For over 40 years, Kids Artistic Revue has proudly served the dance community, producing world class competitions and setting the industry standard, truly earning the title of “America’s Favorite Dance Competition”. Today, Kids Artistic Revue (also known as KAR) and its family of brands produce over 80 Regional competitions, 6 National Finals across the US, and 2 international tours in Australia. KAR has grown from a small, family operated company to a thriving business that employs over 20 full time staff members and over 150 “road warrior” team members.
In 1981, Kids Artistic Revue began out of the home of owner and CEO Noah Lands with only 2 employees. The company’s first office was located in Downey, California in the back of a dance studio with no computers and all registration being handled via telephone and post mail. In the first year, the tour consisted of 6 regional competitions in California with 100 acts at each event. Fast forward to 5 years later, KAR began hosting regional events out of state, and finished the season by putting on its first national competition. KAR’s first nationals in 1986 took place in Las Vegas at the Tropicana with a star-studded judging panel, including the legendary Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor. From this point forward, our once small company began to exponentially reach new heights.
As KAR continued to grow, professional photographers and videographers were added to the tour, along with technical advancements such as digital score sheets and computer registration. With its continued proven success, KAR expanded and joined forces with Rainbow Dance Competition in 2011. Known for being “The Competition With Heart”, Rainbow provided dancers with even more opportunities to grace the stage year after year. Continually seeking more ways to offer dancers the tools and training to refine their craft, we launched the KAR Convention in 2011. The idea behind KAR Convention was to provide a one-day event packed with positivity from renowned master instructors from all across the country. To this day, KAR Convention continues to encourage dancers to “Come to Dance, Walk Away Inspired.”
As the years went on, the KAR staff grew larger, including a very special employee and former dancer named Marissa Parks who passed away from cancer at the age of 25. This led Noah Lands to develop the charity Dancers Against Cancer (DAC) in 2012 (formerly known as “I’m a Dancer Against Cancer”). It became his mission to create an alliance in the dance community to provide financial support and inspiration to dance educators, choreographers, dancers and their families who have been impacted by cancer. Today, DAC has proudly raised over 2 million dollars in donations that directly benefit those in need.
2012 proved to be a busy year, as we further developed KAR into a model of success in the competitive dance world. We established KAR Core Values as a means to unite and inspire our large, growing team with a streamlined approach to achieving anything we set our minds to. This same year, we launched the KARtv Awards, which later evolved into the Industry Dance Awards (also known as IDA) in Hollywood in 2015. The creation of IDA made the awards show a multifaceted one, by not only celebrating dancers, educators, pioneers, and dance icons for their outstanding achievements and artistic contributions, but also as a charity benefit for Dancers Against Cancer. IDA became a place for dance competitions to come together as well, as it began to welcome nominee submissions from many other competition companies in the industry. The event continues to occur annually and provides the dance industry with “The Most Prestigious Dance Event of the Year!”
As of 2013, KAR’s events grew from 7 competitions each weekend to 12, and this continual growth of our company prompted us to bring our magic overseas. The addition of KAR and Rainbow’s international tours in Australia originated in 2015, and continues to delight dancers from across the world. A few years later, in true innovative KAR fashion, Ultra Dance Competition debuted in 2022. Ultra was created as a means for dancers to experience competitions in a setting they’ve never seen before. With features like Olympic style scoring on display instantly after each performance and live judge feedback at the event, the Ultra vision came to life and became the electrifying event that it is today.
At KAR, we never settle. We continue to not only set standards, but redefine the industry. Our passion is to set beautiful stages to be shared by thousands of performers who will all have their moment to shine in a positive, rewarding, and exhilarating setting. We’re proud to present fantastic awards honoring the achievements of teachers, choreographers and dancers. On behalf of KAR and our entire family of brands, we’re honored to be a positive outlet where dedication, talent, and accomplishments are proudly celebrated. We hope you join us as we continue to help build the dancers of tomorrow, today.