It was barely a year ago that two moms with children in Tribeca’s Park Preschool sat in a cafe on Greenwich Street, sketching out their plan for a new neighborhood dance school, the Downtown Dance Factory. One of them, Melanie Zrihen, had a business background and the other, Hanne Larsen, had run a successful dance school in her native Australia. Neither imagined then that they would end their first season with 200 children—most under the age of five—on the stage of the 900-seat Tribeca Performing Arts Center theater, dancing before a nearly full house.

“We said maybe in three, four, or five years we will be a big enough venture that we can actually have our performance in such a great professional theater,” Zrihen recalled.

All together, the school presented 17 performances—one from each class and each with its own costume and choreography created by Larsen, who also taught most of those classes.

The recital last month capped a first year of popular class offerings called “jazz/hip hop fusion” “street hip hop” and “kindihop” that draws children more attuned to the moves they see on music videos than to classic ballet steps (though tutu options were available for 3- to-5-year-olds).

Three of Larsen’s four children are boys as are two of Zrihen’s three kids, so the women were keen on getting boys into the school and they succeeded with a high-energy hip hop class.

The women credit their successful first year to such pop offerings. “If we can tap into what kids like and teach them to dance,” said Larsen, “that’s fantastic.”