MENOMONEE FALLS, Wis. (CBS 58) — The Nancy Dianne Studio of Dance has been a mainstay in Menomonee Falls for 50 years.
Nancy Stark took in excess of the studio when she was just 20 a long time previous, and over the several years she’s taught too a lot of learners to count. About the previous 5 a long time, she’s related generations through the artwork of dance.
“Hi, welcome! Hello there. How are you?” Nancy Stark greets pupils and their parents as they arrive in the doorway. Courses at the Nancy Dianne Studio of Dance constantly start out with a heat welcome — commonly from Stark herself.
It is been that way for 50 years.
“Here is a photograph of your grandfather, myself and your grandmother, who came to the opening,” Stark mentioned, flipping as a result of a scrapbook with her daughter, Holly.
Stark has stored observe with a scrapbook filled with pictures from the 1970s.
“This was my incredibly to start with advert in the Menomonee Falls Information. Back in the working day, that was how you received the term out,” she remembered.
Stark had been dancing with the Milwaukee Ballet Company when she produced the leap to instructing.
“It can be really hard to imagine when I began the college I was only 20 a long time old,” she reported. “And to consider that my mother and father were powering that decision at age 20!”
The final decision, although, turned out to be a fantastic a person.
Pupils begin dancing right here at just a few a long time aged, finding out ballet, tap, jazz and modern day dance.
“I love the actuality that they are looking at dance as an art type. So, for me to introduce dance to them as art, rather than a activity, I feel that is good,” Stark claimed of her philosophy.
It is really an artwork these little women are eager to understand.
“And I like dancing for the reason that it is really just quite, so I want to do it,” explained university student Naomi Baker.
Miranda Zielinsky teaches modern dance and present day jazz, but she started off in this article as a pupil herself.
Her course picture is alongside so a lot of other folks who’ve come in advance of and following.
“Nancy has been instructing for so extended and touched so numerous lives, it is really wonderful to place that in standpoint with every single of the pictures,” Zielinsky stated of the framed course shots that line the partitions.
Stark won’t be able to guess how many pupils have arrive through the doors, but she knows many of them come back even just after graduating.
“Others will arrive back and say, you know, these were being the ideal yrs of my everyday living. This is in which I made my pals, this was my delighted spot,” Stark reported.
The studio is also a family members affair.
Stark’s daughter, Heather Kempen, next in her mom’s footsteps.
“I failed to genuinely believe about it right until higher school when it was time to determine what to do in college or university, and then I considered, I cannot envision carrying out anything else,” Kempen reported of teaching at Nancy Dianne Studio of Dance.
Her daughter, Ella Kempen, is generation range 3.
“Dance is all I have ever recognized. Like, staying at the rear of the scenes and everything, and it’s become a really huge portion of my daily life. It truly is something I consider about and do every one working day,” Ella said.
Stark enjoys obtaining her relatives associated.
“Now my granddaughter! She’s included in dance below as nicely, and she just stated to us, probably a thirty day period back, I think I might go on to higher education and maybe do dance, like mom,” Stark claimed with noticeable delight.
Stark conjures up not just her have loved ones — Rachel Heckenkamp danced here and now watches her have daughters.
“I required them to just be in a position to appear in and delight in getting a very little girl on a dance floor, and they make it very magical,” Heckenkamp said.
An extra entertaining simple fact — CBS 58’s very own Nicole Koglin danced at the studio for a long time, too, and remembers the encounter fondly.
Five decades of making neighborhood, friendships and loved ones.
“I consider she’s really humble. Isn’t going to notice how lots of people she’s attained,” Heather Kempen claimed. “I hope she’ll be close to for many more many years.”
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