The January Issue is Here!

December 19, 2013


The new issue! Cover shot by Erin Baiano.

The funnest day in the Dance Spirit office every month is “new issue day.” Even though we’ve just wrapped up months of working on a particular issue, it’s still crazy exciting when we actually get our copies and get to hold them and gawk at them and bask in their new shininess.

The January 2014 issue arrived the other day and, in accordance with our little tradition, we all squealed and flipped through every page with an insane amount of excitement. This issue is an especially big deal because we’ve got some major dance celebrities on the cover: Sophia Lucia and Ashi Ross. They may be young and teeny-tiny, but these two girls collectively have hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. They’re kind of a big deal.

We got a little peek at why people are so obsessed with Sophia and Ashi during their cover shoot in NYC. Ashi flew in all the way from her home in Australia (crazy!) and Sophia took a cross-country flight from San Diego, where she lives. The two of them hit it off right away, striking cute, fun and silly poses for our photographer, Erin Baiano. They had about a billion outfits and pairs of shoes between the two of them (I was hugely jealous of Sophia’s wacky leggings and Ashi’s high-waisted shorts that tie in the back) and, best of all, we got to shoot them on the hottest of hot pink backgrounds (a personal dream come true).


Ashi on the left, Sophia on the right, awesome across the board. Photos by Erin Baiano.

As always, there’s lots for your viewing and reading enjoyment:

  • Click here
     to read this month’s cover story about Sophia, Ashi, Mia Diaz and Hayden Hopkins—four of the most-followed dancers on the internet.
  • Click here
    for an entire album of exclusive outtakes from Ashi and Sophia’s photo shoot.
  • Click here
    to watch a behind-the-scenes video from the shoot, and to get social media tips from the girls.
  • After you’ve done all that, click here to let us know what you think about the issue! Maybe we’ll print your comment in Dance Spirit.

The January issue is available now online, and will be at your local Barnes & Noble and favorite dance retail stores on December 31.

Happy reading!