Meet Shari Piontkowskie

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Shari Piontkowskie a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Shari, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

To be completely honest, I haven’t always considered myself resilient. The only time that it dawns on me is when I take the time to reflect on what I’ve been through and how far I’ve come. I believe that my resilience comes from a deep inner knowing and belief that my dreams and what I want for my life are achievable despite the obstacles currently standing in my way.

My parents have always been an inspiration to me because they were such hardworking people. They both held multiple jobs throughout my childhood to provide stability and support for myself and my brother. However, when it came to working towards their dreams outside of their 9-5 careers, they both struggled tremendously. I saw them give up on those dreams when things didn’t work out the way they had planned. I saw how much it crushed their spirits to not be able to fulfill those goals and how disheartened they were when they talked about their failures.

I understand how much my parents sacrificed to make sure my brother and I were taken care of and because we were their priority, they put chasing their dreams on the backburner. However, I also watched their personal narratives become the plans that didn’t work out. I watched them tell anyone who would listen, including my brother and I, how they worked towards their dreams and all of the reasons that those dreams didn’t work out. This created my personal drive to succeed because I never wanted my story to be about my failures. From watching them, I understood that whatever I wanted to accomplish would take a lot of hard work, rejection, and disappointment but I knew that if I continued to show up, there would be some inkling of success. And any inkling of success was enough to keep me motivated.

As a plus size dancer and choreographer, I’ve known from the beginning of my dance journey that it would be more challenging because I don’t fit the typical profile for either category. In addition to that, I’ve been through a lot physically. I’ve sprained both of my ankles. I’ve dislocated my right shoulder several times. I’ve had knee injuries, I’ve been hit by a car. As a dancer, my body is my instrument and I have legitimate excuses to sit down and find something else to pursue as a career. Nevertheless, when you have that deep inner knowing of your purpose and your passion – you find ways to make it work. It may play out very differently than you anticipated, but you learn to trust your path and let it lead the way. This is the basis of my resilience. I trust that with all I’ve been through, I have something to offer as a dancer, choreographer and teacher.

Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?

I am a dancer, choreographer and instructor based in the tri-state area. My dance style is a fusion of hip hop, street jazz, and Afro Dance. I was born in Manhattan, raised in Jersey City, NJ and I now reside in a small town in New Jersey. I started dancing when I was very young, but stopped due to my dance studio closing. I got back into dance when I was a senior in college, so it was a very late re-start. Academically, my background is in Philosophy and Math which I enjoyed studying but right after I graduated, I knew in my heart that I wanted to follow a creative path. Initially, I just wanted to be a professional dancer but my dream has now evolved into a love of teaching and choreographing.

The past few years, I’ve had a lot of opportunities to develop my voice as both a choreographer and a teacher. I had a two year residency in Jersey City with an organization called Stem from Dance where I was able to teach dance to girls in middle school, which I loved. They also allowed me to choreograph for their summer program and their dance team which were equally great experiences. I’ve taught adult classes in Manhattan and Brooklyn, thanks to my mentor Angel Kaba who has pushed my growth as an artist in so many ways. I’ve also had the opportunity to work with a lot of music artists from different genres to choreograph music videos, work on movement coaching, live performances, general artist development, etc.

My goal now is to continue to develop my business as an independent choreographer and instructor. I plan to start doing bi-weekly hip hop and Afro Fusion dance classes in New York and New Jersey. I am also in the planning phase of creating a dance company which is something that I’ve never done but I look forward to making it happen.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

The three qualities that have been most impactful in my journey are consistency, getting outside of my comfort zone, and faith.

Consistency is the key to success on any level. You have to keep working on something to get better at it. Even showing up in small ways is impactful. When I first started trying to choreograph, I would work on a song for only about 15 minutes a day because I didn’t know where to start or what to do, but eventually it got much easier. I think of consistency like planting seeds because you don’t see the results immediately, it’s only with time and effort that you start to see things bloom.

Getting outside of your comfort zone is also important because it’s keeps you humble and it’s keep you growing. You start to realize how much you don’t know and how vast the world is. Take classes you’ve never taken, talk to new people, go to different events, learn new things. You can find so much value and inspiration in new places. A lot of my professional growth happened because my mentors pushed me to do things I’d never done.

Have faith in yourself and in your creative journey. Know that your journey isn’t going to look like anyone else’s and it doesn’t have to. You will have your own successes, failures, lessons that will teach you what you need to learn or what you need to work on.

How would you describe your ideal client?

My ideal client is someone that is open and willing to learn what it takes to get better as a dancer and performer. I really love working with music artists because they usually understand the investment of time and energy that go into becoming a better performer and putting on a great show. Some other characteristics that make someone an ideal client for me are professionalism (showing up on time, good communication, knowing their budget), having a clear vision for their goals/projects, and respect for my artistry. Dancers respect other dancers because we know how much goes into our craft, but sometimes people who hire dancers or choreographers, think that you just show up and make magic happen. It doesn’t work like that. We put time into preparing for rehearsals, training in different styles, studying performances and dance history, etc. My ideal client is someone who understands that.

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