Photo by Deb Jacques Dancers stretch before their class at Allard Academy of Dance in Clinton Township, which is celebrating its 25th year in business.

Former students invited back to Allard Academy for reunion

By Heidi Roman
C & G Staff Writer

CLINTON TOWNSHIP — Students at the Allard Academy of Dance usually have a hard time saying good-bye to the studio they grew up dancing in. So many of them don’t.

Instead they go on to study dance in college and come back to teach the next generation of dancers.

This year, the studio is celebrating its 25th anniversary by welcoming all of its former students, teachers and parents back for a reunion on Dec. 30. They’ll reminisce about their dancing days and see whether they still have the moves with a reunion dance class.

“We’re very close here because we’re small,” said Bonnie Allard, the original owner and instructor of Allard Academy of Dance.

Allard opened her studio in 1984 in Eastpointe, and eventually expanded to a second location at 15 Mile Road and Harper. Two seasons ago, she moved it all into a new studio in Clinton Township on Harper, at 14 Mile Road.

The studio has downsized in both size and students in recent years, partly to make it more manageable and partly because of the economy. Fewer kids are signing up for dance lessons these days, but the new pace suits Allard just fine.

“At one point, I was asking, ‘Should I close?’” she said, remembering having the conversation with her husband at one of many dance recitals she’s thrown. “But I can’t quit this.”

For a while, dance seemed to be going out of style in some people’s minds, Allard said. But popular reality TV shows like “So You Think You Can Dance?” and “Dancing With the Stars” have brought newfound interest in the art. Allard believes dance is making a comeback.

Allard gets calls from adults looking to try ballroom dancing and younger kids wanting to replicate the edgy moves they see on TV.

“Dancers are becoming just unbelievable,” Allard said. They’re more versatile, and have found new ways to express themselves using the same dance techniques Allard’s been teaching for a quarter century.

“Dance has changed quite a bit, and it’s now geared towards contemporary styles,” she said.

One thing that hasn’t changed is many of the faces at her academy. Allard’s old students are always popping back in for a class; her entire family is involved in dance; and even the first two little girls who showed up at the studio 25 years ago are now dance instructors at Allard’s.

“We’ve got a lot of kids who have gone on to major in dance in college,” Allard said.

That includes her great-niece, Stephanie Schult, who studied dance at Eastern Michigan University and now teaches at a YMCA in Ann Arbor. She’ll start her own classes at Allard Academy in January.

“We were really close in the studio growing up,” said Schult, who started dancing almost as soon as she learned to walk. “A lot of people that I’m still friends with danced with us.”

And a lot of them are still dancers. Schult said people are starting to understand that it’s increasingly realistic to have a career centered on dance.

Schult and her former classmates were brought together at a young age by the shared tragedy of losing a 12-year-old friend, Elysia Pefley, to cancer. Pefley danced and competed with the students, and they grieved together through what was for many of them their first loss in life.

Pefley’s mom and sister will be among those who come to the reunion Schult is planning at the end of this year. The former students and their parents and many of the teachers from the studio will get together Dec. 30 to catch up and participate in a dance class, if they’re up to it.

She’s expecting 20-30 people. So far, the word has been spread through social networking Web sites like Facebook.com, but anyone can attend.

“If anyone’s interested in checking it out or talking to older students, it’s a great time to come in and see what we’re all about and where our roots are,” Schult said.

The reunion will be held from 7:30 p.m.-10:30 p.m. at the studio, located at 33435 Harper Avenue in Clinton Township.

For more information about the event, call (586) 792-5003.

You can reach Staff Writer Heidi Roman at hroman@candgnews.com or at (586) 218-5006.