Changes Are In Step This Fall At Dance, Etc

By Shannon Hicks

Students who attend classes at the Dance, Etc studios on Mt Pleasant Road in Newtown this fall will notice a few changes.

There are classes for three-year-olds to second graders that will combine gymnastics and dancing elements (for a while, students had to choose between the two studies). Dance, Etc’s schedule can now be accessed on the World Wide Web, where parents and prospective students can read up on the latest developments at any hour.

The fees have increased for some of the classes this year, but that should not be a surprise to anyone who has been studying at Dance, Etc; the studio has gone for two years without a change in class fees. New teachers, including a number of dancers from New York City, are going to be leading some of the classes, and there will even be a few new classes to choose from including ballet basics and classes for adults.

The biggest change, however, comes from within the workings of the studio. After years of running with two co-owners, Dance, Etc is now owned and being run by a new name: Jennifer Turey. Ms Turey, who continues to live in Manhattan (“I do the backwards commute,” she joked recently), is a dancer, singer, actress, teacher, and choreographer. Now she is also a studio owner.

The changeover was completed this summer, while the studio was on its annual break. When the studio reopens for its new season on September 15, it will be Ms Turey who will be leading the welcoming committee.

Ms Turey is originally from Monroe. She trained at Monroe Dance Academy and has done national and international dance tours. She has done regional theatre in Massachusetts and Westchester County. She has also been a Rockette at Radio City Music Hall.

“The idea of owning my own studio was actually further down the lines in my plans,” Ms Turey admitted last week, “but the opportunity came up to buy this one and I couldn’t pass it up. I know it’s still early in my own career, but I can still continue with my performing career at the same time.”

Come September 21, Ms Turey will in fact be doing just that: She will begin rehearsals that day for a production of Crazy For You.

“I’m still not sure how I’m going to do all this, but I have to try,” she said. “We’re all trying to make compromises, to make the changes at the studio go as smoothly as they can. I’m getting a lot of support already from the staff and students.”

This summer, Ms Turey did a lot of work with the Reagle Players, a theatre company in Waltham, Mass. She played Gloria in Bye Bye Birdie, and also assisted the choreographer for the production. She played Gertie Cummings in Oklahoma!, and while she did not have a dancing role in that production, she sat in on all of the dance rehearsals nevertheless. In doing so, Ms Turey learned “all the original Agnes DeMille choreography that I could.”

She was also the dance captain for My One and Only, during which she picked up the original Tommy Tune choreography for that production.

“I figure I have lots of experience and a ton of fun choreography that I can share with our students,” Ms Turey said last week, sitting in the office space set up between the gymnastics studio space and the dance space at 117 Mt Pleasant Road. “I can show our students exactly what the professional dance world is all about.”

Ms Turey is already a familiar face to many of the students who are staying on at Dance, Etc this fall. She was one of the choreographers for the studio’s annual recital last spring, and the brains behind a few of the most popular numbers of the show.

Her work was seen in the choreography of “Stomp!,” a music-free tap number loosely based on the popular traveling theatre company of the same name; and “Un, Dos, Tres,” a jazz number set to the music of a Ricky Martin song.

(The public has the opportunity to view Ms Turey’s work, and the talent of the entire Dance, Etc roster, when Charter Communications airs the studio’s spring recital on its community access station during the next few weeks. The recital will be presented on Channel 21 on Sunday, August 27, at 4 pm, and again on Sunday, September 10, at 4 pm.)

“Both of those numbers were such a big hit at our shows,” Linda Davies said. “I had overwhelming response to both of the numbers, which really says something about [Jen’s] talent.”

“This is really the logical thing for me to do at this point,” Linda Davies said in discussing her decision to sell the studio. Mrs Davies, a Brookfield resident, was until just recently the co-owner of Dance, Etc along with partner Anna Ferrarese. The two ladies founded the studio 16 years ago.

Mrs Davies decided it is time to take a step back from teaching and running the studio to devote more time to her family, and Ms Ferrarese, said Mrs Davies, wanted to retire as well.

“I’m looking forward to taking a break and just calming down my life a little,” Mrs Davies added. The former co-owner Davies will continue to teach some of the younger students one day a week, and Judy Crane will continue in her role as coordinator of the gymnastics portion of the studio’s class schedule.

“Judy and I are staying on as staff this year to help Jen with the transition,” explained Mrs Davies.

That transition, as mentioned earlier, will include a new series of classes, the most prominent of which will be brand new for the studio: ballet.

“Ballet is very hard to introduce to this area, but it’s the base of all forms of dance,” Ms Turey said. “The more ballet you have, the stronger dancer you are going to be.

“All dancers need that ballet, those basics,” she continued. “It is so important.”

Adult classes are being added this year, but the final times and offerings were still unsure as of last week.

“The schedule is still a little up in the air,” explained the new owner. “But we’re working on it every day.”

Dance, Etc will host an open house on Saturday, August 26, from 10 am to 5 pm. The gymnastics and dance studio is at 117 Mt Pleasant Road in Newtown, just above the intersection with Route 6. For additional information contact the studio at 426-8717, Mrs Davies at 775-7148, or gymnastics teacher Judy Crane at 426-7198.