Our Team · Avenel, NJ

Meet Our Instructors

Led by owner-director Barbara Vari, our instructors are the reason a one-room studio became one of Middlesex County's largest — mentors, role models and cheerleaders for every dancer.

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More than dance teachers

The growth of this studio has always been credited to the dedication of its instructors, and you'll see why in the first week. Our early-childhood instructors have the patience and creativity it takes to keep a room of three-year-olds engaged and smiling from the first song to the last. Our technique and team instructors hold dancers to a real standard — and celebrate every step of progress toward it.

Many of them grew up at WSD. WSD dancers become teaching assistants, then instructors, then the mentors a new generation looks up to — the same big-sister energy that has our youngest dancers adoring the older girls who help in their class. That continuity is what makes WSD feel like home.

Directors

Leading WSD since 1978

Barbara Vari

Owner & Director · Teaches Acro, Advanced Acro Tech, Teen Jazz & Lyrical, Jumps/Leaps/Turns

Ms. Barbara joined the Woodbridge School of Dance staff in 1987 and quickly became part of the day-to-day running of the studio, teaching both recreational dancers and team members. She and Ms. Jacqui became partners, and Barbara took over ownership of the studio when Jacqui retired in 2024.

She is the coach and lead choreographer of the Pure Energy Competition Team, which has won numerous high-score, choreography, entertainment and Most Inspirational awards, and her dancers have gone on to company work, college dance programs and professional careers. She keeps training herself at Broadway Dance Center and in master classes, brings master choreographers from New York City in for workshops and summer intensives, and takes dancers to conventions across the country.

Her high-energy classes run from the studio's littlest dancers to dancers taking their training to the next level. Outside the studio she has choreographed high school musicals, a wedding-proposal flash mob and a pre-game show for the Harlem Globetrotters.

Jacqui O'Shaughnessy

Founder

The daughter of a professional dancer, Ms. Jacqui began training at two, studied with choreographers including Phil Black, Frank Hatchett and Mary Murphy, and earned a BA in dance from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. After graduation she danced on Broadway — and opened a small studio in a storefront on Main Street in Woodbridge, choosing the town for its hometown feel. As the studio grew, she stopped performing to teach full time.

For decades she taught preschool ballet/tap and every level of tap, coached Pure Energy to regional and national choreography awards, judged across the tri-state area and was named Educator of the Year by Company Dance. She built WSD's tradition of community service — the Saint James Street Fair, Woodbridge Community Day, the Iselin Fair, cancer-research walks and performances at local senior centers.

Ms. Jacqui retired in 2024. She still substitutes when needed, comes to events throughout the year, and looks forward to the studio's continued success under Barbara Vari.

Instructors

Mentors on and off the dance floor

Patient with three-year-olds, demanding with teens, and invested in every dancer in between. Many of our instructors grew up dancing at WSD and came back to teach the next generation.