MARBLEHEAD — The Marblehead School of Ballet is welcoming back a familiar face in its studios this spring, as Broadway performer Karen Maria Pisani returns to lead a Theater Arts Workshop for young dancers. The school will also offer an Adult Dance Intensive course for students from young adulthood to seniors.
The March programming reflects the school’s longstanding mission of serving multiple generations through dance education, a philosophy that has defined the institution since its founding in 1971.
Pisani, a Broadway performer, dancer, and choreographer, will teach the Theater Arts Workshop for children aged 8-12 from March 11 through April 15, meeting Wednesdays at the Pleasant Street studio. The program introduces students to the “triple threat” elements of musical theater — dance, voice, and acting — in what the school describes as a “Broadway atmosphere.”
For Pisani, the return is personal. She danced with Paula K. Shiff, the founder of the Marblehead School of Ballet, as a young performer before building a professional career that included serving as a dance captain for the national touring company of “A Chorus Line” and performing in productions like “Gypsy,” “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Dames at Sea,” and “Stop the World! I Want to Get Off!”
Pisani’s passion for music and dance began early, and locally, here on the North Shore. Her mother ran a dance studio in her hometown of Revere, and her father had connections to performer Bojangles Robinson. While she initially wanted to pursue a career in mathematics, she graduated from Salem State University with a double degree in music and education.
“I love teaching,” Pisani said. “Anyone, any age, when they are a student, and they are passionate, it keeps me passionate about it.”
This isn’t Pisani’s first time teaching at the Marblehead school. Each year, she looks forward to collaborating with students, guiding them with structured choreography while carving out space for their own creativity.
“I always have a little piece of it where it’s possible for them to create — if they are in a creative mood,” she said. “I like to give them some opportunity… and show them how it would work into the particular show that we are doing excerpts from.”
Pisani said she chooses her teaching engagements carefully, which makes her continued return to Marblehead notable.
“I’ve been asked to do many schools, and I don’t always do them,” she said.
She added that her own grandchildren attend the school and take classes from Shiff, something she said gives her confidence in the program.
Shiff said Pisani’s return each year is meaningful for students as well. Pisani’s classes “offer students the opportunity to learn from someone who once stood where they stand now,” she said.
Alongside the Adult Dance Intensive taught by Shiff, the youth workshop reflects many of the values she believes are central to ballet and the performing arts.
A storied dancer herself, Shiff moved to Marblehead with her family when she was in elementary school.
“This community has truly been home for most of my life,” she wrote.
Her Marblehead School of Ballet is entering its 55th season, delivering what Shiff believes to be an essential service to people of all ages in the North Shore.
Dance programs, Shiff said, provide far more than technical training. For children, they build coordination and confidence. For teens, discipline and perseverance. And for adults and seniors, they bring balance, flexibility, and meaningful social connection.
“Beyond individual growth, dance brings people together. Studios become gathering places where friendships form, mentorship develops, and families unite,” Shiff wrote. “The result is a stronger, more connected community — built one step at a time.”
Registration for both programs is open, with limited enrollment. For Shiff and Pisani, the spring workshops mean more than a new session of classes. They reflect a shared commitment to supporting dancers at every stage of learning, in the same studios where many artistic journeys first began.
