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Linda Elower-Sicilia's 40-year-old dance studio in Thurmont is a family business. Not only because her daughters make up the core staff, but also because the 130-student school has become a family of its own.

"We are a dance family," said Kela Sicilia-Marceron, one of Elower-Sicilia's daughters and co-director of the school.

"It's not just a dance family, [students] become [real] family," said Kara Sicilia Broohm, another daughter and co-director. Kara said some students become so close, they have spent holidays at her mother's home and are part of other family events.

Kela once baby-sat for one of the studio's recent standouts, Patrick Cubbedge, who made it onto the silver screen in the 2003 movie "Camp," and to The University of the Arts in Philadelphia on a full scholarship, she said.

"I used to babysit him ... used to drag him up to the studio every day," she said. "Every time I'd turn around, he was behind me doing what I was doing. He started wanting to take classes. It just turned into something amazing."

Another of the studio's successful alums, Megan Adelsberger, made it to the top 18 women in the most recent season of Fox's primetime reality show, "So You Think You Can Dance." An Emmitsburg native, she started at Elower-Sicilia Productions when she was just 5 years old.

"She's like a second mom," Adelsberger said of Linda. In addition to her personal connection with the school's teachers, she credits the studio as the driving force behind her success.

"I'm the dancer I am today because of Kela," she said.

Students who want to be part of the school's competitive dance company have to take every type of dance class the studio offers "because we want them to be well-rounded," Kela said.

"We grew up doing everything and had to be good at everything," Adelsberger said. "For me, it made me appreciate all the different styles of dance."

She also said having such a versatile background makes her more hirable and gives her real-world opportunities to dance for a living. She regularly travels on cruise ships, dancing in live entertainment shows.

Evolution from humble beginnings

Linda Elower-Sicilia began her lifelong passion for dance at the Evelyn R. White Studio of Dance in Frederick when she was 5 years old. Sadly, White died of cancer when Linda was just 15.

"We had some students around here ... I wanted them to continue," she said. At first, teaching was just something Linda did on the side. But in 1969, when she was 19, she decided she wanted to instruct full-time. At first her students danced in the back of the town's fire hall. Later, when she got married and moved into a house, they danced in a makeshift studio in the basement. Kela said she remembers sneaking down into the basement late at night to watch her mother teach. As the studio grew, Linda started renting spaces in town.

"When I think back then, it's like slow motion compared to today," she said. While students in the school's early days took only one class per week, many current students come in least three or four times a week, she said. Her former spaces only had one studio, while the current one on Water Street has three.

As evidenced by the school's crowded front window full of trophies, students travel more often for competitions these days, and they often place. The school also tries to organize "master classes" once per month, during which well-known dancers that the instructors meet and network with at out-of-town conventions, classes or competitions come and teach sessions, Kela said.

"They tease us as we drive from the airport, like, ‘Where are we going?'" Linda said of the big-city visitors. But, "they love it here," Kela said. "They love the Cozy (Restaurant)!"

Although the instructors try to ensure that their students learn from the best, they also try to maintain an "all in the family" attitude. Linda and two of her daughters teach classes at the school and two other staff members have been students since they started dancing.

The main reason they try to keep a primarily in-house staff is because dancers who have been a part of the school their whole lives "get it," Kela said. "We are different," she said of the studio's unconventional choreography and a teaching philosophy that focuses on connecting with the art of dance rather than winning competitions.

"We teach the kids to perform and to dance," she said. "Not to compete, just to be good at performing and loving what they do."

"I think that's what makes it stick with you forever rather than just being something you do after school," Adelsberger said.

Giving back to the community

Long before Adelsberger was on "So You Think You Can Dance," she was dancing to Michael Jackson's "Thriller" at Halloween in the Park and performing at Catoctin Colorfest.

"I miss that, I wish I could do that now," she said.

Kela said local shows provide opportunities for students to showcase talent to friends and family members who can't travel to watch them compete.

"We love doing local events, the kids thrive on it," she said.

"Anything the town has, we do," Linda said. Although taking students out of town for competitions is a regular occurrence, "our nucleus is here," she said.

Kela danced in a professional company in Washington, D.C. for three years before coming back to Thurmont to teach. While she tries hard to network within the industry and keep up with the latest choreography trends, she thinks her mom is the real dancing queen.

"She's done everything on her own, started from nothing," she said. "She does it for the passion, for the heart, she's never done it to make a penny. It's all about the kids. She'll be Saint Dancer in the next life."

"Teacher, not dancer," Linda corrected, with a smile.

E-mail Courtney Pomeroy at cpomeroy@gazette.net.