DANCE FOR JANIE
2025 Dance-A-Thon Congratulates Nancy Chippendale’s Dance Studios!
Kids helping kids by dancing together for a better future.
Since 2022 Star Dance Alliance and over 100+ leading dance studios across the United States and Canada have partnered with Janie’s Fund and Youth Villages to bring much needed awareness to the epidemic of child abuse and raise valuable resources to support children and young adults in their trauma recovery. Dance for Janie was created to further empower young people by using artistic expression (dance) to build a strong, resilient, and caring next generation of advocates that will use their voice to end abuse.
Dance for Janie Dance-A-Thon studio events showcase the heart and passion that each studio’s program commits to the cause. In 2024, the efforts and achievements were celebrated for Nancy Chippendale’s Dance Studio for raising the most donations of all participating studios! Inside Dance had the honor of sitting down with Nancy, herself, to reflect on the past year’s fundraiser, and look ahead to what she, her staff, dance students and parents are inspired to achieve in 2025!
Share with our readers a brief history of your studio and business!
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but we are celebrating 46 years of business in 2025! My husband and I opened our studio doors in North Andover, Massachusetts in September of 1979. We only had 10 students the first year. Then we grew to 30 kids, 80, 100, etc. Currently, we now have over 1,000 students across three locations. I’m so blessed to have grown this incredible business alongside my husband, Bob and three daughters – Karen, Kelli and Krissy Carberry.
What do you love most about dance and/or teaching dance?
The kids. Absolutely the kids. We were just at a competition recently, and I looked at my staff and I said, “Just think, if we hadn’t opened up the first studio and expanded over the years, these kids might have never danced. Look at the joy on their faces! Look at what they have accomplished.” That’s more important to me than any dollar sign from owning a business. The kids and their JOY!
Now let’s chat about Dance for Janie! Your studio and business have been participating since 2022. What made this year different and unique from years past?
This year I was approached by two of my seniors, Janaya Lorentz and Sabrina DeVelis, who asked to take charge and run the Dance-A-Thon. I was so proud of them! They will both be off to college pursuing the next step in their dance careers soon, so this was truly a special thing to witness.
The studio really had a blast again this year. What we did for our event was we had it on a Saturday night. It was filled with all of our teen students. Who would have thought tons of teenagers would be hanging out with us on a Saturday night, right?! So we gave them a club atmosphere. Disco style! We brought in amazing lighting, we had a disco ball, we danced all night to Aerosmith music, which was so fun! Each of my teachers, whether they tought ballet, contemporary or tap, picked out a song and choreographed to that track by Aerosmith.
One of my teachers, Aleksandr Ostanin, taught a ballroom class to “Walk This Way.” It was hysterical! The kids loved it. The other reason they had such a good time is because they weren’t rehearsing for competition dances. They weren’t struggling to get their fouette’ turns or a difficult combo they’ve been working on. They just had fun TOGETHER.
Something that also makes the fundraising event special is that the kids know they are helping other kids. They know they were helping a charity, which involved helping young women. So what better community to provide this help than a community of mainly females helping mainly females on the other side.
How has your passion for this mission grown over the years?
To be honest, we love our Star Dance Alliance and Dance for Janie family. Gary Pate, Grace Wakefield, Jill Wolins, Noelle Packett, Ira & Kim Blumenthal – the whole team. The group does so much for studio owners and the industry as a whole. By being part of this fundraiser since 2022, I’ve seen the results from all of the hard work. Witnessing all of these dance studios working together to raise as much money as possible is motivating.
Then having the honor of attending Steven Tyler’s Grammy Gala in Los Angeles was incredibly eye opening. We got to see with our own eyes how much these fundraisers from around the country are helping neglected and abused young women and youth. At the LA event, the most important part for me was hearing from the young ladies that this program has helped. There was not a dry eye in the place. I get teary even talking about it because we were listening to what these girls have been through – you just can’t even fathom the struggles they endured.
THEN there were tears of joy because these young women have now overcome so many obstacles with the help of Janies Fund, Youth Villages and the Life Start Program. For 2025, I’m super excited to be involved in an even bigger way. We have huge goals to achieve this year!
Speaking of LA, what did you think of all of the celebrities there to support Steven Tyler’s mission?!
It was incredible. But what impressed me the most is how humble everyone appeared to be. They were all there to support the same cause as me. That night, it didn’t matter what you did for a living. All that mattered was raising money for Janie’s Fund and supporting these young women in need.
Each year Dance for Janie strives to recruit more and more studios to participate. As a veteran participant, do you have any tips or advice for a new studio that joins the fundraising event?
Well first I’d like to answer “why” should a studio get involved? I firmly believe that most of the time when people help others, they actually get more out of it than the person that they’re helping. I personally always come back feeling like I’ve done something really good. If we can teach our young dancers about philanthropy work, I think that’s important because they can carry that with them for the rest of their life in whatever journey they take.
As far as advice for dance studios just getting involved with Dance for Janie – start out small. I would recommend for them to start out small and not pressure themselves to raise $50,000+ in that first attempt. Have a goal, $5,000… easy to achieve! We know and understand there’s different parts of the country, and everybody’s in a different position. So have your students request smaller increments for donations – $5, $10, $20. Start small and grow it from there. I think when they realize how much they are giving and doing for the charity, they’ll be more inspired to continue. Whether it be with Janie’s Fund or whatever journey that these kids want to take in the future to support an important cause!
