PROVO — Dirtylicious Dance Fitness classes offered many people an outlet away from the pressures of work, home or school — providing connection and community through choreography for the better part of a decade.
The music has come to an end, after seven years of business and a recent battle with the city of Provo, at least for the Dirtylicious brand.
Erica Tanner, CEO and founder of Dirtylicious Dance Fitness, announced late last month that the program would, as she calls it, “sunset” as of March 31.
“I’m closing on what it feels like on my own terms,” she said. “So I can prioritize my family, my own life and my peace, honestly.”
Tanner, a resident of Provo, founded the business in 2019 to build her own confidence while also helping others find theirs through dance.
“What we were doing was creating these places where people could let go of the drama, the stresses in the world and just dance it out,” she said.
Since then, Dirtylicious Dance Fitness has brought on several instructors with classes offered at gyms, studios and recreation centers across Utah and beyond, to other states including Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and Florida.
Dirtylicious Dance Fitness founder Erica Tanner (right) and instructors pose in an undated photo. (Photo: Erica Tanner)
The program has some similarities to Zumba; Dirtylicious workout class instructors lead members through an entire dance routine and break down the choreography so students can learn and feel confident with each move.
Tanner said like any other business, Dirtylicious had its challenges from time to time, including last summer when classes were suddenly shuttered at the Provo Recreation Center.
In June 2025, instructors of classes offered at the rec center were told their classes were being canceled.
Provo Recreation Center officials said the program “didn’t align” with the city’s values, moral standards or policies, according to Tanner.
“It was pretty devastating for that community and for those instructors that worked there,” she said.
City officials told Tanner that a man had come across a Dirtylicious video that was previously filmed at the Provo rec center and complained to city government, saying that the dancing was inappropriate for the facility. The city then reviewed the recordings and social media and agreed with the complaint.
Despite Tanner’s efforts to fight back against the decision and the support of hundreds of people who signed a petition hoping to have the classes reinstated at the Provo Rec Center, officials stood firm in their decision to pull the dance fitness offering.
I think we proved that dance is a language of healing.–Erica Tanner
The decision to end Dirtlylicious now is not entirely rooted in the fallout with Provo, but Tanner said it did play a role.
“It’s not as much of a retreat as it is like a conscious choice, but to say it had nothing to do with last year would be dishonest,” she told KSL.
Though Dirtylicious Dance Fitness continued on at other sites and even gained a few new locations, its dismissal in Provo had an effect on the business, she said, from losing out on instructor leads and future opportunities to expand classes to different facilities. Some of those issues, Tanner believes, could be attributed to the press the program received.
“Now, anytime anybody looks up Dirtylicious Dance Fitness, what are the top 10 things that come up — controversy, controversy, controversy — who wants to be involved in some drama?” she said.
In regard to attracting new instructors, Tanner added, “When they see or hear of drama, or I can’t teach there, a lot of those opportunities (and) business is lost, it makes it a lot harder to get people to want to be a part of it and become champions of the brand and business.”
Don’t stop dancing
While Tanner plans to make her family a bigger priority, her passion for dance and teaching dance fitness classes isn’t going away.
“I’m using that same confidence that I gained from our class to now choose my family over, I guess you could say … my to-do list,” she said. “(And) it feels like a beautiful thing, like I’m gaining my life back, but can still do the dancing side of things without all the hardships of the business.”
She’s also championing Ditrylicious instructors and people who have participated in the classes to keep dancing.
“I’ll support them and I’ll be there for them if they ever need help or mentoring in any way,” she said.
At its core, Dirtlylicious Dance Fitness was about helping people feel confident in their own bodies, Tanner said.
For anyone who found confidence in Dirtylicious Dance Fitness classes and the instructors who taught the routines in their communities, Tanner said, while the brand has come to an end, its mission to empower individuals through dance lives on through each of their personal experiences.
“I think we proved that dance is a language of healing,” she said.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
