Barbara Ann’s School of Dance, an iconic institution in Chevy Chase, celebrated its 80th year with a bang. Some traditions may have changed, but the school remains true to its mission: providing a warm, welcoming atmosphere where young students can learn tap, ballet, and jazz.
Clemmy Ann Baskin, daughter of original owner Barbara Ann Kelly, said she is passionate about teaching children more than just dance.
Clemmy Ann Baskin
“We try to focus on not just teaching children how to dance, but about being better human beings,” she said. “My mom always said it’s not always about teaching them the pirouette, but it’s teaching them how to hold themselves, how to be more poised, how to be more self-confident, and things like that. What I try to teach my students is that this may be a really hard step, but we’ve got to practice it, and smile, and we’ll get it.”
Located at 898 East High Street, the dance school is in its second Chevy Chase location. At one point, it was at 308 South Ashland Avenue. The school has been a Lexington tradition since its first recital in June 1945 at the Frankfort High School Auditorium.
Barbara Ann Kelly founded the school to meet a need in the community, Baskin said. After growing up in Frankfort and running a dance studio there, Kelly moved the business to Lexington.
“At that time, Chevy Chase was going to be the up-and-coming shopping center,” Baskin said. “It was going to be the hub of the shopping world in Lexington. My mom was all about doing things that were new and being the entrepreneur of dance, so she decided she had to have a studio in Lexington, and it had to be in Chevy Chase.”
While the Chevy Chase studio was being prepared, the school operated across the street from Stoll Field on the second floor of another business. Kelly and her mother, Minnie Moore, ran the business together, with Kelly teaching and Moore playing piano accompaniments.
“We’re kind of a family legacy, and we’ve been that way forever because my grandmother and my mom started the studio and then, of course, when my grandmother passed away my mom continued on the business,” she said.
Later, Baskin and her brother joined the business. Now, generations of students have passed through the school’s doors. Baskin often sees the daughters of girls she taught years before and, in some cases, the granddaughters of the students her mother taught.
Kelly passed away in 1990, and Baskin took over the business.
In its current High Street location, the studio owns the building, the parking lot, and the studio space. The dance school will remain in the family and in Chevy Chase, Baskin said.
“We are a small business. We’ve always been in the Chevy Chase area. People know us, and I have tried to continue the business the way my mother did, being open-armed to everybody coming in to learn to dance,” she said. “We’re more of a technical studio, and the fact that we teach ballet, tap, jazz, pointe — we teach it all. We have something for everyone, even tumbling.”
Over the decades, the studio has faced challenges. COVID-19 lockdowns nearly ended the business, but classes moved to Zoom. Post-pandemic, parents are scaling back after-school activities, and dance lessons now compete with year-round sports and other interests.
Economic pressures also present challenges. Rising costs for costumes, programs, and other expenses make participation more expensive for families.
“Because of supply and demand, costume makers have upped their prices,” she said. “That just deters people away from an activity that they’ve got to buy a costume for. It’s not just the dance lessons. They’ve got to pay for the auditorium, they’ve got to pay for the costume, they’ve got to pay for tickets — all of that. I’m rethinking things this year.”
Instead of doing a printed program book, the studio is switching to a QR code program parents can download to their phone. Rather than all-school recitals, the school will now feature three shorter, faster-paced shows that showcase students while keeping audiences engaged.
Baskin said she’s not sure what the future will hold for the school. At 65, she is at the business six days a week.
“I probably put in more hours now than I did when I was 44, just because I love what I do,” she said. “I run the business, I teach, I talk to the parents, I try to make it all work. I think that sometimes that is a good thing, but in the business world that’s kind of unheard of because there’s always somebody behind the scenes. When my mother ran the business, I was always the one behind the scenes. Now I’m having to do both.”
Baskin said she’s hoping one of her current teachers, or perhaps one of her former students, will want to carry on the company’s traditions into the next 80 years.