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06/22/2016 08:30 AMOn June 5, the Audrey Ward School of Dance put on its annual spring recital in the auditorium of The Morgan School in Clinton. From beginners to advanced dancers, the show included ballet, hip-hop, jazz, lyrical, musical theater, pointe, and tap.
Forty-seven performers and 37 numbers later, Audrey Ward took the stage and thanked her students and their proud parents. The next thing she did brought many in the audience to tears—from her six-year-olds to senior dancers embarking on their own careers.
With Frank Sinatra’s “My Way” playing in the background, she announced that after 61 years, it was curtains for the Audrey Ward School of Dance.
It was maybe the 15th time she’d listened to “My Way” that week.
“I played it every day leading up to the recital,” she said. “That way, I could get all my tears out and get it out of my system. I didn’t want to cry at the recital.”
Audrey told virtually no one about her plans to close the studio.
“I told only two people, and I swore them to secrecy,” she said. “I wanted my dancers to be thinking about their performances, not about it being the last show. I wanted it to be fun for them.”
Eliza Owen-Smith, one of her longtime students who performed in both the opening and closing numbers, was deeply moved.
“Mrs. Ward is an amazing teacher,” said Owen-Smith, “and one of my biggest supporters. She was there with me at every competition and performance. I remember right before performing my first solo, she stood backstage with me until the moment I went onstage. She told me that although she wanted me to do well, what she really wanted was to show the judges how much I loved to dance. I’ve kept that advice with me all these years.”
After 12 years of performing ballet, pointe, lyrical, and jazz, Owen-Smith, who graduated from Old Saybrook High School on June 16, starts a new chapter too. She’ll be studying dance therapy at Goucher College in Baltimore this fall.
Dancing Days Are Here Again
Like many of her students, Audrey fell in love with dance at a young age, and never fell out.
“When I was three years old,” she recalls, “my mother took me to see my first recital. I saw all the dancers and their teacher, who was from New York, and I boldly proclaimed that I was going to be a dance teacher someday.”
She wasn’t kidding.
In 1955, at age 17—while she was still a senior in high school—Audrey took over one of her dance teacher’s two studios, in Deep River. After graduating, she opened a second place in Westbrook.
“It was the beginning of an incredible 61-year adventure.”
A dancer from the time she could stand on two feet—and an artistic director, teacher, and choreographer since before she finished high school—Audrey became very active in the dance community. Aside from running her own studio, where she’s taught thousands of students, she served as president of Dance Masters of America (Connecticut, Chapter 18) and the Connecticut Chapter of the National Association of Dance and Affiliated Artists, where she was on the faculty for their New York, Chicago, Maryland, and Connecticut dance conventions. She has judged dance competitions, coached the Clinton Touchdown Club and Eliot Middle School cheerleaders, choreographed for local high school musicals and the Opera Theater of Connecticut, and, in one of her proudest moments, produced The Nutcracker in Clinton.
When generations of dancers pass through your doors (since 1955, the Audrey Ward School of Dance has had studios in Clinton, Old Saybrook, and Westbrook), you’ll inevitably find yourself teaching the children of former students. You’ll also watch alumnae become dance instructors, open their own studios, perform with the Ivoryton Playhouse and Goodspeed Opera House productions, and star in commercials. Students have also strutted their stuff at the Clinton Bluefish Festival, Old Saybrook’s Hidden Treasures Variety Show, and the Christmas Show on the Westbrook Green—all proud moments for Audrey.
“I consider myself so blessed to be able to live my passion and operate my own studio for my entire adult life. It has been a joy and a privilege to work with and get to know so many wonderful students and their families over the years.”
Audrey has also taught every age group, from adults—including singles, couples, and brides-to-be—to preschoolers.
“I become their age when I’m teaching,” she says of her littlest charges. “I can still be a bunny rabbit or a frog.”
Though she’s closing her Westbrook studio, Audrey is not quite hanging up her shoes. Beginning this fall, she’ll be teaching at the all-ages Astra Studio of Dance and Performing Arts on Main Street in Old Saybrook, which hosts trial classes and open houses in August.
“It’s time for a new act in the show,” she says.
‘He Was the Serenity of a Waltz’
Audrey grew up in Westbrook, one of four siblings on a block full of children “in a time,” she says, “when families didn’t travel much. We made our fun in the neighborhood.” Her parents—her father a plumber and her mother, an employee with the registrar of voters—were active in the community.
“They knew everyone,” she recalls.
The town didn’t have its own high school at the time, so Audrey attended The Morgan School in neighboring Clinton, where she was active in chorus, cheerleading, softball, majorettes, and—of course—dance.
After raising her own family, son Brad and daughter Cindy, she still calls Westbrook home. And when her first marriage ended, she found love again—with her high school sweetheart, Jack. Graduating a year ahead of Audrey, with Morgan’s class of 1954, Jack joined the Marines, attained the rank of sergeant, and went on to enroll in Southern Connecticut State University. In addition to operating Glenwood Market in Clinton, he’d worked for National Cash Register in New York, Swan Funeral Home, the State of Connecticut, and the Town of Clinton. He and Audrey were married 37 years when he passed away this March. Her recital earlier this month was dedicated to him.
“Jack was the Fred Astaire to my Ginger Rogers. As I tap-danced through life with my jazz hands, he was the serenity of a waltz.”
For more on Audrey’s next act, visit astrastudioct.com or follow Astra Studio of Dance and Performing Arts on Facebook.