2016
It began because there was nowhere to go.
Willemieke wanted to train seriously as an adult dancer in Leiden, and no studio offered it. So she opened one herself. A single room on the Herenstraat, no business plan, just a floor and the people who showed up.
2018
The first studio was sold out from under us.
Mid-season, the Herenstraat space was sold. Doezastraat started as a rescue rather than a plan, and turned out to be the best move we never made on purpose. It is still our home for yoga, Pilates and mat work.
It was never only about dance.
Willemieke sees movement as expression and exploration, not one style boxed off from the rest. Yoga and Pilates joined early, and the idea of a home for every kind of movement grew from there.
2020
We grew in the middle of Covid, which makes no sense on paper.
In 2020 the 1.5 metre rule meant Doezastraat could no longer hold a full group. So instead of shrinking, we opened the Haagweg studio: a black box with mirrors and a proper dance floor. Growth in a year built for the opposite.
2021
Our kids' department started as a rescue.
The Broekplein studio had been part of the Merenwijk for more than twenty-five years when it was about to close, in the second year of Covid. "I couldn't just let it disappear." Taking it over in 2021 meant starting something Tribes had never done before, dance for children. That is where our kids' department began.
2024
Our biggest home came from outgrowing a smaller one.
We rented a space on the Breestraat and realised almost at once it was too small. The search led us to the Floris Versterlaan: two floors, dance upstairs, everything else downstairs. Two communities with room to finally meet.
2024
MoveFest, our own festival of movement.
In 2024, after visiting the Barcelona Yoga Conference, Willemieke came back wanting to build something with that same sense of community and belonging. Bringing Leiden's movement teachers together across styles and cultures is exactly what Tribes stands for. So she made MoveFest, a festival of movement in all its forms, held at Scheltema every July since.
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Forty ways to move, forty-plus teachers, one tribe.
Today more than forty teachers lead everything from ballet to breathwork, around seventy classes a week across five studios, plus two shows a year. Whatever moving means to you, there is a room for it.
The tribe was never really about Willemieke.
Tribes nearly ended twice, and both times the community carried it back. As she puts it:
"You make the tribes. Not me."
- Willemieke