About Us
Welcome to M.A.D.E. Stars Performing Arts School!
M.A.D.E. (Music, Acting, Dance, & Education) Stars was founded August 2008, on the principle that Hillside and the surrounding area would need a place that would serve multiple purposes for the children in the community.
M.A.D.E. Stars is a high-quality, reasonably priced dance and performing arts school. We are committed to the performing arts. We work hard to introduce and instill just the right amount of self-expression, discipline, and passion in each of our students.
Whether a student is taking classes for fun and exercise or planning to enter the arts on a professional level, we are here to guide our student along the way.
Here at M.A.D.E. Stars, “A STAR is BORN”!! M.A.D.E. Stars officially opened its Hillside location February 2010. We start at the young age of 2 ½ to adults. Ballet, Pointe, Tap, Jazz, Modern, Lyrical, Contemporary, Hip Hop, Acting, and Acro/Gymnastics and more...
Meet Vanera Aponte
Founder
Vanera Aponte was raised in Hillside, NJ. She started dancing at the young age of 4 and continued through high school and college. During her pre-teen years she danced at Premiere Dance Theatre under the direction of Shirlise McKinley and the late James Wiggins.
There she shinned in her first solo in six-inch heels and an 80s afro wig as the “Dancing Machine” in a Michael Jackson tribute. In her teenage years she trained at Newark Community School of the Arts with Mr. Gallman, dancing in Gallman’s company, highlighted by a performance of the “The Wiz” at NJPAC.
Vanera also used her dancing ability to capture the title of Miss Hal Jackson’s Talented Teen of Union County. She attended college at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington where she double majored in Marketing & Finance. Vanera judges scholarship pagents and is a dance mentor for high school students for the NAACP ACTO-SO NJ competition.
Vanera yearned to make a difference in her community. She wanted a program that would foster our youth in the arts and that would challenge the minds and physical beings of children and adults; thus birthed M.A.D.E. Stars.