Nancy Warner, top center, of Pennington Dance Studio with some of her students.
By Carly Szabo
Pennington Dance Studio expects excellence from its students, but not at the cost of confidence.
The dance studio provides students with a noncompetitive, collaborative atmosphere that promotes self-esteem and responsibility in even the most timid of dancers, says owner Nancy Warner. The studio offers many different types of dance classes including ballet, jazz, tap, hip-hop, contemporary and musical theater.
But dance isn’t all this studio aims to teach its students. Through its involvement with the community in various service projects and events, Pennington Dance strives to make a difference both in their dancers and in the surrounding community.
Warner started Pennington Dance in September 1979. She was offered the chance to purchase the business after her old dance instructors, Margot and Roland Guerard, retired, and she took the offer.
Pennington Dance began in the basement of the Pennington Presbyterian Church, with plumbing pipes used as portable barres and leftover dance records for accompaniment. They occupy the same space today, though the atmosphere has changed considerably. There are now built-in barres in a room with sprung wood dance floors rather than carpet-covered concrete.
Inspired by the Guerards and National Dance Institute instructor Jacques D’Amboise, Warner shaped her studio’s mission statement with a focus on developing self esteem in a noncompetitive, supportive environment. However, written in the fine print of that mission statement is the goal to enact change wherever possible, Warner says.
Just by being a student at Pennington Dance Studio, dancers make a difference, with a percentage of their tuition being donated to feed the hungry. Pennington Dance Studio has worked in the past with such organizations as Mercer Street Friends and American Second Harvest to donate their proceeds to the people who need it most, Warner says.
Pennington Dance Studio has donated its time to other causes as well, providing time, money and performances wherever they are needed. The studio holds an annual performance at Greenwood House nursing home to help spread cheer to the elderly. Warner also has her students participate every year in Pennington Day, where students dance in tribute to those who suffered from the terrible fire of 1980 at O’Hanlon Hall Prep School. Warner and her students have been a part of Pennington Day for 35 years.
In addition to the various community causes Pennington Dance Studio contributes to, the studio has also been a part of larger-scale projects, including a 2005 trip to Nairobi, Kenya. In an effort to both teach and learn African dance in order to instill in her students an understanding of the roots of American dance, Warner and some of her students traveled to Africa.
During their stay, the students helped the Kibera slum community by holding nutrition and health seminars and cleaning up around the area.
“The experience was life altering,” Warner says.
The experience helped Warner develop a new way to teach her students about the roots of American dance. During their annual end of the year performance in June, Warner incorporated many different forms of dance including Native American hoop dance, Korean fan dance and Armenian belly dance. She invited different dance groups to perform during the end of the year show so her students could learn more about the relationship between foreign dance and American dance.
Warner continues this education in her summer World Dance Camp. During the month of July, students will have the opportunity to learn about different dance techniques used around the world.
But dance is not all those students will learn about. A great deal of responsibility is taught through the camp as well, with older students put in the role of camp counselor and preschool students put in the role of camper. In that way, students learn about responsibility as well as self-confidence, building on the mission statement of Pennington Dance Studio.
Warner is now accepting applications for her World Dance Camp, which is set to take place in July.
Pennington Dance Studio will hold its annual end-of-the-year performance Sunday, June 7 at Hopewell Valley Central High School. During this special performance, alumnus Marin Orlosky-Randow will perform dance numbers from her current experience as a dancer in Boston.
Performances by other alumni will also take place at the end of the year show with an annual tap number experience wherein the dancers have only rehearsed for 24 hours.
Pennington Dance Studio classes take place at Trenton Cyrus Lodge (13 Burd Ave.), Pennington Presbyterian Church (13 S. Main St.) and Warner’s home studio. More information about the studio is online at penningtondance.com.
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