Acting premier James Merlino announced today that indoor sports venues, including dance studios, are on track to open as of 11.59pm on Thursday.
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"The students are really excited to come back - for a lot of people dancing is therapy," Aerial Dance Studios Ballarat owner Bethany Finlay said.
Ms Finlay had to cancel a grand reopening of her studio that was supposed to take place on the first weekend of the recent snap lockdown.
"We're able to open next week but we won't be able to do anything like the re-opening ," she said.
Aerial Dance Studios has applied for the government's $2500 payment that was offered to support regional businesses which were directly impacted by the circuit-breaker lockdown.
Pam Waghorn owns one of Ballarat's oldest dance studios, Ballarat Dance Works, and was disappointed last week when dance studios and gyms were unable to open alongside the lifting of lockdown for regional Victoria.
"We feel like the forgotten souls here," she said.
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Students at Ballarat Dance Works were set to perform in their mid-year showcase last weekend which had to be postponed to late July.
"It was hard for the kids to not be able to go back on stage considering they couldn't all of last year," Ms Waghorn said.
The dance term for both studios is almost at an end, with about two weeks left.
"This time we were hoping it was only going to be for a week," Ms Finlay said, who offered online classes during the first lockdown of 2020 but said that popularity has dwindled in lockdowns since.
Both Ms Finlay and Ms Waghorm found it unfair gyms and dance studios had to stay closed while hairdressers and hospitality were allowed to open their doors.
"It's extremely unfair that I can still go to the pub and go out for dinner with my family but people can't come and dance even when we sanitise everything after each class," Ms Finlay said.
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