JANUARY 7 • 2021 | 33

A

local Jewish fine artist, Cheryl
Widener, and a local Jewish
dance studio owner and teacher,
Shanon Stibor, have teamed up in the face
of the pandemic to bring a heightened
level of excitement, visibility and opportu-
nity to their respective businesses.
Widener reached out to Stibor, who
owns and runs Shanon’s Dance Studio in
Keego Harbor, through a business posting
on a Facebook Jewish women’s networking
group.
“My proposal to her was that we collab-
orate on a project offering her students an
opportunity to have me paint
them either in dance pose or
portrait,” Widener said. “The
goal is not only for me to cre-
ate the paintings but for us to
both promote each other and
perhaps more importantly,
keep her student and parent
body excited to return to her dance studio
when it’s safe post-COVID.”
The pandemic has affected both Stibor
and Widener, with Stibor’s enrollment
dropping and the studio being open to
only a few students at a time, and Widener
having a hairdressing business that she
decided to shut down.
“I know I’m having a hard time because
of COVID — my guess was she’s probably
having a hard time because of COVID as
well, and maybe we could help each other
out,” Widener said of the decision to reach
out. “It just clicked. I paint dancers and

do portraits of children, and I wondered if
she’d be interested in a collaboration.”
Widener, who produces and sells her art
as Widener Fine Art in West Bloomfield
with her husband, Tim, has already pro-
duced a hype video announcing the col-
laboration, showing both her work and
Stibor’s students stoking the poses of her
already-done paintings.
“We’re going to be introducing the
video to her parent body,” Widener said.
“I discovered with COVID that so many
people want portraits of their grandchil-
dren, because they can’t visit their grand-
children right now. One portrait that I
did, the grandmother looked at it and she
started sobbing, she said not only did it
look like her granddaughter, it felt like
her.”
Stibor, who has over 35 years of dance
experience and more than 25 years of
teaching experience, currently has a few
students coming in for private, 1-on-1
lessons. All of the other lessons happen
virtually through Zoom.
Widener hasn’t visited the studio yet
due to COVID concerns, but the hope
is she can visit and paint the students
in-person once it becomes safe to do so,
and possibly outside when the weather
gets warmer.

A REWARDING PARTNERSHIP
Both Widener and Stibor expect to con-
tinue this partnership after COVID.
“When you first reach out to some-

body, you don’t know how well received
the idea is going to be, but when two
artists’ minds and energies match, every-
body gets so excited,” Widener said.
“That’s one of the most rewarding
things about this, feeling that excitement
bounce off of somebody else.”
Stibor, who opened her studio 18 years
ago, believes the partnership provides the
ability to do something different for her
students in such a stagnant time.
“I want to give them something else,”
Stibor said. “I know they love perform-
ing, they love having their pic-
tures taken, doing the poses
in the costumes and getting
all made up. So, it’s something
extra for them to mentally
make them feel better, but also
to bring recognition to the
arts because I know that gets
pushed aside a lot in schools.”
Both Stibor and Widener believe part-
nerships are crucial in times like these.
“We have to support each other, being
women, being Jewish women and being
in the arts, I feel like all of those are kind
of minority things,” Stibor said. “So,
it’s bringing all of that together, and it’s
something we’re really excited about.”

You can find Stibor’s studio at www.shanonsdance.

com and Widener’s work at www.widenerfineart.com.

Artist and teacher team up to create
paintings of young dance students.

DANNY SCHWARTZ STAFF WRITER

Artist and teacher team up to create

TheArt
of the
Dance

ARTS&LIFE
DANCE

Cheryl

Widener

Shanon

Stibor

An example of

Cheryl Widener’s

artwork.

A photo of a

dancer at Shanon

Stibor’s studio

COURTESY OF CHERYL WIDENER

COURTESY OF SHANNON STIBOR