Lisa Collins Vidnovic, director and founder of Metropolitan Ballet Academy & Company in Jenkintown, is now in her 30th year teaching dance to kids in greater Glenside and beyond.
An Oklahoma native, Collins Vidnovic began her directorship journey through a 14.5-year professional dance career, including 11 years with what is now Philadelphia Ballet.
After retiring from her classical dance career, an interest in folkloric dance led her to Jenkintown.
“I always had a huge interest in folkloric dance, so I when I retired from the professional ballet circuit, I joined the Voloshky Ukrainian Dance Ensemble at the Ukrainian Educational & Cultural Center,” she said. “Ukrainian dance is a beautiful, very athletic dance style that especially showcases male dancers in amazing acrobatic movements. I danced with Voloshky for 10 years, and along the way, they invited me to open a school. That’s how it all began.”
From there, the school and the program have expanded. Today, the “Met” (as it’s called in short) teaches classical and contemporary dance to roughly 300 students aged 3-18, most of whom come from the school’s own backyard: Jenkintown, Abington, Cheltenham, Elkins Park, Glenside, Huntingdon Valley, Rydal, Willow Grove, and the Philadelphia, Montgomery, and Bucks County regions.
Many of Met’s students have gone on to professional careers and can be found performing across the country, including with San Francisco Ballet, BalletX, Paul Taylor Dance Company, Cincinnati Ballet, Colorado Ballet, Indianapolis Ballet, Rubberband Dance and other top companies and trainee programs.
The school was named “one of seven local studios in the nation cultivating top talent” by Pointe magazine and is a four-time winner of Youth America Grand Prix’s Outstanding School Award.
“We are proud of a renowned and dedicated faculty, who provide the highest quality performance training from our ‘littles’ to our pre-professional dancers. Our nationally recognized Boys’ Scholarship Program, now more than 25 years strong, provides tuition-free training to 50+ boys each year (making Met’s one of the largest programs in the country), and a robust “Kinetic Literacy” outreach program serves 400 K-3 students in 18 Philadelphia elementary classrooms annually. Together, these programs embody the heart of Metropolitan Ballet: using the power of dance to inspire, educate, and open doors of opportunity for young people,” Collins Vidnovic said.
She noted that two of Met’s Boys’ Program students, or “Met Men” as they call themselves, were in the news this month. Melecio Amaro, a member of Metropolitan’s Boys’ Scholarship Program for the past six years and a Cheltenham High School freshman, was selected as the winner of the 2025-26 Balaurol Prize.
Cole Kuhn, a 16-year-old baseball phenom from Elkins Park (Cheltenham Township) who has become one of the nation’s top prospects, was a student of the Met for six years.
“I am so proud of Melecio, who is developing into a wonderful young artist. And very excited to follow Cole’s athletic training. He was such a great student and is a great performer. He loved being on stage!” Collins Vidnovic said.
You can see the Met’s Company dancers next month in performance with “Variations/Collaborations”, on Saturday, March 21 at 7:00pm at the Kurtz Center/William Penn Charter School (3000 West School House Lane, Philadelphia). Special guest artists are Philadelphia Ballet II, the second company of Philadelphia Ballet.
Tickets are available online at www.metropolitanballetcompany.org. For additional information or group sales, you can contact the Metropolitan office by phone (215-663-1665) or email (info@metropolitanballetacademy.com).
For more on Metropolitan Ballet Academy & Company, located at 700 N. Cedar Road, you can visit their Facebook page, Instagram page, and website.
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Photos: MBA