mbradwell@observer-reporter.com
Barbara Moschetta is one of those rare people who from a very early age always knew what she would be when she grew up.
Fifty years after opening up her first dance studio, Moschetta, 69, now operates studios in Waynesburg and Fredericktown. Her daughter, Jacqueline Moschetta Warren, operates the Washington studio.
While the dance world has changed, adding new styles and twists, Moschetta prides herself with her ability to always stay one step ahead of requests from students to learn something new.
A native of Mather, Moschetta began taking dancing lessons for a year in Waynesburg at age 5, recalling two costumes she owned that were made of cellophane.
"One was white, and one was pink. I saved them for many years," she said.
She then moved on to studying with Jesse Reed Meighen, whom she considers her first real teacher.
"My tapping skills were a result of her teaching and training," Moschetta said. "I studied with her until I graduated from high school. When Mrs. Meighen asked me what I wanted to be in life, I said, 'a dance teacher.' That was the beginning of my training to be a dance teacher. I was 12 years old."
Since money was tight - her father was a coal miner and often on strike - she didn't take many classes until she began helping at Meighen's studio, learning ballet, jazz and other dances to add to her tap.
After high school, Moschetta traveled to Pittsburgh to study ballet at the Fillion Studio with Carl Heindrich, who had danced with Pavlova. She opened a school in a storeroom next to the American Legion in Fredericktown and also held classes at the Croatian Hall in Mather. She then opened a studio in the old A&P store in Fredericktown.
Around that time, she married her husband, attorney John Moschetta, whose father bought them a house in Fredericktown that enabled them to live upstairs and for her to have a studio on the first floor.
They were in Fredericktown for only a year before she and John moved to Morgantown, W.Va., where John attended law school. During the three years he was earning his law degree, she drove from Morgantown three days a week to teach at the Croatian Hall and at Mimi Faieta's Tavern Hall in Vestaburg.
When the Moschettas returned to Pennsylvania, Barbara continued to hold classes in a variety of venues, including a converted garage at a house they rented in Rices Landing, an empty building in Carmichaels and at the Carmichaels American Legion Hall, before returning to teach in Waynesburg.
Today, the three Moschetta studios handle about 150 students teaching everything from beginners classes to those enabling more experienced dancers to hone their skills for regional and national competitions.
The business has changed in several ways since Moschetta opened the studios she has now operated for decades.
"When we began 20 years ago, you didn't have parents trying to tell you what to do," she said, adding that as a teacher trying to impart skills to young people, she must demand respect from her students, who often view her as an authoritarian.
The discipline is important, she said, because she also wants students who will learn their way into becoming good, competitive dancers.
"I don't like my kids to win the very first time out, I like them to achieve," she said. "I'm only strict because I want them to be the best."
The students have changed, too, Moschetta said, noting that the school's enrollment was nearly double decades ago when girls weren't as involved in school sports and other extracurricular activities.
"Girls didn't play basketball, they didn't do soccer," she said. "We can survive with fewer students, because the fewer students take more classes," she said. "Some of these kids are dancing three or four times a week."
One of the aspects of her business that has remained constant is Moschetta's drive to keep learning new things as they apply to dance.
"I continued to study dance and if anyone asked me if I could teach something I always said yes. I made sure I made it into Pittsburgh and learned whatever was necessary to keep one step ahead," she said. She also joined the National Association of Dancers of the Affiliated Arts and the Professional Dance Teachers Association, which she said helped her with instruction from many top dance teachers.
Moschetta also credits her staff, many of whom have been with her as students, for helping her studios survive and prosper.
"Most of my teachers and office staff have been students and mothers of students," she said. "I hope I have trained them not only to dance, but to try to be the best they can no matter what they want to do and use their God-given talents."
As her studio grew, Moschetta took trips to New York city with Jacqueline and often took students to study with well-known dancers. One of those teachers was Henry Le Tang, who taught dancer and actor Gregory Hines. Barbara and her daughter took classes with Hines in Ohio. Her studio also takes its students for dance competitions in New York and Las Vegas.
There was even a time when Moschetta could have branched into theater, but her love of dance was strong.
At 46, she enrolled in California University of Pennsylvania's theater program, where she was cast as Jeannette in "Last of the Red Hot Lovers."
She eventually earned both bachelor's and master's degrees in communications, and taught in the college's dance department for awhile.
"I love the theater, but I love dance more than theater."
She's also wary of the lull summer creates, when most classes are for the more experienced dancers and her pace slows until fall approaches.
"I'll never retire. By the end of summer, television gets boring. God gave me the gift of dance and I thank him. I like what I'm doing, so why should I quit?"