PERSONALITIES: Dance teacher at home in front of and behind the stage

Mar. 25—VERNON — Linda Regulbuto has been dancing most of her life, having worked with theaters throughout the region, and is currently the head of Grossi Dance and Performing Arts Academy at Lafayette Square.

She was also inducted into the South Windsor High School Hall of Fame on March 4, recognized for her contribution to the arts.

As a young girl, before she even moved to South Windsor, Regulbuto said her mother was getting her involved in dance classes, putting her in a tap and tumble class when she was about 4 years old.

LINDA REGULBUTO

Who she is: Owner and artistic director of Grossi Dance & Performing Arts Academy in Vernon. Inducted into the South Windsor High School Hall of Fame, recognized for her contribution to the arts.

Quote: "Whether they're our sassy senior citizens or our tumultuous 2-year-olds, there has to be a safe port. ... There has to be somebody who is a good listening ear and can help guide them on their journey."

"A little bit of acrobatics, a little bit of tapping," she said. "I think my teacher was a former Rockette, and I liked it, but it wasn't something that really grabbed me and I said, 'This is your lifelong calling.' It probably wasn't until 9 or 10 years old I started taking ballet in Manchester and was accepted into their junior ballet company that I really started to have more of an interest in it."

Though her interest in dancing started to grow, Regulbuto said she was diversifying her interests with things like skating, art, and microbiology.

"Anything to do with the ocean really grabbed me," she said. "My parents are great. They introduced us to everything, sports and all the arts and sciences."

She said what brought her focus to the performing arts was having an audience.

"Whether it was cheerleading, skating, singing in a church choir, the common denominator there was there's an audience," she said. I enjoyed performing, I enjoyed making people laugh. I remembered that I would turn on the TV and watch The June Taylor Dancers and seeing Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor singing in musicals, I also realized that I'm a people person. I need to be with people. I need to be with kids. I love to entertain and bring some joy to people's lives and have some fun."

She started performing in junior high school.

"We had a performance group called The Entertainers that was run by the music department and that was great," she said. "They were all self-written shows. Some of us were asked to actually help write the show, help produce it. I loved that aspect of producing and coordinating and the whole education behind that as much as I loved being on stage. It wasn't until I got into high school that I started being actively involved in the musicals and in vocal ensemble."

After high school, Regulbuto went to Hartford College for Women for a year and then moved to New York City where she studied dance at Broadway Dance Center, and got involved with the National Association of Dancers Affiliated Artists.

"They really groomed you and pushed you," she said. "I was very close to Frank Hatchett, who was one of the founding members of the Broadway Dance Center. I was able to hop in and out and take some classes."

The experience gave her the opportunity to open her first dance school at the age of 20 in Somers.

"There was no blueprint," Regulbuto said. "There was nobody really to guide me and lead me. All along I kept taking classes anywhere I could, not just in dance, but in kinesiology and physical therapy, the way the body moved."

Having no formal education in teaching, she said she had to depend on her mentors on how to teach a dance class.

"That's how I taught myself how to teach," she said. "Nobody handed you a booklet and said, 'This is how you do it.'"

Even after she started teaching, Regulbuto continued to perform.

"Somebody would say, we want you to come and be this show, or do this comedy with us, or do this musical or do this drama," she said. "It wasn't all musical theater. The majority of it was. Then there were different community theater groups throughout Connecticut and Massachusetts that would call me.

"When I first started in my 20s and 30s, I enjoyed performing," she said. "I loved learning different characters and different shows, meeting people from all over the place."

As she reached her 30s, she said, she became more interested in the production side of performance art.

"Not only just front of house, but that real backstage experience," she said. "I started doing more producing and directing."

She would produce annual dance showcases for her dancers.

"As I was performing in a show or auditioning for a show, sometimes simultaneously, I would also be running home to do choreography," she said.

Some of her favorite performances, she said, were starring as Val in "A Chorus Line" and in the ensemble for "Mame" at the Academy of Music in Northampton, Massachusetts.

One of her mentors as a dance teacher was the original owner of Grossi Dance Academy, Lynn Grossi.

"I needed to do something and why not open up a school and I'll see. I'll give it five years and see how it goes," she said. "The first year we opened up, we had 60 kids, and the second year we had 120. I opened up in 1979. I took a small hiatus to work at The Bushnell for 10 years. I started off as the senior manager of education and community initiatives. Then I got scooped up by their producing and programming."

After leaving The Bushnell, she took over Grossi Dance Academy in 2012.

"The biggest thing for me as a teacher is trying to get to know each kid," she said, "having my staff get to know each child and finding out what their greatness is and bringing that greatness out, and have that best version of themselves come out and have that little voice in the back of their head saying, 'You're a star.'

"Whether they're our sassy senior citizens or our tumultuous 2-year-olds, there has to be a safe port," she said. "There has to be somebody that helps them shoulder the burden. There has to be somebody who is a good listening ear and can help guide them on their journey."

"We teach everything here," she said. "We teach jazz, tap, ballet, lyrical, modern, contemporary, hip hop, creative movement, progressive movement."

For coverage of local restaurants, cultural events, music, and an extensive range of Connecticut theater reviews, follow Tim Leininger on Twitter: @Tim_E_Leininger, Facebook: Tim Leininger's Journal Inquirer News page, and Instagram: @One_Mans_Opinion77.