Carol Todor has danced her way into the hearts of scores of youngsters in her 31 years of teaching in Drumheller. However, this year’s performance will be the last for her school of dance.
While it has been 31 years, she remembers her first year. She had 17 kids and held their first recital at the St. Anthony’s Church Hall.
“We served cookies,” she laughs, recalling with fondness.
Since then hundreds of students have learned to dance from Todor, following a mantra she adopted from one of her early students; “dance with your heart and your feet will follow.” Her passion for dance is very personal.
“I was a really shy kid, I wouldn’t even speak in public, but when you find a passion, it is worth working on,” she says.
“I think it is so good for those kids, so they have a way to say things. I have seen quite a few of my kids; maybe they weren’t the most wonderful of dancers, but they loved it so much they weren’t afraid to take it at University.”
She explains the roots of dancing in the valley comes from Calgary dance teacher Joyce Reddy, who made the trek out to teach.
“Most teachers I had at first learned from Joyce. She really passed a lot of things down,” said Todor.
Todor took her first formal dance class when she was 30. In Drumheller, she had a fitness studio, and she began to bring in dance teachers to run classes. It wasn’t easy to retain teachers, so Todor began to get her certification.
“I thought I should start teaching because I am the only one who stays here,” she said.
She started with beginner tap and the dance school began to grow into jazz and ballet.
At one point, she had as many as 150 students in a single year and has choreographed over 1,000 dances. Since then, she has tapered it down to a manageable group. Over that time, she has had a dozen teachers assisting her.
There has been great community support for the school and over the years, she had her students perform in various venues including for seniors, at the Trade Fairs and on the stage at Kaleidoscope Theatre. Her dancers welcomed the Olympic Torch in 2010 when it made its way through the valley.
While the dance school may be winding up, She won’t stop moving. This year she is involved with Kaleidoscope Theatre’s Leader of the Pack. She doesn’t write off other future projects. Her studio will continue to do yoga and Zumba.
“I am sad because I will miss the kids.”
“Running a dance studio takes lots of energy. A lot of my friends with studios say, ‘it would be nice to just show up and teach,’” she chuckles.
This year’s show theme is News. The show is on Friday evening, May 8 with a matinee on Saturday, May 9.