(upbeat music) Together with my colleague, Mary Gamba, on our series "Lessons in Leadership," we sat down with an extraordinary leader in the arts, particularly in the area of dance.

Sharron Miller, Artistic Director of the Sharron Miller Academy for Performing Arts.

She's been doing it for a long time.

She danced with Alvin Ailey.

She has been training, coaching, teaching young people in the area of dance, the arts for many, many years.

She has an extraordinary story we wanted to share with the largest possible audience, talking to a terrific artistic dance icon, Sharron Miller.

- We are honored today to be joined by Sharron Miller, who is Artistic Director of Sharron Miller's Academy for the Performing Arts in Montclair, New Jersey.

An icon, a leader, in the world of the arts and humanities and dance, who has been doing it for a long time and making a difference for so many of so many ages.

Sharron, you honor us by joining us.

- Oh, thank you.

I am honored to be here.

It's such a thrill to be able to talk about what it is that's your passion, that's your life, and I guess dance and related theater arts has become and is my life.

- I mentioned before we get on the air that our daughter started her dance career at the academy and I remember peeking through Sharron's, at the studio you got these little windows you gotta peek through 'cause they want us staying out of the room.

- You were that dad.

I thought you're not supposed to look through those windows.

I don't know.

- I didn't want Sharron's team to catch me.

I was trying to take video.

They're like, "Get out of the way.

Get out of there now."

You're laughing Sharron, but it's true.

But Sharron, for you and your colleagues at the academy, the greatest reward, satisfaction, of knowing that you've influenced and impacted the lives of so many young men and women in the field of the arts.

Talk about that.

- You know, we've been in business for 27 years and it's been 27 years of not work, but passion and play and joy.

And I guess after 27 years, it was a first, I think a shock to me, when one of my students, male, African-American young man, who came to me as a sixth grader at the Renaissance School here in Montclair and said, "I can dance."

And I said, "Show me."

And he could, it was just a gift.

He is now, I don't know exactly how old he is, but he is now a principal dancer with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.

He is an associate professor of dance at NYU and his name is Chalvar Monteiro.

And he's my- - Say it, say his name again.

Say his name again.

- Chalvar Monteiro.

- Wow.

- So having those kinds of things happen as far as people going into the field, that's one thing.

But now I have, which is sort of scary, I have students who come back and say, "Do you remember me?"

as they're holding a little four-year-old's hand and they're saying, "This is my daughter.

"(laughs) And they say to their daughter, "Mommy had Miss Sharron as a teacher."

And they... (laughs) (Mary laughs) I kind of now know I'm old, but I'm, as my mother used to say, "I'm not cold."

- So- - No, you're not cold.

It's you're experienced.

You're not old.

Mary, I want you to follow up here in just a second, but one more thing, Sharron, when did you know that dance would be such a huge part of your life?

- You know, it's ironic.

I've heard the expression turn lemons into lemonade.

I had fallen arches as a child and my mother took me to a doctor who said, "You can either break her arches and reset them," and I was about three years old at the time, "or you can wait until she's about six or seven and give her ballet lessons which will strengthen her feet and her legs."

So obviously my mother opted for the latter.

But I got to dance class for the first time when I was six years old.

I did my first plié to this beautiful music and I was just smitten and unbelievably, the teacher went to my brother and said, "She has talent.

She needs to be in a more advanced school."

So I went to Garden State Ballet as a first African American dance student and the rest is history.

I discovered modern dance at 12 and I said, "I wanna do that."

You take the pointe shoes off and you're barefoot and you fly through the air.

And I said, "I wanna be in Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater," and I got it.

So I think seven was when I first knew.

12 was when I knew for sure what field of dance I wanted.

And the rest of my life has been devoted to sharing that with young people.

And now on my oldest student, well she says she's 98, but I'm not sure, I think she's older.

(Mary laughs) - You.

Okay.

- God bless her.

- Youngest and oldest, Sharron.

Youngest student, oldest student.

- Two is the youngest.

We have Dance with Me, which is a class that we have with, it's a mommy and me class.

And the seniors dance program is Wednesdays at 10 o'clock.

And Gilda Schwartz has been coming since we first started.

- And she says she's 98.

- She says, well, the last time I asked her because I did wanna ask her, she said basically, "A woman never tells."

- I love it.

(Mary laughing) But we're putting up the website for the Sharron Miller Academy, Sharron Miller's Academy for the Performing Arts.

We'll talk in just a second about the challenges of running a not-for-profit and the economics of it, which trust me, we understand as well.

But Mary, jump in.

- Yeah, well that's exactly the direction I was gonna go into Sharron, because we talked about this offline when we spoke before this interview today, and talk about some of the challenges and really what a nonprofit, especially three years now, I can't believe we're three years, you know, into the pandemic.

What do you need most as a nonprofit based on the challenges that you're facing?

- Basically, we need support, financial and otherwise.

I think what happened during the pandemic is again turning your lemons into lemonade.

We learned the word pivot and pivot became a word that I honestly didn't like, but you figure out a way to survive.

And it's kind of like anyone who's facing a challenge, you can either wallow in the problem or you can become part of the solution.

What we love doing seems so basically irrelevant, vis-a-vis what was going on in the world, but we also need that social and emotional touching of the spirit.

Dance does that and the thing that we learned how to do was wear a mask and put on the computer with Zoom, and still keep on keeping on.

Once the pandemic, well I don't know that it's ever going to be over.

Now it's something called the epidemic or something.

It's not a pandemic anymore.

But people are coming back and they're so happy to just be relating to each other, relating to music, relating to movement.

It's heartwarming.

But what happened prior to it, we actually had to close.

I mean, that, I saw my life going before my eyes but we closed for about four months.

Thank God the government came up with the, what they call PPP loans, and we were able to qualify for two of them.

And because we are a not-for-profit and because we provide arts education to people with limited funds, if not no funds whatsoever, we were able to turn our PPPs into grants so we didn't have to pay that money back.

We have support from such wonderful foundations like the Turrell Fund, the Dodge Foundation, Stone Foundation, Victoria Foundation, New Jersey State Council on the Arts.

And they came through.

New Jersey, I've got to say, supports the arts.

And we somehow came through relatively unscathed except for rent.

Now rent is, oh boy.

- Yeah, no one's gonna forgive your rent anytime soon, are they, Sharron?

- No.

And we had a difficult time because we have an enormous rent debt, not that we owe now, we don't own now, but at the time if you have no money really coming in, and you don't know when the next amount is going to come in, the one thing that you sit on, which we were basically allowed to do, was paying the enormous rent.

We have 9,000 square feet.

Our rent, believe it or not, is $15,000 a month.

And you can't make that when you're not teaching.

- No.

- It's hard to make that even when you are teaching.

So we had a struggle in that our landlord really wanted his rent and ultimately we took the money that we were hoping to hold, to guarantee that we could still teach, we could still do our residencies in the school systems, and pay our salaries to our instructors, but we paid our landlord.

And again, it's like the universe provides somehow when you're doing good work, I think.

I've come to terms with that.

Somehow we were able to pay our landlord and we were able to get even more grants, more support from our families, and we're thriving now.

I can't believe it.

- Sharron, a lot of that is based on your leadership and that's why we wanted to do this as a "Lessons in Leadership" segment, but also air it on our public television side because it has multiple purposes, this conversation.

You are a leader, you're an innovator, you have a level of grit.

One of my favorite words that you don't see it in many people.

And your compassion, your empathy, your caring, particularly for young people and giving them a pathway into the arts whether they pursue it professionally or not, but a foundation for the rest of their lives is extraordinary.

So on behalf of all the parents who have had children, grandchildren, others who have gone through the academy, I just wanna thank you for your work and you have an open invitation with us, Sharron.

Thank you.

- Thank you.

It's my pleasure.

And I hope to keep doing it until they tell me stop.

- Mary, that's why I say refire, don't retire.

Because Sharron Miller is refiring every day.

Sharron Miller, thanks so much.

And that's Mary Gamba.

Thanks for joining us.

We're hustling.

See you next time.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by The Turrell Fund, supporting Reimagine Childcare.

The Russell Berrie Foundation.

RWJBarnabas Health.

PSC.

Valley Bank.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

Seton Hall University.

PSEG Foundation.

And by NJM Insurance Group.

Promotional support provided by The New Jersey Business & Industry Association.

And by New Jersey Globe.

- At the Turrell Fund, We know childcare creates transformative early learning experiences for young children, and helps families succeed.

Childcare is essential for the economy, driving financial growth and sustainability across all sectors.

The Turrell Fund envisions a New Jersey in which every infant and toddler has access to high quality, affordable childcare In order to grow, develop and thrive.

Our children are our future.

For more information, visit TurrellFund.org.