Downtown revitalization is about more than development and infrastructure. It's about belonging.

Thank you to the Arts & Business Alliance of Eugene and Lookout Eugene-Springfield for recently highlighting Ballet Fantastique and our presence in downtown Eugene. Seeing our dancers, families and everyday work reflected so thoughtfully meant more than I can say.

It also reminded me why my mom, little sister and I chose to open our first dance studio in downtown Eugene 25 years ago — and why we’ve stayed. While we’ve grown to become a space housing three studios, an international roster of professional dancers and a four-time Emmy-nominated dance theater company, it’s all still happening right here.

Downtown isn’t just where we rehearse. It’s where belonging begins.

Every week, hundreds of people — kids, professional dancers, local makers, families, volunteers and pre-professional students — walk into our studios. They stop at a downtown café or restaurant before or after class. They spend time before and after in our public library. They see — and then become — the artists warming up in studio windows. They begin to associate downtown not with negative headlines, but as a space that’s literally filled with creativity, movement and possibility.

At the end of this month, Ballet Fantastique will welcome 2,400 local K-12 students from across Lane County to experience our unique “BFan” spin on “The Little Mermaid” as a 1980s pop ballet, live at the Hult Center. For most, it will be their first dance performance — and for many, it will be their first time in a theater. They’ll feel the sense of magic, belonging, being together to witness shared humanity and joy. Some might quietly think (for the first time, but hopefully not the last), “Hey, I could do that.”

That spark shapes identity. It expands who feels invited into the arts. It broadens our understanding of not only who “belongs” at the theater, but also of who downtown is for and what happens here.

Conversations about revitalization often focus on infrastructure and development. Those are important! But emotional connection — the feeling that says you belong in a place — is just as essential.

When children grow up experiencing downtown as vibrant and creative, they are more likely to care about it as adults. When families build routines here, they invest in its future. When art is visible and consistent, it changes how a place feels.

We see that transformation every day. And we’re proud to keep showing up — not just to perform, but to help shape a downtown where everyone feels invited into the cultural life of our city.

After all, downtown is where Ballet Fantastique has “become,” too.

And this is only the beginning.