First Posted: 2/25/2015
PITTSTON — It’s hard to find Lauren Timek. The West Pittston native’s many jobs keep her moving.
Sometimes, you need to look on the campus of Misericordia University, where, for the second year, she will coach dance at the Summer Performing Arts Training Academy. Sometimes, you can find her at the Academy of Movement in Sinking Spring, Pa., working with dance students. Often, she can be found working as a wedding planner for Knot Just Any Day in Pittston. And five days a week, you need only to look in the offices of Casey Dental in Pittston, where she works as a treatment coordinator.
Timek is happiest, however, in The Extension, the dance studio she runs three floors up a steel staircase in the Cooper’s Co-op in Pittston.
It’s a schedule that might bring most people to their knees, but this 24-year-old thrives on it.
“I teach every day of the week, and I love it,” she said.
Timek has been on the move all of her life, starting with dance lessons as a tot. She wanted to be a ballerina and got to take dance lessons in a variety of studios throughout the Wyoming Valley. She danced competitively through grade school and her teen years. Then, she found herself under the tutelage of Gina Malski at the Dance Theater of Wilkes-Barre.
“I’ve had a lot of teachers, but she’s the one who came out of the woodwork and shoved me in directions I always dreamed of taking,” Timek said. “And, she gave me the tools to do what I needed to do to get there.”
Timek left the area after graduating from Wyoming Area Secondary Center to major in speech and communications at Kutztown University and, while she was there, auditioned to be a dancer with the Reading Phillies. Coincidentally, the dance coach for that squad works for the Philadelphia 76ers and also has the studio in Sinking Spring where Timek is now an instructor.
The result of what Timek calls a “whirlwind of crazy opportunities” took her to her lifelong dream of performing on Broadway, to dancing on the sidelines of New York Jets games and even to the Super Bowl.
“There I was, a kid from West Pittston, dancing in front of millions of people on live television,” she said. “Talk about surreal. I was one of the people dancing in the half-time show with Lenny Kravitz, too.”
That was the Super Bowl three years ago when the game was played in the MetLife Stadium in New York and Timek was part of the show team put together from veterans of the Jets’ dance squad.
It took work and dedication to be part of that squad – auditioning for the first time as a 19-year-old and making it into the 60-dancer finals before being cut. The next year, Timek auditioned again, this time making the squad of 35 or 40 dancers and, in three years, went from rookie to veteran co-captain.
“I think I was the only person ever to do a ballet routine in an audition for the Jets squad,” she said. “They loved it and took me on.”
The Extension is just another step in the whirlwind, Timek said.
“This is literally an extension of the Dance Theater of Wilkes-Barre,” she said. “Gina Malski asked me if I wanted to take on my own studio. And here we are.”
She credits her success to “a lot of hard work and attention to detail.” And that’s what she brings to her students wherever she teaches.
“She helps me a lot with everything,” said 13-year-old Julie Mazaleski, of Pittston, during a class in The Extension. Mazaleski, dancing for “seven or eight years now,” was in a class of about a dozen girls in their early teens, working on warm-up stretches.
The wall of mirrors in the studio reflected the girls’ faces, full of intense concentration, while they flexed muscles, stretched their legs, extended their arms in preliminary workouts – all the time hearing words of encouragement.
“Bring your shoulders up.”
“Keep those knees straight.”
“Square your hips.”
“Let’s start from first position, then plie, plie, plie.”
“I love this,” said Shawna Casey, who’s been dancing for the past 10 years. The Pittston resident started as a 2-year-old and wants to follow in Timek’s footsteps to be a professional dancer.
“It’s tough,” said Kaitlin Connors, of Duryea, who is about to turn 14. “But Miss Lauren knows how to help us because she’s been there; she knows what we’re going through.”
The girls don’t mind the hard work. They just finished a four-week intensive training session that had them doing physical workouts, much like their athletic counterparts on school teams, and are getting ready for a performance of “Alice in Wonderland” later in the spring.
Timek’s students perform several times a year in the area, anywhere from the Fine Arts Fiesta in Wilkes-Barre to the Cherry Blossom Festival, Third Fridays and Paint Pittston Pink.
They make their way to The Extension’s hardwood floor several times a week to train and dance to get ready for the performances.
“I love how you can be free and express yourself in dance,” said 12-year-old Samantha Aben, of the Back Mountain. “It’s hard work. But it feels great.”
The great feeling comes not only from dance, but also from being able to share it with students and inspire them to work toward their own goals, Timek said.
“I have a great mentor in Gina Malski. I worked with a lot of instructors who helped me along the way. And now, I’m following in their footsteps,” she said. “That all led to some incredible opportunities. And who knows what will come next?”
