On a summer night in 2023, someone appeared to break into a South Boulder dance studio.
Spray paint covered nearly every surface inside. Furniture was destroyed, possibly with a knife. Large mirrors were shattered. Boulder police estimated the damage at more than $100,000.
Security footage showed two figures wearing hoodies entering the studio late at night. Police issued a press release describing a “dance studio burglary,” reporting that individuals described as possibly male teenagers had broken in and vandalized the space. Local news outlets quickly disseminated the story, framing it as vandalism by unknown suspects.
The studio was Kinesis Dance, Boulder’s only competitive youth dance program. More than two years later, no one has been arrested.
But the focus of investigators appears to have shifted.
According to multiple sources and an email from a Boulder police detective obtained by Boulder Reporting Lab, the Colorado Attorney General’s Office is investigating the studio’s owner, Cindy Burdine. Sources said investigators have asked questions related to the 2023 break-in, but Boulder Reporting Lab has not confirmed the scope or focus of the inquiry.
The Attorney General’s Office told Boulder Reporting Lab it “cannot confirm or otherwise comment on investigations.” If Burdine is charged, she is presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Among some parents and former employees, questions have lingered for years. Several say the vandalism occurred amid what they describe as a pattern of alleged financial misconduct that ultimately led to the studio’s collapse.
“It didn’t make sense that the studio got vandalized and nothing was taken,” said one parent, who asked not to be named. “There’s Play It Again Sports right there that people could break into and grab thousands of dollars of equipment.”
Last fall, parents contacted both the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office and Boulder police about allegations of overbilling and “poor business practices.” That investigation was closed by police on Jan. 7, 2026, with no charges filed. In the correspondence obtained by Boulder Reporting Lab, the detective involved reminded parents that the Attorney General’s case remains open.
The studio, rebranded as Frequency Dance in 2025, closed abruptly last month after months of unpaid rent and unresolved disputes with parents. Its landlord has since sued for more than $48,000 in back rent. Families say they were left without refunds for prepaid tuition, competition fees and costumes totaling tens of thousands of dollars, collectively.
Burdine disputes the allegations described in this story, including those related to financial misconduct, billing practices, workplace behavior and the circumstances surrounding the 2023 break-in.
“All of this is just overwhelming,” Burdine told Boulder Reporting Lab. “I’m just shocked.”
For Boulder’s tight-knit dance community, the collapse has left a void.
“It’s a very sad scenario for the Boulder dance community to be facing,” said Kirsten Leslie, Burdine’s former business partner, who left Kinesis in 2021. “There are so many dance families that found themselves without a dance home.”
Questions from the start
As other problems at the studio began to surface, some parents told Boulder Reporting Lab they were skeptical of the break-in.
Several said they later heard from someone close to the situation alleging that Burdine had asked individuals to appear on security footage before the vandalism was reported. Boulder Reporting Lab has not verified that claim.
Burdine vehemently disputes this account and denies any involvement in staging or orchestrating the break-in.
“That’s a terrible rumor, and I’m sad that someone would even suggest such a thing, because that was a terrible time,” she said.
What is undisputed, according to police reports, is that nothing of value was reported stolen.
Parents said the break-in took on added significance as financial and legal problems at the studio came to light.
Early signs of financial distress
Financial problems began to show during the pandemic, based on court filings, interviews and accounts from organizations that did business with the studio.
In 2021, Leslie, Burdine’s former business partner and Kinesis co-owner, left the studio. Since then, Leslie and Burdine have communicated only through attorneys, according to Leslie. Leslie declined to discuss the details of her departure, saying she was not at liberty to do so.
One parent told Boulder Reporting Lab that Burdine had opened a credit card in Leslie’s name without her knowledge. Carly Knudson, a longtime former employee who worked at Kinesis at the time, said Leslie’s departure was tied to “unethical and illegal business practices, related to personal identification of Kirsten that was not agreed upon.” Burdine said she never opened a credit card or line of credit in Leslie’s name.
That same year, two small-business financing companies sued Burdine for defaulting on merchant cash advances, a form of high-interest financing often used by businesses unable to secure traditional bank loans, according to court filings from Kings County and Queens County in New York City. By December 2021, Kinesis owed the companies nearly $60,000, according to the filings.
Federal records also show that Kinesis received two Paycheck Protection Program loans at once, each for $16,700, during the pandemic. While businesses were limited to one loan per application round, Kinesis submitted a second application through a different bank under the misspelled name “Kinesis Dnce.”
Knudson said she also took out a $14,000 personal loan in 2021 to help Kinesis rent practice space when Burdine’s credit was too poor, she said, to secure financing.
A trail of unpaid bills
Around the same time, Kinesis began falling behind on payments to some organizations it worked with, according to interviews and documents reviewed by Boulder Reporting Lab, including emails requesting payment and photos of bounced checks.
In 2021, the City of Boulder Parks and Recreation Department ended its contract with Kinesis after the studio failed to pay the city about $10,000 in revenue owed from 2020 and 2021. According to Recreation Manager Megann Lohman, Kinesis issued a check with an improper date that could not be deposited and then did not respond to repeated requests to correct it.
In 2022, Burdine attempted to pay more than $16,000 in competition fees to Intrigue Dance with a check that bounced twice, according to Intrigue co-owner Lorraine Aubin and Knudson. After the competition, Aubin said Burdine stopped responding to her calls. More than three years later, Intrigue has still not been paid.
Boulder Valley School District ended a yearslong relationship with Kinesis after the studio failed to pay about $5,000 for performance space it rented in April 2023, according to district spokesperson Randy Barber. After months of silence, district officials threatened to involve their legal team. In 2024, Kinesis tried to pay with an e-check that did not go through, Barber said.
None of these organizations pursued legal action, in part because the cost of going to small claims court would have exceeded the amounts owed.
Not every relationship ended badly. Chuck Palmer, owner of the Avalon dance hall, said it took Kinesis eight months to pay off invoices during the pandemic, but he understood their situation. He said the studio’s consistent rentals of his space helped support the Avalon when social distancing restrictions left it largely empty. The Dairy Arts Center also told Boulder Reporting Lab it has “historically had only positive experiences working with Frequency Dance (formerly Kinesis).”
Rebranding and escalation
In 2024, Kinesis entered another merchant cash advance and again defaulted. On March 7, 2025, the financing company Grid Market LLC sued Burdine for over $24,000, plus interest and fees, according to Niagara County, New York court records.
Weeks later, Burdine told parents that Kinesis Dance had been renamed Frequency Dance.
“It made no sense to anyone, from a small business perspective,” one parent told Boulder Reporting Lab. “All the marketing’s been done. The kids have T-shirts that say Kinesis.”
State records show Frequency Dance was established using the same business and personal addresses as Kinesis. But the new LLC was registered under the name of Burdine’s daughter, Maggie Burdine, a college student. It is unclear whether Maggie Burdine knew she was listed as the registered agent. She did not respond to a request for comment.
Knudson said she believes the rebrand was an attempt to avoid creditors. Burdine denied this, saying the change was “because we were competing under Frequency Dance as our dance company, and I felt like it was becoming a little confusing.” She said the students had voted on a name for their competition group in 2023 and chosen Frequency, while the business had remained Kinesis Dance for years.
Parents push back
For years, parents said, the lack of other competitive dance programs, combined with the friendships their children had formed, made it difficult for families to leave, even when they were unhappy.
“In terms of Boulder, she really had a stranglehold,” Knudson said.
Over the past few years, that dynamic began to change.
A parent who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation said the competitive program shrank from roughly 60 or 70 dancers in 2023 to just over 20 in 2025.
“It seems like every year there’s been a group of people who leave,” she said.
As enrollment declined, parents said the studio’s billing practices worsened.
During the summer of 2025, parents noticed a sharp increase in credit card charges, totaling between $7,000 and $9,000 over three months, “four or five times the amount of money that we’ve been charged the season before,” one parent said.
In September 2025, at least 11 families withdrew their children and filed complaints with the Boulder Police Department and the Boulder County District Attorney’s Office.
Parents said they were charged competition fees in advance but that Burdine could not provide proof of payment for some competitions. Parents also said Burdine told them she had never registered dancers for certain competitions despite charging families for those fees.
“She was consistently robbing Peter to pay Paul,” Knudson alleged, describing how Burdine would charge parents for events months in advance to cover immediate expenses, like “rent or costumes or insert anything here.”
In the September 2025 meeting with concerned parents, Burdine told them that the competition charges were legitimate and said she had been slow to respond to emails from parents about financial transactions because she was going through a divorce and experiencing vertigo.
On Jan. 7, 2026, Boulder police closed their investigation into allegations of credit card fraud, writing in an email to parents involved in the case that while the “business practices are concerning, and in some cases not in the best interest of the consumer, the contract provided allows for the charges that were made.”
Several parents said they were frustrated by the decision.
Closure and fallout
On Dec. 8, 2025, Kinesis Dance – by then operating as Frequency Dance – closed abruptly.
“All of a sudden we started losing a lot of students, and I really didn’t know why,” Burdine said. “When you lose a lot of students like we did, it becomes difficult to maintain.”
On Dec. 29, the landlord, W.W. Reynolds, filed a civil suit through Table Mesa Shopping Center LLC seeking more than $48,000 in unpaid rent.
Some families moved to programs in Broomfield and Erie, while others approached the City of Boulder Parks and Recreation Department for competitive dance coaching.
“They set up classes just for the kids that had left Frequency,” one parent said. “The kids are all still together and they really like it.” A parks and recreation spokesperson clarified that the city does not offer a competitive dance program but was able to provide space and instructors when available.
The new program is being run by Leslie, who began working for the city again in 2024.
In her closure announcement, Burdine cited “unfortunate rumors” and accused a former instructor of poaching students as her reasons for closing. She told Boulder Reporting Lab she was not referring to Leslie and declined to say who she meant.
Former employees speak out
Two former employees said the studio’s financial problems were accompanied by a pattern of verbal hostility and intimidation.
“That was the epitome of a toxic workplace,” said Anna (AJ) Warbritton, a former employee who said persistent negative criticism eventually led her to quit.
Knudson said Burdine once berated her in front of students after Knudson left work to attend to her young child, who was experiencing seizures.
“I just have to walk out,” Knudson said, recalling that moment. “There’s no love, no compassion.”
Both Warbritton and Knudson said being yelled at in front of others was not uncommon.
When asked to respond to these accounts, Burdine said, “I would never verbally abuse anyone, and I feel like I’m very kind.”
Both Knudson and Warbritton said they worked six to seven days a week, were paid as 1099 contractors and felt discouraged from seeking other employment. They said Burdine sent frequent, sometimes aggressive texts, some of which were reviewed by Boulder Reporting Lab.
Both had danced for Burdine as teenagers before working for her as adults.
“For a long time I questioned, ‘Why did I stay for so long?’” Warbritton said. “You come in at 16. You don’t actually know better. You start there as a kid, you work your way up into an adult, and you’re suddenly so ingrained that it’s so hard to get out.”
Dance Dimensions in Longmont has a competitive dance program, Starbound, and robust and affirming classes for dancers of all ages.
Great reporting.
Yes, this is all so true! She also has not paid her workers. I along with several other have not been paid since August. This whole situation is ridiculous as she is not accountable for any of her actions.
Thank you for reporting on this story. Burdine visited my friend in California last Labor Day weekend and paid their hotel tab and travel for 3 nights. She told him she would write it off as business expense. She also wired this person money and I saw the name attached to the payment was Maggie Burdine. She told my friend her (ex) husband took all her money for safe keeping.