On a recent weekday afternoon, the halls of Robin Horneff’s Performing Arts Center in Waldwick are abuzz with the sounds of young dancers. In one practice room, the littlest ones, ages 2.5 to 6, are awaiting their instructor, who will teach them ballet, tap and jazz. In another, teens are anxious to find out who will be chosen to dance in a competition that may lead to a coveted slot performing at a Knicks game. Across the hall, 10- to 17-year-olds are wielding black plastic prop knives, practicing a lively pirate number for a future competition.

Horneff points to one of the young boys in the pirate dance, and it is quickly apparent that this is no ordinary dance school. “He was just in The Grinch on Broadway,” she says, almost matter-of factly. The boy in question is far from the only superstar to come out of Robin Horneff’s Performing Arts Center. Horneff’s former students include a Rockette, several Broadway performers and an American Idol winner – success stories that wouldn’t have been possible without the superior team of professionals she’s brought in to mold her dance charges. “I have the best faculty there is,” Horneff says, with the same matter-of-fact air. “The best teachers and the best choreographers – we’re like a family here.”

Born to the barre
Horneff, who grew up in Waldwick, has been dancing her whole life. Her parents were professional dancers who traveled around the country with a competitive dance group, the first of its kind, called “Dance Caravan.” After performing with their company, she decided to give Broadway a try. Horneff struck gold, landing a dance role in the 1972 Broadway musical show Sugar, based on the 1959 Billy Wilder film Some Like it Hot, just four months after graduating from high school.

After her Sugar run, Horneff was cast as the lead dancer in The Golddiggers, an all-female dance group that started out as regulars on The Dean Martin Show in 1965. Along the way, she made such an impression on dance legend Gene Kelly that he hired her as an assistant choreographer for the new sequences in his 1976 film That’s Entertainment, Part II, costarring fellow legend Fred Astaire. “I can’t even put into words what working with them meant to me, and to my parents,” she says. “I don’t think there is anyone in their category today. You just don’t get any bigger, or higher, in the dance world than those two.” What did she learn from them, beyond dance moves? “Between filming, sitting and talking to Fred Astaire, all he could talk about was building a bridge across his pool for these little animals that kept falling in the water,” she marvels. “He wanted to save them from drowning. I remember thinking, there is so much more to this person, this icon, than just his dancing. It was who he was as a person – just very caring.”

Now 54, Horneff opened her first dance studio in Waldwick 28 years ago, buying the business from her close friend, who was moving and wanted to sell. But no one was more surprised than Horneff herself by the turn of events. “I never thought I would open my own studio,” she muses. “My parents did that, and it just wasn’t something I thought I would ever do.” But realizing that the enterprise would help maintain her dancing form, Horneff decided to go for it, with help from her husband, Van. “Thank God for him,” she says. “Because he set it up for me structurally like a business, leaving me to hire my teachers and develop my curriculum.” And slowly, she hired the best staff, building her business into what it is today: Robin Horneff’s Performing Arts Center (RHPAC), one of the most successful dance schools in the Northeast, and one of the largest in northern New Jersey.

First position: excellence
Today, Horneff has more than 1,000 students and a dozen teachers in her Waldwick and Westwood locations, offering classes in ballet, tap, jazz and hip-hop, as well as drama and vocal programs (recent Idol winner Jordin Sparks, whose soulful alto was tapped for the National Anthem at this year's Super Bowl, was once a student).

RHPAC, led for the last decade by award-winning choreographer Kelley Larkin, wins numerous awards each year in national dance competitions. Last summer, the company traveled to the Starpower World Talent Competition in Orlando, where it won the People’s Choice Award, an online poll. (“That was fun for the girls,” notes Horneff. “Because it wasn’t judges who voted – it was people from across the country who saw them dance, online.”) RHPAC has performed at the Sydney and Atlanta Olympic games, the Orange Bowl, and on CBS Morning News as part of the “Dancers Responding to AIDS” fund-raising initiative. And more than a few of Larkin’s students have parlayed their talents, and her teachings, into acceptance by the prestigious collegiate dance programs – at Juilliard, Duke and the University of Pennsylvania – and into appearances in music videos, commercials and movies.

Why RHPAC has become so popular? Horneff credits local parents for their savvy. “I think in this area, in Bergen County, people are well educated and looking for the best of everything for their kids,” she says. “If their kid plays tennis, they want the best tennis coach – or if it’s soccer, the best soccer program. My daughter is taking her SATs,” Horneff adds, “so I have to find the best tutor. So when it comes to dancing, they don’t want a rinky-dink school – they want a place that has built a good reputation and following over the years.”

Ridgewood resident Julia Sullivan, whose four daughters have all been students at RHPAC, and sometimes spend up to 13 hours a week each practicing for competitions, believes the results are worth all that hard work in the studio. “Yes, it’s very time-consuming, and it can be expensive,” Sullivan admits, “but it has been wonderful for my girls, for their poise and self confidence.” And it’s not just the kids who are working. Sullivan, along with other parents, logs hours at Horneff’s center as well, sewing sequins on costumes and building props. Even dads participate. “The other day, a bunch of 6- and 7-year-old dancers’ dads were taking an entire day to build wooden tubs that will be used for a three-minute jazz number,” adds Sullivan. “Everybody pitches in where they can to make the shows a success.”

But not all RHPAC students are on track for Broadway, or a career in dancing at any level. The hip-hop classes attract high school-age boys who think it’s “cool,” Horneff points out. “So when their schools have dances, they’ll have some moves to show off.” And there are more than a few athletes enrolled; Horneff currently has high school tennis players, who turn to dance to improve their agility, quickness and balance. She’s even had wrestlers sign up for classes.

Finding her center
Horneff has a life apart from the studio: She and her husband, Van, have a home in Saddle River, and four children: Will, 28, Vanessa, 24, John, 21, and Samantha, 17, a high school junior. None of her children became dancers, although two have worked in the entertainment industry: Will Horneff is a former child actor (the TV remake of The Yearling, for which he won an award) who recently resumed his career, and Vanessa Horneff (who is married to Jim Burt Jr., son of the former NY Giants player) costarred with Will in a 2005 horror film, The Roost. But that departure from her own chosen path is okay with Mom. “My husband sometimes wonders why I didn’t push them more, but it is important to me that they find what they are supposed to do,” she explains. “Dance was the direction I was set in by my parents because I was good at it, and that’s fine – but I didn’t want to pressure my children.”

Does Horneff feel any pangs of regret that she’s honing her protégés’ ability to perform, but no longer does so herself? Without hesitation, her answer is no. “When I was on stage, I loved it – I felt comfortable,” she says. “But I remember, distinctly, a period when all of a sudden, I felt different. It didn’t feel as natural – and that’s when I knew it was time to stop.”

Horneff has also stepped away from teaching classes daily, though she does fill in when necessary. “It’s fun for me now,” she explains, “because my faculty is so good that they can do what they do best, and I get to just sort of manage and oversee the operation – which is a nice change for me.” That leaves time for pursuing her passions outside the studio: skiing with her family in Vermont, horseback riding in upstate New York and taking long walks with her beloved dogs: border collie Callie, Australian shepherd Ashton and Cheya, a chihuahua. Future plans include buying enough land to raise horses, which she and daughter Vanessa dream of using as therapy for children with special needs.

When it comes to her legacy and how she wants to be remembered by students, Horneff’s answer has little to do with pliés and pirouettes, pas de deux and pointe shoes. “When all is said and done, and I’ve made my exit from the dance world, I hope that my students will feel that I was a caring and good person, that I encouraged and supported them,” she muses. “Luckily I have been able to work with kids where the impact I have on them is tangible, where I can see the results of a positive self-image and confidence that I helped cultivate. And that,” Horneff adds, “is something they will take with them the rest of their lives.”