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"The great thing about Barbara is she
makes every kid who dances with her think
they are a star"

— Dr. Larry Miller, West Bloomfield

`Miss Barbara" Fink gives
instruction to young ballerinas.

Generations of
Detroiters have
learned more than
dancing from
Miss Barbara.

2005

GEORGE CANTOR

Special to the Jewish News

S

he cannot remember a time
when she did not want to teach
children to dance.
When Miss Barbara's Dance Centre
held its annual recital June 13-14, the
theme was Barbara Fink's 50th
anniversary as a dance teacher.
But the line goes back farther than
that. Back to the basement of the little
flat on Humphrey Street, just off Dexter,

around the corner from the old B'nai
Moshe synagogue in Detroit.
"I couldn't have been much more
than 5 years old," she says in her West
Bloomfield condo. "My
grandpa made up a
sign; we had an old
wind-up phonograph,
and I charged 25 cents
a lesson. I used to come up from that
basement with my face black from the
coal dust.
"The 50 years part is when I first

went to work as a dance instructor at
the Julie Adler studio on Linwood and
Davison. But I want to make it clear
that this is an anniversary, not a retire-
ment party. I am as pas-
sionate about dancing as I
ever was."
Miss Barbara, who is 64,
opened her own studio 25
years ago in Southfield. The following
year, she was diagnosed with multiple
sclerosis. She has fought the disease
ever since.

ON THE COVER