The top halves of the walls are a light green, with wood planks on the bottom halves. Hardwood floors cover the entire space and two windows look out over South Main Street.  
   With the final touches of putting up the mirrors, Main Street Dance is preparing today (Thursday) to open its newest addition, a new studio adding about 600 square feet down the hall from its original space in the heart of Manville.
 
   The studio will celebrate the grand reopening when it premieres its second studio, and holds its annual open house, from 5 to 8 p.m.
 
   ”We had been looking casually to expand for a year now,” said Julie, owner of the studio that opened its first studio room She said an anticipation of having more than 80 students – which was about how many were enrolled during the 2007-2008 year – led to a more fervent search for a way to expand.
 
Main Street Dance owner Julie said she wanted to expand her studio without leaving Manville.  
  
   ”We started getting calls for enrollment over the summer,” she said. “It was much higher than last year. We are putting the cart before the horse and anticipating the need for more space.”    In a combination of the grand reopening and the studio’s annual open house, they are offering balloons, face painting and giveaways, in addition to several free trial classes for those interested in joining the studio.
 
   ”These trial classes are something brand new we are doing,” she said. “A lot of people want to observe before they sign up for a class. It is all brand new kids, that way they won’t be intimidated jumping into a class with the experienced kids.”  
   From 5:30 to 6 p.m., she will offer a ballet class for 3- to 5-year-old children. A hip-hop class for 6- to 10-year-old children will be offered from 6:15 to 6:45 p.m., and a combination teen ballet and hip-hop class will be offered from 7 to 7:30 p.m.    In addition, her advanced jazz dancers will perform for visitors in the new studio at 6 p.m.  When she initially opened the studio, Julie said, her goal was to provide a place for Manville residents to take dance classes because she noticed there were no places of its kind in the borough. As a Manville resident herself, she said she wanted to maintain the small-town feel.
    ”We’re a Manville dance studio,” she said. “We have a good amount of students here.”
 
   Still, as the search began for a bigger place to accommodate more students, she said she started to look outside of town, in Bridgewater and other locations. She said she looked at places that were larger and had more opportunities for expansion, but eventually felt she could not leave Manville.”I felt like a sell-out to start in the small town, then become successful and leave,” she said. “I didn’t have the heart to leave Manville.”
 
   In her first effort to remain in Manville, she looked into moving to the building adjacent to the Manville Diner, but was concerned with parking in that area.    ”I kept thinking about parents with a 3-year-old child trying to cross the street,” she said. “Since we often have 10 to 20 people in the studio (at one time), it was too competitive with parking.”
 
   By staying in her current location, families have access to the handful of spaces behind the building, in addition to those on Main Street and surrounding areas.
 
   Julie said she took a look at the room adjacent to her current studio, which she said has been available space since she first opened.  ”I needed to look at the space with fresh eyes,” she said. “I just hadn’t considered it before.” She decided to jump at the chance to take over the space of about 600 square feet, and actually only finalized the plans in mid-August.
 
   ”If I was going to do this, I was going to do it now,” she said. Now, in addition to painting, adding hardwood floors, placing mirrors and investing in a neon “Dance Studio” sign for the window because her new space faces Main Street, Julie said she is planning for new types of classes in the coming year. She said she is looking forward to being able to offer more than one class at a time because of the two separate studios.
 
   ”We are investing more time and money into where we are now,” she said. “We always had it in the back of our minds that we would expand. And the students love that we are working on something. They keep saying, ‘Wow, are we going to dance here?’”  Julie said she is planning to hold aerobics classes twice a week for adults.”These classes are so popular,” she said. “But to find a time slot of twice a week would have been impossible before.”
 
   In addition, she is hoping to add a yoga class, and is planning to offer more individual lessons in the new studio. She said she will also be able to offer more sections of each type of class to accommodate families and students with siblings and other commitments.
 
   ”Anything goes with the new space,” she said. For more information about the studio, visit the Web site at www.main-street-dance.com.

Manville News
A Chance To Perform
By Audrey Levine Staff Writer
Posted: Thursday, August 10, 2008

   They continued preparing for their upcoming “Annie”-themed recital as “It’s a Hard Knock Life” played over the speakers in the studio at Main Street Dance, in Manville on June 12.

   ”It’s easier than putting up a fight,” the music played as the girls balled their hands into fists and jumped forward toward the mirror.

”I like performing and being in front of everyone,” said Rachel Edelman, 13, who has been taking jazz classes for two years at the studio. “I get to impress my friends with my moves.”

   For this three-year-old studio, performing is one of the opportunities available to students who join. Julie, the owner of the studio, takes her Main Street Dancers to many different venues to perform, in addition to the annual recital slated for Sunday at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 2290.

   ”Even though we are new, we started this group right away,” she said. “Dance is a performing art and I wanted to give them a chance to perform.”

   Among their many past performances are ones at local nursing homes, a fundraiser at the Bridgewater Macy’s and pregame shows before Somerset Patriots baseball games.

   ”They see people reacting to their dancing and realize this is not just for themselves,” she said.

   Opening the studio itself, Julie said, was a way to provide new opportunities for Manville residents. As a former Hillsborough resident — and current Manville resident — she began her dancing career taking classes at studios in Hillsborough.

   ”We’re a small studio in a small town,” she said of her business, which currently has about 90 students between 3 years of age and adulthood. “A lot of studios have opened here, expanded, then moved out. I want to keep that small-town feel.”

   With the studio being fairly new itself (having first opened in September 2005), Julie said she has many students who are new to the world of dance. She said some saw a sign for the studio while walking on Main Street, and decided to join.” A lot of students saw the sign and said, ‘why not?’” she said.

   Working backwards, the students at the jazz class continued rehearsing by finishing their dance and going through their warm-up routines for a second time. They began by pointing their toes to the sides, then bringing their feet behind them in a small lunge, their arms rounded as they prepared to do their pirouettes. In stages, they practiced the turns, beginning with a simple relevé, or rise, then performing a full turn.

   Julie said it is important for the students to learn these basic steps no matter how many years they have been dancing. Still, she said, because many of them are older, she wants the opportunity to teach them harder steps once they learn these beginning moves.

   ”It’s challenging because I want to teach them fun steps, but you can’t miss the basics,” she said of her older students many of whom have only been dancing for up to three years. “It is a learning experience for me to balance that.”

   Despite needing this balance, Julie said that she is proud of the progress all her students have been making over the past few years.

   ”I push them and, after three years, they are dancing like I did after 10 years,” she said. “I’m able to teach them faster because they have no preconceived bad habits. It’s a fresh slate.”

   Rachel said that, even though she has only been dancing for two years, she is proud of the progress she has made and looks forward to continuing dancing.

   ”My friend recommended classes,” she said. “I thought I would try and I liked it. It is easy for me to comprehend the moves.”

   At the studio, she offers ballet, tap, pointe, lyrical, hip-hop, jazz, basic tumbling and mommy and me classes, in addition to adult tap, jazz, salsa and fitness classes.

   ”I really enjoy teaching the adult classes,” she said. “It is something fun and the adults love it.”

   As for her younger students, she said that, although many are first-time dancers and others are returning after leaving the sport for a time, she pushes them to work hard and learn new and more challenging steps each week.

   ”I don’t want my 15-year-old tap dancers to look like 3-year-olds,” she said. “I’ll show them steps that they should be able to do in the next year, so they can see where they are going.”

   Julie said she worked just as hard throughout the start of her own dance career, beginning classes when she was 3 years old, and continuing through her studies at the Somerset County Performing Arts High School and Rutgers University. In addition, she said, she spent time as a member of a local tap company, performing in shows in New Jersey, New York and Washington, D.C.

   Despite all her dance training, Julie said she wanted something to fall back on in case the dance career did not pan out, and she attended graduate school for business. She then accepted a position as a labor relations analyst for New Jersey Port Authority, while continuing her dance studies.

   ”But dance and my day job got in the way,” she said. “Opening a studio was always in the back of my mind, but I stayed (with the Port Authority) through the first year of the studio because I wanted to be secure. I kept the business job as a backup.”

   Fortunately for her, the studio was successful, and she was able to leave the Port Authority to stay with her studio full time. Now, she said, she still studies dance herself, including taking teaching courses at Broadway Dance Center in New York City, where she was initially certified as a dance instructor, and has taken classes with such professionals as television’s “So You Think You Can Dance” choreographers Wade Robson and Mia Michaels, and the late Gregory Hines.

   ”I learn so much choreography at these classes,” she said. “I take the experience and knowledge back to my studio. I bring back the ideas of the different moves, and build on them and change them.”

   As she looks toward the future, Julie said she is planning to remain in Manville, and possibly consider moving to the Rustic Mall site to expand a little.

   ”I opened the studio here because I want to be here,” she said. “I wanted to give Manville a studio to call its own.”

   The studio is currently accepting registrations for its Summer Dance Camp and Adult Fitness classes. For more information about these programs or the studio itself, call 908-698-2157, or visit the Web site at main-street-dance.com.