Photo by Jon Anderson.
Erin Kraebber has opened a new store called Forte Dance Essentials in the Hoover Place shopping center at 1960 Braddock Drive in the Green Valley community in Hoover.
Erin Kraebber knows what it’s like to be the parent of a girl who looks in her dance bag the night before a recital and finds only one dance shoe.
Panic sets in, and there’s a mad rush to try to find the shoe or find a replacement.
As the mother of two daughters who dance, she’s been there, and she knows what to do and how to help other parents and kids who are in similar situations.
That’s part of what led her to create a new retail store in Hoover dedicated to shoes, apparel and other gear for dancers. It’s called Forte Dance Essentials, and it’s in the Hoover Place (Publix) shopping center along Braddock Drive in the Green Valley community along U.S. 31.
Kraebber opened the 1,440-square-foot store May 24 and hopes to be that lifeline for dancers in the area.
She doesn’t have a background in retail. She spent 20 years in the collegiate sports marketing world but decided to get out of that in January of this year and pursue this new line of work.
She and her husband moved from Indiana to the Ross Bridge community in Hoover in 2016, with her husband taking a job in the healthcare industry and herself joining the sports marketing staff at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
When they moved here, their daughters were 5 and 2, and they got involved in dance. Now, she’s had six years of experience as a dance parent and knows how hard it can be to find the right apparel, shoes and accessories.
There are plenty of places to shop online, but getting the right size or color shoes or tights at the time you need them can be challenging, especially with kids who change sizes so quickly, Kraebber said.
She saw the need for a brick-and-mortar dancewear shop, she said. There are only a couple of other ones nearby in Homewood and Irondale, but there are lots of dancers in Hoover and surrounding communities, she said.
Within a 10-mile radius of her store in Green Valley, she counted at least 35 dance studios and stopped counting when she got that far, she said. “That’s a lot of little girls and people who need things and places to go,” she said.
Her shop offers a variety of kinds of dance shoes, tights, leotards, tops, bottoms, jewelry and other accessories. And if she doesn’t carry what someone is seeking, she can handle custom orders and knows where to look, she said.
However, she doesn’t sell pointe ballet shoes because that requires special knowledge and training to get the right fit, and there are other people who provide that service very well, she said.
Kraebber said she’s trying to build relationships with various dance studios and school dance teams to understand what their needs and requirements are so she can advise parents when they come into her store.
Her target market is children ages 2 to 17, but she also offers dancewear for adults.
Kraebber also offers Hoover Bucs and Spain Jags apparel provided by Joyful, a custom apparel and merchandise company that specializes in school and team gear. Joyful is owned and run by fellow Ross Bridge residents Chandra and Patrick Harvey, and Forte Dance Essentials is the only brick-and-mortar store offering Joyful’s merchandise.
Kraebber said one of the best things about having the brick-and-mortar store is that dancers and their parents can see, feel, touch and try on shoes and apparel before making that purchase. She tries to make it a stress-free experience, she said.
“That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s always going to be an inexpensive experience, but I want you to be able to walk in and find what you need,” she said.
Kraebber got introduced to dance at age 2 when her grandmother tried to get her to take tap. She didn’t like it and instead got into baton twirling, going on to earn a national championship at the age of 7 and later becoming the feature twirler for Purdue University’s marching band. She tried out for the Rockettes at age 17 in Chicago but got cut once they realized she was 1 inch too short.
Forte Dance Essentials is open 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday. For more information, visit fortedanceessentials.com.
