Because Liliana and Jose Andreu can't return all the way to their homeland Cuba, they will move to Coral Gables, Fla., a suburb of Miami instead.
"It's as close to home as I can go," said Liliana Andreu.
Andreu, who founded the Potomac Dance Centre 30 years ago, left Cuba during the Cuban Revolution when she was a teenager in the early 1960s. Her husband, who was one of the directors of the Bay of Pigs, was jailed, she said.
"Cuba, that is my dream, every day of my life I think about it. We were forced to leave, we didn't leave because we wanted to," said Andreu.
AFTER ENHANCING the lives of thousands of Potomac youth and their families, Andreu will retire from her dance studio this coming June.
"My husband is the most special person I have ever met or will meet," said Andreu, who has one daughter in Coral Gables and another who lives in New York. "We love traveling. Museums are like air to breathe for us, we want to do it all."
For 30 years, Andreu's studio has been its own museum to Potomac youth; Andreu has provided the space, music, culture and arts that have allowed Potomac children to dance towards their own dreams.
Broadway singer Lisa Panagos, a former Potomac resident who spent over a decade years in Andreu's center, says she owes much of her success to Andreu and her training.
"She had me in my key years. I was with her until college. What I remember most was the support and confidence she gave me," said Panagos, who is working on a recording project in California and concentrating on acting. "Basically, she has a huge heart and she gives to everyone. She has a great sense for what you as an individual must need."
ANDREU NEVER reserved her most dedicated coaching for those with the most talent or passion for the arts. Her involvement was just as intense with students tapping toward other dreams.
"I was never one of the dancers who wanted to pursue any career out of it, but she made you feel like you were an important part of her school. That's one of her greatest talents, she made you feel so special, like you're the most important one," said Elizabeth Adams, a Bethesda resident who is expecting her third child in June.
THAT'S WHY students return year after year, why former students of Andreu's bring their own daughters to the studio to learn, why Panagos plans to return home to bring her niece to the Potomac Dance Ensemble's upcoming spring recital. It also explains why Andreu says she never leaves home without running into someone she knows, and why former students of Andreu become current colleagues.
"We're talking about a lot of students that she has had personal connection with. She cares about you, what you're going to do with your life. The list of successful women that have taken her class is very long," said Laura Rose, a former student of Andreu's who has been an instructor at Potomac Dance Centre for over 12 years. Rose, who refers to herself also as a "non-practicing" speech pathologist, says her interest in working with children stems from the ways Andreu taught.
"It's the little lessons; she never said, 'Hello, boys and girls.' It was always, 'Hello, friends.' Things like that you just absorb."
LIKE THE WAY Andreu soaks up the friendships she maintains with her students and their families by being attentive to her students, by staying involved, by offering a caring hand.
"My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer in August. Mrs. Andreu was willing to help me and my mom, she drove my mom to chemo, she was always there, always thinking about us," said Eva Freitag, a junior who will perform in the Potomac Dance Ensemble's upcoming production. (See page 6.) "She's always been there for me, she's always been like a second mother."
"She cares so much, she gets very involved with everyone," said Samantha Reisberg, a senior at Walt Whitman, a soloist in this year's show.
Said Wootton High School senior Casey Ruderman, also a soloist: "She is always supportive of me even when things get rough. She's always close … When she works with little kids, she's so animated, she gets so involved."
EVER SINCE she was a young girl in Cuba, Andreu volunteered to help her teachers. "I always loved teaching as much as I love choreography," she said.
Dance is a powerful element of her students' lives regardless of whether they are going to be professional dancers, she says.
"It gives an absolute sense of presence, well being, assertion. It helps in anything they do later on. "There are many sports, physical activities that are good and fun but you don't have to look wonderful. In costume, you have to look beautiful, be artistic, and make the steps or jumps look simple and beautiful."
Before Safeway or Montgomery Mall or her current studio were built, Andreu first started teaching Potomac youth in a Carderock Springs club house and then later in a studio in her own home after neighbors urged her to teach the neighborhood children.
"It's wonderful to help shape generations year after year because this is an activity they choose to do and continue to do," she said. "Very few teachers continue to be in touch with the same student year after year, they may be involved a few years and then are out.
"Here, we have many who have been here 10 years or more. You see their development from a little girl who loses a tooth or who needs help putting on her costume until they are these lovely young women who go on to careers and incredibly big things."