lets-Tango-000019606809_Medium.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2577\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fredastaire.com\/bloomfield-hills\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2016\/08\/Lets-Tango-000019606809_Medium-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"Let's Tango!\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-2577\" \/><\/a>After Michelle\u2019s husband passed away, she decided to walk back into a dance studio again, this time Fred Astaire. She felt welcomed and credits ballroom dancing for bringing \u201chappiness and joy\u201d back into her life.<\/p>\n<p>At Fred Astaire, she met others who understood what she was going through as a widow because they, too, had gone through it.<\/p>\n<p>The deeper connections and camaraderie with other widows at the dance studio is a saving grace, she says. According to the U.S. Census Bureau data from 2012, there were more than 14 million widowed people, more than 11 million of whom were women.<\/p>\n<p>The Oxford resident worked part-time at a pregnancy center, counseling and mentoring mothers. She has found new romance, a man who dances with her now that the despair of loss has passed.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fredastaire.com\/bloomfield-hills\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2016\/08\/Beautiful-wedding-dance-000078565817_Medium.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2578\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.fredastaire.com\/bloomfield-hills\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/23\/2016\/08\/Beautiful-wedding-dance-000078565817_Medium-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"Beautiful wedding dance\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-2578\" \/><\/a>\u201cUntil you\u2019ve gone through it, you can\u2019t understand,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s helpful to see someone else who knows what you\u2019re going through.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Recently, Michelle married the man she met dancing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAlan, also a widower, and I had dated for a year and a half. \u00a0We are so happy and dancing continues to be part of our life,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few words with our student, Michelle Allen&#8230; Dance is more than rhythm and steps; it is a vehicle to a welcoming and understanding community. For Michelle Allen, ballroom dance brought healing when her husband passed away but it also brought her closer to his memory, since they danced together throughout their 20-year marriage. \u201cWe [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dance-info-news-trends"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fredastaire.com\/bloomfield-hills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fredastaire.com\/bloomfield-hills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fredastaire.com\/bloomfield-hills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fredastaire.com\/bloomfield-hills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fredastaire.com\/bloomfield-hills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fredastaire.com\/bloomfield-hills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fredastaire.com\/bloomfield-hills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fredastaire.com\/bloomfield-hills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fredastaire.com\/bloomfield-hills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}