Highland dance studio owner retires, stays in the business helping former students

Jane Mannion began her Highland dance studio in her basement with 30 students.

She finished last month, after four locations and hundreds of students dancing their way through her career.

Mannion, 70, graduated from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville in 1971 with a bachelor’s degree in English, because at that time, the university did not offer a degree in dance.

She had been dancing since she was 2 years old, dancing around the kitchen under her mother’s eye, and later studying tap and ballet.

“In college I did modern ballet, mainly,” she said.

After college she married and had children, working in a bank. But dance still occupied her thoughts.

“I found myself with no direction, completely lost,” she said.

But then a friend suggested teaching dance.

The basement studio was a success from the start, and, within a few years, she had moved to a building on Cypress Street in Highland. It was an upstairs studio with a printer shop below, and Mannion taught there for “quite a few years” before the building caught fire.

Undeterred, Mannion taught out of Lindell Park until she found a place on Mulberry Street. Another decade passed, and then she moved to a studio on Executive Drive. The studio was named Jane Mannion’s School of Dance.

Teaching dance was her passion, helping young people feel good about themselves through dance and witnessing the transformations of creativity and art, regardless of talent.

“Anyone can enjoy a happy movement of their body,” Mannion said. “There are so many life lessons in creativity. It’s good for the brain, as they learn to remember the combinations and the discipline and the different techniques ... It’s great experience, even if they don’t ever pursue going into dance.”

One of the highlights for Mannion was the dance competitions, which she said gave the students incentive to excel. They competed against 20 or 30 other studios and brought home quite a few trophies.

“It pushed my students to do things that I don’t know they would have accomplished if they didn’t have that goal to work for,” Mannion said. “It wasn’t about the winning. It was about being able to provide my students with another outlook.”

Josie Morgan’s connection with Mannion

Josie Morgan began dancing in the fourth grade as one of Mannion’s students. She had attended a dance recital the previous year and knew it was what she wanted to do.

“I was in love and obsessed,” she said.

Morgan grew up dancing in Mannion’s studio, and, after she graduated, moved to Los Angeles and danced professionally.

“But I’m a homebody, and I missed it,” she said.

Morgan came back and began teaching at Mannion’s studio, and is also the coach of the Triad High School dance team.

Now that Mannion has retired, Morgan has opened her own studio: Dance Network 618 in Collinsville. The new studio is opening on Vandalia Street with summer training classes beginning Monday.

Mannion will remain involved with new studio

And who’s answering the phones? Jane Mannion.

“The biggest thing about Jane is her devotion and passion,” Morgan said. “She never gave up on us even as she got older. She kept the studio open for all of us. Her passion for her kids and the love she had for us will definitely carry over.”

All of the six staff members at Dance Network 618 are Mannion’s former students and assistant teachers, and Mannion has been advising Morgan on setting up the studio and the dance competitions, which have faced additional challenges during the coronavirus pandemic.

Mannion said they tried to keep teaching remotely using video.

“In a way it’s a good thing, because the video lets us see the technique, tell them to turn the hip or lower the shoulder,” she said.

But remote teaching lacks the personal connection of teaching in the studio, she said.

Retirement for Mannion

The pandemic didn’t force Mannion’s retirement, though.

“I probably should have done it a long time ago,” she said.

She had decided last fall it would be her last season, but the pandemic did cut her time short without a final recital or competition.

“I didn’t get to end it the way I would have liked,” she said.

So while her official date of retirement was June 1, the last physical class she taught was March 16. While she’s looking forward to retirement, she’s also planning to keep helping out at Dance Network.

“I’m just kind of enjoying it for a few weeks,” she said.

This story was originally published July 17, 2020 at 12:00 AM.