Ballet teacher believes she can make any child a dancer

Business

Pontecorvo Ballet School

Gem City Ballet

20 Commercial Way

Springboro 45066

Contact

Barbara Pontecorvo, owner/director, (937) 550-4931, www.pbstudios.com

History

Barbara Pontecorvo started dancing professionally at the age of 17 in New Orleans. She’s been the principal dancer with five companies, the latest one being Dayton Ballet. She had danced 22 years when her last director, Stuart Sebastian, passed away. She decided then she was ready to retire, and ready to mentor other dancers.

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“I wanted to see what I could do teaching little children and on up. I had never taken a child from the beginning to a professional career,” said Pontecorvo, a Carlisle resident.

“My philosophy is, every child who walks through the door, no matter how awkward or gangly, can be trained to be a professional dancer.”

Three studio sites

Pontecorvo opened her first studio in 1991 with a 4,000-square-foot building off of Wagner Ford Road in Dayton.

“I remember standing by the door and looking out at the parking lot saying, ‘Oh please, somebody come,’ ” Pontecorvo said. She started out with 36 students, and by the end of that year, she was putting 110 dancers through the exercises at the bar.

After five years at that location, she moved to a larger building off First Street. Now that 9,600 square foot building is right across from the Dragon’s stadium. That was fine until she lost most of her parking spaces and had problems with vandalism.

She and her husband, David Shough, had drawn up plans to build their own studio when Shough saw the Cantrell’s building in Springboro for sale two years ago. The deal fell through when the downturn made it impossible to sell the First Street location. But six months later, they were able to buy the 15,000-square-foot site for $300,000 at auction. Shough, a community theater actor, also works as Pontecorvo’s stage manager and lighting director.

Next performance

Gem City Ballet, Pontecorvo’s pre-professional dance company, will be performing a full-length production of “Swan Lake” at Northridge High School this weekend. Times are 8 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday.

Tickets are $15 for adults and $8 for children younger than 12.

Future plans

Pontecorvo currently teaches 170 students, and she is hoping to eventually have a total of 225. She said the new space will comfortably handle that volume.

— Pam Dillon Contributing writer