For nearly a decade, Girl Pow-R has proven that young performers given real training and real stages can accomplish extraordinary things, earning a JUNO nomination, more than 450 live shows, and streams in 240 countries around the world along the way.
Now, the JUNO-nominated group's founder is opening that same system to every child, launching the Pop Star Performance Academy.
The Academy was built by Dawn Van Dam, the founder, executive producer, and creative force behind Girl Pow-R, whose own path into youth entertainment began when she started auditioning talented young singers to build an original pop group rather than assume musical chemistry would simply happen.
How did the Pop Star Performance Academy get its start?
It actually goes back to my childhood, and long before I ever created Girl Pow-R.
When I was growing up, I wanted desperately to sing and have a major part in the school musical, I wanted to dance in many dance classes, and I wanted to go to a special high school to learn acting and performing.
However, back in the day, the acting was only taught in a technical school, but I was destined to go to university, so I did not choose the technical school path. For singing and dancing, my family couldn't afford to put me into all of the different kinds of training that it required. And, honestly, they also didn't know how to help me navigate that world.
I was able to take one stream of dance, jazz, while other girls were able to train in multiple disciplines. And, there was only one vocal coach in my town. And, although I did not train with her, I still made it into the school musical as a minor character, along with being in the school choir. I was ‘bitten with the entertainment bug’!
Then something happened that I never forgot. The head of my dance school saw something in me and chose me to perform with a group of girls in Tony Grant's “Stars of Tomorrow” in Atlantic City, on the Steel Pier (long before the casinos arrived). The catch was that they were tap dancers. But I had never learned to tap dance! So I had to learn tap, learn the routine, get the costume, travel to Atlantic City with my family and somehow figure all of this out.
So, fundamentally, somebody (my teacher), saw potential in me before I had all of the training. That stayed with me.
Years later, when my daughter pursued music, I suddenly found myself on the other side, trying to navigate the industry as a parent. I became the "momager" and learned an enormous amount about recording, producers, performances, promotion and artist development. I also learned about the difficult and less glamorous realities of the business. There are things families are rarely taught until they encounter them firsthand. That knowledge was priceless, because very little of it is taught to families before they enter the industry. My daughter’s life eventually took her in a different direction, but I wasn't ready to walk away from everything I had learned. My passion was reignited.
That became Girl Pow-R.
And after years of developing Girl Pow-R, I realized that what we had learned shouldn't benefit only the girls who happened to be in the group. I wanted to create the roadmap that I never had for myself or for my daughter.
That's really where the Pop Star Performance Academy came from.
How does this build on Girl Pow-R?
Girl Pow-R has really been a real-world laboratory for almost a decade.
I started with an audition that attracted over 100 girls, and from there it grew into something I could never have imagined at the beginning. Girl Pow-R has performed more than 450 times, toured the U.S. twice, performed in cities from New York and Washington to Dallas and Houston, released original music heard in 240 countries with millions of streams around the world, earned a JUNO nomination in Canada (like the Grammys in the US), and even had a single reach the Top 50 on the U.S. Mediabase radio chart.
But those achievements are actually the by-product. The real value was that every one of those experiences taught me something about how performers develop.
I learned that you can teach someone a song, but that doesn't necessarily teach them how to perform it. Singing while dancing is different; it takes an almost athletic level of stamina and coordination. Connecting with an audience is different; being relatable and entertaining requires additional skill development. Recovering when something goes wrong onstage is learned through experiencing those setbacks, not in the classroom or the studio. Speaking confidently in an interview is again another skill.
When you have performed hundreds of times, you see things you simply cannot simulate in a studio. A microphone stops working. Someone misses a cue. A dancer ends up in the wrong position. The crowd reacts differently than expected. The young performer has to keep going, stay composed and make sure the audience never knows anything went wrong.
With all of this experience, you begin to see what actually works.
So, Girl Pow-R became the proof of concept for the Academy. We don't just teach a song or a dance routine. We teach the performer.
And one of the biggest things I learned is that live performance can't just be the reward at the end of the training. Live performance is part of the training.
I read that the academy is based in part on the BRIT School. How are the two similar or different?
I have enormous respect for what the BRIT School has accomplished, but we aren't trying to literally duplicate it. BRIT is a free, state-funded secondary school in the U.K., so obviously our structure is very different.
What inspires me is the philosophy behind it.
BRIT demonstrated that young people with creative potential can become dramatically better when you surround them with serious training, multiple disciplines, industry exposure and real opportunities to perform. BRIT is not simply a school that happened to produce Adele and Amy Winehouse. It has trained more than 14,000 young creatives, and the British government has reported that roughly 60% of its alumni continue to work in the creative industries.
But it’s important to also look beyond the famous names. The BRIT School created an actual development pathway for young creative people. That philosophy resonates with me. I believe that by focusing on trainable skills, rather than simply innate gifts, and surrounding young people with the right coaches and opportunities, any child can become dramatically more confident and capable, and can learn to own a room.
I think Canada has incredible talent. We certainly don't have a talent problem. But families are often left to piece the pathway together themselves. Voice lessons over here. Dance somewhere else. Acting somewhere else. Then somehow they're supposed to figure out stage experience, recording, media training and how the music industry works.
That's the part I want to change.
I have also been fascinated by what South Korea has done with K-Pop. South Korea has built entire artist-development systems with integrated training. This includes vocals, dance, stage performance, camera skills, languages and media readiness, all of this years before an artist ever debuts. That doesn't mean I want to reproduce the intensity or pressure of the Korean trainee system. But the underlying idea is important: artist development can be systematic.
What I want to do is take some of the best ideas from these models and adapt them for young performers in Canada and, ultimately, internationally.
What are some of the things that students at the Pop Star Performance Academy will learn?
Singing, dancing and acting are obviously a big part of it, but that's really just the beginning.
We want students to learn how to put those skills together. How do you sing while you're moving? How do you walk onto a stage and make people want to watch you? How do you connect with an audience? What happens when you forget a lyric or miss a cue? How do you speak confidently when someone puts a microphone in front of you?
At the more advanced levels, students aren't simply taking voice and dance. They are learning harmonies and solos, songwriting, recording original music, acting in music videos, interview skills, stage engagement, camera performance and how to work as part of a performing group.This is important because, even for solo artists, working as a team is critical because the success of that one person on stage is also driven by their band, their back-up dancers and the myriad of other professionals who make sure everything goes smoothly. This is why real performance experience is so critical to success.
There is also a progression structure. Students don't simply repeat the same type of class year after year. As their skills develop, they advance through levels, and the expectations, repertoire and performance opportunities increase with them.
But I also care enormously about who these young people become offstage, as well.
With Girl Pow-R, every girl chooses a social cause that has personal meaning to her. I ask her to research it, write a speech about it and be prepared to speak about it publicly. We then actively look for opportunities to support charities connected to those causes.
Over the years, the girls have championed causes ranging from children's health, mental health and homelessness, to Alzheimer's research, girls' equality, anti-bullying and animal welfare. This philosophy is also an important part of what we have built into the Pop Star Performance Academy.
Because if we're teaching young people how to find their voice, I think we should also teach them to think about what they're going to use that voice for.
So yes, we're teaching performance. But we're also developing confidence, resilience, communication, leadership, teamwork and the understanding that giving back matters.
What's next for them after they finish at the Pop Star Performance Academy?
I actually don't think of the Pop Star Performance Academy as having one single finish line.
For some students, the tremendous win will be that they become more confident. They may never fully follow a professional entertainment career, but they'll walk into school presentations, university interviews, job interviews and future leadership opportunities knowing how to stand up, communicate and own the room. That's a success.
For others, this may absolutely be the beginning of a professional career path in entertainment.
As students develop in the Training Pathway, there are opportunities to move into more advanced training and performances. Students advance through the Denim Jacket and Pink Jacket levels in the Girl Pow-R Pathway, with the expectations and opportunities increasing as their skills develop.
The strongest and most committed performers move toward more intensive artist development in this Girl Pow-R Pathway, where they then record original music, write songs, act and perform in music videos, participate in advanced auditions and contests, perform in more professional shows, access industry introductions and are showcased in group or solo artist opportunities.
It is these advanced performers who have participated in the two U.S. tours. We also have opportunities to perform at Universal Studios, Disney World, along with the chance to train intensively and access an audition with a Hollywood or Disney casting director.
That's part of the larger vision.
In Canada we produce extraordinary artists, but I think we need a stronger pathway for developing them here. And as the Academy expands, I want to bring that same kind of artist development to young performers across the U.S. and around the world.
I'd like the Pop Star Performance Academy to become one part of that pipeline: finding potential early, developing it properly, creating real opportunities to perform, and then helping the young people who truly want to go further understand what the next steps look like.
We are launching across Canada now; however, through our online program and our next phase of expansion into the U.S. and global markets, we want to help young people go from first steps to headliner moments, whether it’s on a stage or on the stage called life!
I don't believe in promising every child that they are going to become a star.
I do believe in giving every young person the opportunity to discover how far they can go.
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