Celebrating 40 Years of Ballet: The legacy of Ballet Abilene continues

ABILENE, Texas ( KTAB/KRBC ) – 1984 was the year of leg warmers, Footloose and the beginning of Ballet Abilene. The ballet school celebrated its 40th anniversary in May, inspiring the owners to reflect on its history and impact.

Nancy Gore started the school. After teaching at other schools, she thought, “Why can’t I just open my own? And that’s what I did.”

Starting with only 40 students, her school began to grow year after year. With her and her students yearning to perform and grow the school into something bigger, she created the Abilene Ballet Theater .

The Theater is a dance performance group that also serves as a nonprofit to help fund scholarships and other things for the studio.

Continuing the legacy of the Nutcracker, Gore said it is unbelievable to look back on where they started.

“We have done other things. We do Nutcracker every year. It’s great because now we fill up the Paramount every time, and I can remember when we started it, you know, you start on a smaller scale, right?  The first year we did it, we actually moved it by horse trailer to Sweetwater,” Gore said.

The school now operates under dual leadership with Gore’s daughter, Lisa Gore. Lisa told KTAB/KRBC that the studio always felt like home since she practically grew up there.

“I grew up in it because when Mom started the studio, she was pregnant with my sister, and I was nine years old. I just kind of grew up in it and always loved to dance, too,” Lisa said.

This year, to celebrate the studio’s decades-long existence, the annual spring recital kept that theme and featured dances from the 1980s, the era when the studio was started.

Mercedez Valdez was once a student and now teaches classes at the studio. She said the business’s longevity can be accredited to how it is running.

“I really do think it is [Nancy’s] love for dance, but as well as the community and people, she loves everybody who comes in here. She’s very kind to them, but she makes sure to set them up for success. That’s something that’s really, really important,” Valdez said.

The downtown school hopes to keep the generation of dancers flowing through the studio.

“We’ve done this for a long time now, so it’s really fun to have students from dancers that I grew up dancing with. We have their kids, and it’s just fun to see the generations come through,” Lisa said.

The school has open enrollment for summer and fall classes, offering multiple styles.

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