Best Dance Company / Group

GOLD WINNER

House of Eights Dance Studio
1533 Barrington Street, 2nd Floor
website

SILVER WINNER

Unleashed Studio
245 Waverley Road
website

BRONZE WINNER

Ruckus
website

It doesn’t take a beat for Abady Alzahrani, owner and manager of House of Eights, to summarize the magic the Barrington Street dance studio distills in its devotees: “There’s not many places where you can twerk or touch yourself or pretend to be all these different characters and laugh and cry in a room of other strangers that you might not know and feel okay to do that, and feel safe to do that,” he says, speaking by phone with The Coast.

“Just having that space for them to do all those things is what makes things so great here.” It’s the second time the almost-three-year-old business is taking home the gold in the Best Of Halifax Readers’ Choice Awards: “I would say the past couple years have been a bit of a roller coaster, just like any small business—but the dance community has been really supportive and really incredible throughout this time,” Alzahrani adds.