“Just because you come from a small town, doesn’t mean you can’t start and do meaningful things in life,” said Wendy Wade, the founder of the dance studio on Oneonta’s Main Street now known as the Holbrook-Wade School of Dance.
The studio is celebrating its 50th year.
Founded by Wade in 1976 as the Wendy Wade Studio and now under the leadership of her former student Stacy Holbrook-Frederick, the dance studio has trained generations of dancers in the Oneonta area. Wade estimated she has taught about 1,500 students, and Frederick estimated hundreds of her own.
“I got to really answer my calling,” Wade recalled in a Wednesday, May 27 interview. “It wasn’t easy for me,” she said of her teen years. Dance was a way to connect with other people and express herself, a background that she said informed her approach to running the studio.
“I wanted them to have access,” Wade said, adding “I scholarshipped half my students.”
Much of the studio was renovated by Wade’s husband, a now-retired union carpenter named Glenn Sullivan, who participated in a Thursday, May 28 tour of the studio.
After working professionally on a project at Hartwick College during the day, “at 3:30 I’d like to leave there, and I came down here, and I would work ’til it was like six, seven, eight o’clock at night,” Sullivan said. Then he would go home, eat, sleep and repeat.
Today, art and photos fill the walls Sullivan worked on. “Ninety-eight percent of all of the artwork you’re going to see in here is student made,” Holbrook-Frederick said.
“The first time I met Wendy, she said I had raw talent,” Holbrook-Frederick, a student having trouble choosing a major at the time, recalled. That spark led her to one jazz class per week with Wade, followed by a dance degree from Dean College in Massachusetts and a teaching job in Saratoga Springs. By early summer 1999, she called Wade to ask if there was an open teaching position.
“And I came back, and that was it. Still here,” Holbrook-Frederick said. By 2008, Holbrook-Frederick became the owner, she said.
She isn’t alone. The studio’s former students can be found throughout the region’s dance scene, whether at local educational institutions or at Holbrook-Wade itself. One of the studio’s teachers, Hali Tomczak, was taught by both Wade and Frederick.
The studio at one point participated in competitions, including a 1983 competition where “My kids were in leotards, up against elaborate costumes,” but still took home the first place jazz prize, Wade remembered. Though it no longer competes, other studios in the area do.
“For me, it’s not about the accolades and the trophies,” Holbrook-Frederick said. “It’s about, ‘Hi honey, you can come in.’ It’s about what dance gives you internally.” She said the studio continues to remain focused on what it always has: “safety and technique.”
Holbrook-Frederick’s husband, Bryce Frederick, has also been closely involved with the studio. He installed equipment to make it possible to conduct classes by Zoom during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, and has participated in classes himself, Holbrook-Frederick said.
“He’s just as much a part of it as I am,” she said. “We have students who don’t have a mom or don’t have a dad,” she added. “This is their home, we’re mom and dad, and it’s amazing. It’s phenomenal. I couldn’t ask for anything more.”
“Dancers are family oriented, you want a studio where you feel accepted for who you are,” Wade added.
The studio’s dancers are scheduled to perform at Otsego PrideFest on June 6, Stacy said.