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A Small Town Studio Doing Big City Things

Lanell Brennan brought dance to Oneida – and built a family

By Shane Gilreath
[email protected]

In the heart of Scott County, where the mountains can sometimes feel like barricades for dreams, a small dance studio made a way for them to pirouette. Built on deep-rooted ambition, the studio first took root in the coal-infused earth of Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania. From the outset, it was grounded in something pure, destined to impart wisdom and a homebred fervor. Nearly every day for two decades, studio bystanders have found a steady flow of dreamers. Hair slicked and pinned, pointe and tap shoes at the ready, adrenaline pumping and aligning with every beat of music, but the faces – of all walks of life, genders, and generations – represent the ghosts of hundreds of students, past and present, whose lucky brush with Oneida’s Gotta Dance Studio has taught them to stand taller, leap farther, rely on one another, and find grace in everyday life.
Dance, like many art forms, is a unique and competitive industry. Studies suggest there are 75 million dance students across the country, but in Oneida, the domicile of those young dreamers is Gotta Dance, and at its epicenter – its chief dreamer – is Lanell Stang Brennan, the woman who taught Scott County to dance. October 2025 marked twenty years since the studio first opened its doors. What began as a humble experiment by “the foot doctor’s wife,” as Brennan called herself, has become an institution – a place where discipline and joy leap across the same floor. But while dance is firmly in her DNA, Brennan didn’t set out to build a dance empire in rural Tennessee. Like many American success stories, hers began elsewhere – as a shy young girl in Springville, Pennsylvania, who found her passion under the glow of stage lights.
“I was a very shy child,” Lanell told SCN. Her voice still carrying the sounds of her native Pennsylvania, softened by years of southern cadence. “My mom put me in dance at age four, hoping it would pull me out of my shell.”
According to Brennan, that first experience was at Linda Boretti’s Dance Studio in Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania; a woman that still holds a special place in Brennan’s heart. It was under Boretti’s mentorship – four decades ago – that Lanell first fell in love with the lyricism of dance. She learned confidence, that life can live in rhythms, and that self-expression through movement can become as fluent as a second language. Boretti took the young girl, whose mother expected her to wither in timidness, and turned her into a first-rate performer. “I put on a show,” Brennan said of her first recital. “That was it. I found my life’s passion at four years old.”
From the shy young girl learning her craft to the precocious young dancer she would become, that passion never stopped. Soon, she was performing across the Northeast. Her new love became a life’s journey and took her from childhood recitals to regional theater and tap shows, performing alongside the legendary hoofer James “Buster” Brown at a jazz club in the Poconos. Eventually, she would dance on top the world at ‘Windows on the World,’ the once famed revolving restaurant that crowned New York’s Twin Towers. Her resume grew to include 42nd Street, Anything Goes, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and Guys and Dolls, often finding herself working with choreographer Germaine Salsburg, who serves on the faculty of the famed Broadway Dance Center.
But despite personal successes, Brennan’s story refused to follow the traditional arc of a young dancer chasing the lights of the Great White Way. Instead, it looked back to home and community – something that continues to define Lanell Brennan – and toward the young people who she’s made her life’s mission. For all her talent, fame was never Lanell’s focus. Life had other plans. She earned degrees in Education and Psychology from Muhlenberg College, minored in dance, and began re-imagining a life where she could merge artistry with teaching.
Though Lanell spent several years in Philadelphia, when she married her husband, Nate Brennan, his career as a podiatrist took them to Murfreesboro, hundreds of miles from her northeastern roots and the stages that had given birth to her dreams. Eventually, his work led them to the foothills of Appalachia and Scott County. Once planted, Lanell began substitute teaching, where the adage “the foot doctor’s wife” really took root. Then, suddenly, from stage left, fate made an entrance. When the local dance teacher suddenly closed her studio, someone mentioned to Nate’s assistant that Lanell had a background in dance.
“She told me, ‘You should open a studio here,’” Lanell recalled. “I thought she was crazy.”
She wasn’t. It was Brennan’s chance to combine teaching with dance, and though there was some doubt – new marriage, new place –it was an easy transition. Renting a space next to her husband’s office in the Four Lane District of Oneida, she learned the magic of helping others. Thinking she might gather a few dozen students, eighty actually showed up – heads full of wonder and feet filled with dance. A slew of awards and competitions followed. “Best decision of my life,” Lanell told SCN. “Though sometimes Nate jokes that he might regret the gentle push he gave me. Now, he’s known as the ‘dance teacher’s husband.’”
A gentle push began a snowball’s effect. Though Scott County nor the Brennans may have known it, the odds weren’t in Lanell’s favor. For every long-standing studio recognized by name – the Joffrey, Juilliard, the Broadway Dance Center – countless others vanish quietly. Many of them in small towns like Oneida, taking with them countless routines and the dreams of young talent. Call it luck. Call it a gift. Call it divine intervention. But Lanell Brennan refused to let that happen. Not in Scott County. Not on her watch.
For others, Lanell’s belief quickly became contagious. Even today, you can feel it. When you enter the studio, young dancers are in lockstep, the same routines, over and over. 1,2,3,4. Choreography, technique, performance. As they tap across wooden dance floors and practice their grand jete before mirrors, they can see their own reflections, as watchful as the eyes of their trained teachers. But it’s not all as strict as it may sound. There is real joy at Gotta Dance. The pupils want to be there. They want to learn. They want to succeed. They want to make Brennan and her staff proud.
One such staff member, who Brennan called ‘the perfect fit to the puzzle,” is Michelle Taylor Ayers, who was offered a job at Gotta Dance fresh out of college. “Teaching with Miss Lanell at Gotta Dance has taught me so many important lessons,” Ayers said. “She is one of the most creative people that I’ve ever met. Being around her creative, fun-loving spirit has enhanced my own creativity. It doesn’t really feel like I’m going to work since I’m working with my best friend.”
Ayers’ impression of Brennan is not uncommon. It’s no cliché to say that Gotta Dance is truly a family and everyone that’s ever taken part a member. Because of the studio’s dedication – and because they see each other and each pupil in that familiar light – one competition awarded them the National Studio Award, calling them a name that stuck: “the small town studio doing big city things.” It’s now their motto.
Like the students, dance parents – and there have been many, including Oneida Mayor Lori Phillips-Jones and her husband, Phillip – have developed their own sense of belonging. Jo Jo Hatfield Stephens, whose daughter Josie is a student, remembers her first call to Brennan. “When Josie was little, she kept telling me she wanted to go to dance and be a ballerina,” she says. “I looked around at several studios and called Miss Lanell. She not only teaches and mentors her dancers but is a wonderful role model. She loves the girls as her own. I’m so glad we ended up that day in Oneida. Miss Lanell has been a blessing in Josie’s life.”
Josie puts it more simply. “They’re a huge part of my life,” Josie told SCN of the studio. “My teacher has this amazing way of pushing me to be better while still making everything fun. They’ve taught me so much, not just about dance, but about believing in myself.”
Ayers, who, herself, has become an intricate part of the studio, has similar experiences with her own children, who Brennan says may inherit Gotta Dance one day. “My daughter looks up to Miss Lanell so much. They have such a special relationship that’s shared through their love of dance,” Ayers told SCN, saying one of the qualities she enjoys most is the studio’s family-oriented atmosphere. “Dancers lookout for one another and cheer for one another,” she said. “Dance moms have become close friends that I will cherish for life.”
It was a dance dad, though, in Phillip Jones, Brennan told SCN – smiling at the memory – who used to cheer the dancers like he was at a football game. His reactions, like those of many parents, are likely common in towns more familiar with touchdowns than arabesques and tap shoes, but Gotta Dance has planted a seed, building a foundation that blends athleticism and artistry, just as Brennan dreamed.
“Before Gotta Dance, the art and athleticism of dance was an unknown to Scott County,” explained Allison Gilbert, a former collegiate dancer whose daughter Katelyn trained at the studio. “People didn’t know or understand its beauty or appreciate the difficulty. Gotta Dance has changed that.”
Gilbert’s daughter, Katelyn’s journey has taken her from Alberta Street to New York City, where she’s pursuing her dream of becoming a Radio City Rockette. The hard work and dedication to get there was born 773 miles away. In fact, Allison credits the Oneida studio for her daughter’s foundation. “Lanell instilled a love of dance into Katelyn from a very young age. She is a teacher at heart, and her love for children is evident in her interactions with all of her students,” she said. “Lanell and Michelle have brought the art of dance to Scott County. And with that, they’ve brought education and opportunity to children from rural Tennessee.”
Like Gilbert, many former students have gone on to leave indelible marks on the world, carrying their dance lessons into adult lives. “I learned skills that have stayed with me all my life. I’ve incorporated dance into my work as a teacher, artist, and performer,” said Cheyanne Leonardo, one of the studio’s original pupils. “Dance is a unique and beautiful creative outlet, and I am blessed to have had such extensive training and great memories to last a lifetime.”
Former student Hannah Brown may well agree. Brown, who remembers struggling with anxiety and feeling out of place in school, told SCN that Gotta Dance will always hold a special place in her heart. “I started dancing there when I was 11 years old,” Brown said, “and what began as an after school activity quickly became a lifelong passion. Dance gave me something I didn’t even realize I needed at the time – a place where I could truly be myself.
“Walking into the studio after school always felt like coming home,” Brown told SCN. “The teachers were more than instructors; they were mentors, role models, and family. The lessons I learned there went far beyond dance. They shaped who I am today.”
Like many of her contemporaries, Brown feels tethered to that space, its teachers, and the lessons it taught. “Gotta Dance wasn’t just a studio,” she explained. “It was a safe haven, a family, and a foundation. I’ll always be thankful for the love, encouragement, and memories that came from those years.”
For Lanell, those stories – coming from familiar names and faces – are the reason she’s never stopped teaching. “Discipline, confidence, self-esteem, creativity, expression, self-respect. Those are the things dance teaches,” Brennan told SCN of her students. “They’ve learned in dance class to better their everyday lives.”

But their names, those who spoke with SCN – Hannah, Cheyanne, Josie, Jo Jo, Michelle, Allison and Katelyn – are but a few. In fact, there are many legacies – twenty years of students who will carry dance with them forever. “That just warms my heart,” Lanell admitted, confirming that her philosophy for success has always been simple: family. And as the young girl from Springville, Pennsylvania celebrates two decades in Tennessee, nothing is more evident than that.