Iconic Gahanna Businesses: Judy Dollenmayer Studio of Dance keeps tempo for 51 years

Editor’s Note: This is the 10th in a series about iconic Gahanna businesses to be featured monthly.

Youths and adults have been pirouetting at Gahanna’s Judy Dollenmayer Studio of Dance for 51 years.

Brooke Hull, 42, purchased the studio from the business' namesake 15 years ago, after teaching jazz there for many years.

“Judy actually started it in her basement and it grew,” she said. “She was ready to retire. She had three boys who weren’t in the dance world, so I bought the studio and continued it on with her name and the legacy we have in Gahanna.”

The studio relocated last September to a new location at 1000 Morrison Road, Suite B.

“We are dedicated to providing a fun, safe environment for students of all ages, where every child is a star,” according to its website at jdsddance.com. “Our students take classes for enjoyment, confidence, elegance, and friendship.”

Hull said students, ranging in age from 18 months to adults, may take classes that include ballet, jazz, tap, hip-hop, lyrical, contemporary, musical theater and tumbling.

“We do music and movement class like a dance-with-me class with a parent for 18 months to 2 ½ years old,” she said. “We do combo classes, ballet and tap, for our little ones.”

The majority of the students are from Gahanna but also come from all over the area, including Bexley, New Albany, Pickerington and Reynoldsburg, Hull said.

She said performances include Gahanna’s Holiday Lights at Christmas; Dancing for Life, a benefit show for Mount Carmel Health System’s Women’s Health Center for breast cancer; as well as an annual spring recital at Gahanna Lincoln High School.

“Kids compete regionally around the Columbus area that we’re gearing up for now,” Hull said. “We do a national competition.”

She credits the studio's longevity to providing a lot of fun and a positive environment for youths.

“It’s a safe, great positive place for the kids to come and enjoy themselves while dancing,” Hull said. “What’s really cool about our studio is that a lot of our staff – almost all of them – have danced through our studio and become teachers. They’ve taught for years and years and years. We’ve been to each others' weddings; we’ve watched each others' kids grow. We really have a family atmosphere here with that. Some of the kids I’ve taught since they were little, and now they’re my colleagues.”

Blacklick resident Audrey Strapp, 16, said she has been part of the studio since she was a toddler.

“Brooke was actually my combo teacher when I was 2 ½,” she said. “And now she’s teaching me when I’m in senior classes.”

The Bishop Hartley High School sophomore said she helps with tumbling and jazz and tap classes for the little children.

She said she takes jazz, lyrical, ballet and musical theatre.

“I love lyrical,” Strapp said. “Lyrical, I like to describe it as like a mix of ballet and jazz. It’s a very flowy and emotional, very expressive form of dance. I like that part of it. I love the way I get to express myself through dance. I love the community here.”

Denise Leithart, 69, said Dollenmayer had asked her to teach for the studio when they were at Gahanna Community Theatre in 1985.

“That’s how it got started,” she said. “It was years ago in the old studio.”

Leithart said she had danced with the Civic Ballet Company, the forerunner to BalletMet. “I was the youngest one,” she said. “We danced at the Hartman Theater, which is gone. It was next to the Ohio (Theatre).”

Leithart said she mostly teaches ballet.

“For me, the reward is the children, giving them the art of ballet – which ballet isn’t their favorite thing,” she said. “Their favorite is jazz, tap. They all aren’t going to be prima ballerinas, but they will get the art of ballet. So one day when they have children, they will know.”

Reynoldsburg resident Susan Williams has three daughters taking lessons: Genesis, 10; Ahbry-Elle, 8; and Avenly, 6.

“I love the leadership atmosphere,” she said. “We’ve had nothing but good experiences.”

Williams said the parents support each other and the dancers, especially at competitions.

“It’s a neat atmosphere,” she said.

New Albany resident Blaire Warner, 27, teaches at Dollenmayer, where she started taking tumbling lessons when she was 2.

“I grew up here,” she said. “When I was 3, I started taking ballet and tap.”

Warner minored in dance at Otterbein University.

“After I graduated from here and started my freshman year at Otterbein, there was an older dancer here that got injured,” she said. “So I came back for another year to replace her spot in some dances for competitions. Then my junior year of college, I was asked to start teaching. I’m the tumbling and acro teacher here. I specialize in musical theater, jazz and ballet.”

Warner said she likes how expressive people can be when they dance.

“Technique is important and everything,” she said. “But for me, if it makes you feel good. That’s the most important part about dance.”

Hours are 4:30 to 9 p.m. Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays and 9:30 a.m. to noon on the first Saturdays of the month. It’s closed Fridays and Sundays.

mkuhlman@thisweeknews.com

@ThisWeekMarla

This article originally appeared on ThisWeek: Iconic Gahanna Businesses: Judy Dollenmayer Studio of Dance keeps tempo for 51 years