The Moms on the Move Show

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Carmela Mayo

Single mom, Carmela Mayo teaches hip hop and turns kids on to educational theater with her non profit program called, "Stages of Imagination."

Carmela Mayo

Website(s):

http://www.stagesofimagination.org
 
Carmela: I teach everyday. Most of the time I teach 7 - 8 hours a day, which is a challenge.

And if there is one lady who is up to the challenge, it’s Carmela Mayo, owner of Carmela’s Dance Studio in Springfield, Pennsylvania. Once a professional dancer in New York, her performing took a turn when her marriage ended.

Linda: How did your life change when you became a single mom?

Carmela: You have to pay the bills and you have to take care of the kid that’s an obvious. I was helping out and now I had to be the sole supporter. I started taking more dance jobs on the weekend 

Linda: In stilts?

Carmela: The stilts didn’t come until I found the stilt walkers were getting 4 and 5 jobs and I was getting 1 job.

But Carmela needed more stable work, so she reluctantly opened a dance studio on her parents suggestion, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise.

Carmela: I live less than a minutes walk from here so if the kids needed me they could come over here and talk to me. I did have a phone here by my side and we did have a special phone ring. Your priorities change you go on a journey and when you hit a road block and you take another path and you never know where that path is gonna lead you.

Along this new path her sister Vicky caught a performance Carmela choreographed for a local theater production.

Carmela: I went back down to see her after the show and she said, “Oh my God this is fluff.” There’s no lesson learned it’s just a waste of the teachers time waste of buses and the money we could do better than this.

So they formed their non-profit theater organization called “Stages of the Imagination”

Carmela: With each show we have is a difference lesson. We have anger management and conflict resolution for one show, setting your goals and sticking to your goals, making good choices etc. 

Vicky: The most important thing is learning from the journey 

Carmela: Yeah.

Linda: You’re so watch able because you’re so animated!

Vicky: Oh yeah to keep children’s attention you have to colorful. We throw the some slapstick in there to get them to listen to the lesson.

Linda: You’re now a single mom, you want to do, something you love, and you have to put food on the table, what do you do set your priorities?

Carmela: You have to be creative because you have to set priorities you have to put your kids first, and my kids are really good kids and I trusted them and I knew my mom was going to be looking after them after school from heaven that she was going to watch them.

Linda: Your children are all following in your footsteps.

Carmela: I tried to tell them as they were growing up you can’t be a stunt man. You don’t want to be in show business, but they all want to do show business. I want them to be happy.

Linda: Well you did it.

Carmela: And I did it. I wasn’t someone who wants to put on fire or pushed from a building like my son does. All I wanted to do was dance. This is the best thing that ever happened to me opening this studio and I never wanted it. I’m not dancing in New York, it’s not what I set out to do but I love it I still love it and I still can put the food on the table.

Carmela: Vicky and I are still on stage as goofy as it is. I was thinking Fosse. So now we’re bristle and torn tooth all right you give and you take.      

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