 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

