G
ilroy native Lana Wright is
the owner and founder of
Lana’s Dance Studio, which is
entering its 40th year, with locations in
Morgan Hill, and Gilroy. She considers
her time-tested dance studio a family as
much as a business.
Wright talks about the kids who
have gone through her programs over
the years with the same fondness as
though they were her own children.
“I just love seeing the kids blossom,
watching their faces from their first
classes and seeing them grow not just
as a dancer, but as a person,” she said.
Many of her students have taken
classes in her studios since they were
small children, for up to fifteen years,
before going off to college. Some con-
tinue dancing in college, and some
go on to dance professionally, like her
former student Tori, who currently
dances with singer Ricky Martin.
The business is not just a family in
feel, but in practice, too. Her 37-year-
old daughter Leila, a former Radio City
Rockette whom she calls “the backbone
of the business,” runs the competition
side of the studio, her husband Doug
helps out in the office, and her two-
year-old granddaughter has begun
taking classes.
When Wright opened her first studio
in the Candy Park area of Morgan
Hill in 1979, she had 86 students
that first year. Now, as many as 600
students participate in her recreational
and competitive programs every year,
and almost all of them perform in the
Annual Production Show, each June,
which takes place at San Jose’s Center
for the Performing Arts.
Though Lana’s studio is known for
its competitive team, which has won so
many awards her Morgan Hill studio
is literally crowded with trophies—she
said that it is a “misconception” that
competition is all that they do. “We are
actually 90 percent recreation and 10
percent competitive,” she said. “You
don’t just have a competitive team,” she
said. The kids have to work up to that.
Nonetheless, the studio has fledged
a number of professional dancers, and
a host of professional cheerleaders
in such teams as the San Francisco
Lana's Dance Studio
A Family Affair
Written By Jordan Rosenfeld
112
GILROY • MORGAN HILL • SAN MARTIN
OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2018
gmhtoday.com