By Shannon Hicks

Jennifer Johnston began dancing at age seven. She studied for years under Marsha Mark, the recently retired owner of Marsha Ismailoff Mark School of Ballet in Newtown. When she was 19, she spent the year commuting into New York City six days a week for intensive studies with Alvin Ailey. She returned to Newtown and began working with Mrs Mark again, this time becoming more tuned in to the idea of being a teacher.

This year Jennifer, a lifelong resident of Newtown, has taken the next logical step in a life of ballet: She has opened Newtown Centre of Classical Ballet, located at 113 Church Hill Road in Sandy Hook.

The barres go up next week, two open house events will be held during the first week of September, and then classes begin on September 10 at the new dance studio in Sandy Hook.

The floor of the studio, which also home to Newtown Academy of Karate, has the details a dancer needs to have in his or her practice space: Cushioned floors. If dancers work on a concrete floor, or a wood floor laid over concrete, they can expect to create damage to muscles and joints that could last a lifetime. A dancer needs a floor that will give a little.

“This is like a basketball court,” Miss Johnston explained, “or an aerobics floor. With just concrete, the kind of impact your body will receive is not good for your joints. You could damage your knees and shins very easily.” When someone walks across the studio’s floor, a very faint creaking can be heard. That’s actually a good thing — it’s the sound of the floor giving to the pressure of the weight on it.

The teachings of Newtown Centre of Classical Ballet will remain very similar to what Miss Johnston has been schooled in. There will be ballet classes for all levels of instruction, from pre-ballet to advanced. Private instruction will also be offered. Most classes will be taught by Miss Johnston herself.

The school will also have a creative movement class for ages three to five. This class will be taught by Alessandra Fischetti, a niece of Marsha Mark. Ms Mark, it is hoped, will be returning to Newtown on occasion to not only visit the friends she has here, but also to lead some master classes at the new ballet school.

“The teachings will be the same [as what I have learned],” Miss Johnston said recently, “but each teacher has his or her own creative flair. If I can meet [Marsha Mark’s] standards this first year, then I can move forward with my own flair and environment.”

Also moving into the studio is The Malenkee Ballet Repertoire Company. This company consists of 20 talented dancers ranging in age from 10 to 18. The innovative group has been performing since 1980, when Marsha Mark founded it. The dancers were first based at Mrs Mark’s School of Ballet in Newtown, but the group moved this summer into its new quarters upon Mrs Mark’s retirement.

Last week, Miss Johnston sat down for one of the last quiet moments at the studio before it officially opens in less than a month.

Life In The Studio

Dance education, says The New York Public Library Performing Arts Desk Reference, should take place early in life so that immature talents can be properly molded. Miss Johnston, who is 30 years old, has been training since the age of 7.

She worked strictly with Marsha Mark on her classical ballet studies until she was 19 years old, moving her way through the different levels of Newtown’s only full-time ballet studio.

(Music has always been an important part of the young dancer’s life. In addition to dancing, Miss Johnston also played French horn in the school’s band for all four of the years she attended Newtown High School. She was even encouraged by some of her instructors to audition for Yale School of Music.)

By the time she was 17 she was not only studying with Mrs Mark, but also teaching two of the school’s classes. As a student of the school, she also had the opportunity to study for a short time under the guidance of Shamil Yagudin, a visiting master teacher from Russia’s famed Bolshoi Ballet.

In addition to performing, Miss Johnston also enjoys taking in performances of ballet whenever her schedule allows. Most recently she saw Cinderella at American Dance Theater in New York City. She plans to coordinate trips into the city for her students in the future. She also plans have her school perform The Nutcracker Ballet.

“I want to bring that back to Newtown, to do community performances,” she said.

In 1992 when she was 19, Miss Johnston decided to pursue her dance studies more seriously, so she auditioned for Alvin Ailey American Dance Center in New York City, the official dance school of the highly respected Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. The school’s curriculum offers Horton and Graham-based modern, ballet, jazz and other techniques along with dance academics and repertory workshops.

She received a full scholarship to the highly respected school and for the next 12 months Jennifer caught a bus from Danbury into New York City six days every week. At that time, between 70 and 150 dancers competed for 30 available scholarships that were available each term. Students took 16 dance classes each week in addition to an academic course in dance history.

Her teachers quickly put Jennifer into a position as assistant teacher to the creative movement class. “I think they recognized a talent,” Miss Johnston said, smiling at the memory.

In the meantime, she continued to work with Mrs Mark, rehearsing with the Newtown company for a performance of Nutcracker Ballet ‘92.

Once she completed her studies at Alvin Ailey, Jennifer decided teaching was what she wanted to do. For the last ten years, Jennifer has served as Marsha Mark’s assistant — taking on new duties and responsibilities as time passed, while also building a rapport with the school’s students. In time, that rapport turned into the following that will now begin classes in Sandy Hook this fall. Most of Mrs Mark’s former students, in fact, have signed on to remain under Jennifer’s tutelage when she begins classes in a few weeks.

Under Mrs Mark, Jennifer also learned the details of teaching the Vaganova method that Mrs Mark had been trained in and continued to practice. Vaganova is a dance style named for the legendary Russian choreographer and teacher who developed it. Vaganova took every dance step and documented when each one should be introduced, and its progression within a student’s education. It is this style that Jennifer learned from her mentor, and will now teach her new students.

Jennifer learned of Mrs Mark’s retirement decision in April. It was something of a surprise, but not a complete one.

“I knew this would happen eventually,” Jennifer said, “and I knew right away what this meant for both of us.

“I’m excited for her, of course,” she continued, “but also a little sad. It’s the end of a huge chapter in her life as well as my life.” Marsha told Jennifer of her decision in April to retire, then went on a short vacation. Just before leaving, Mrs Mark told Jennifer to think about what she wanted to do next.

The first step was finding space for a school.

“That was one of the toughest things. In fact, if I hadn’t been able to find a good location, then the decision of whether or not to begin teaching right away would have been made for me,” Jennifer explained. But what could have been a tall hurdle actually turned out to be surprisingly easy to handle.

While looking at the building on the corner of Glen Road and Church Hill Road (the former Red Brick General Store) recently, Jennifer began walking around Sandy Hook Center, looking into the windows of additional buildings that also had space available. It was while she was looking into the windows of 113 Church Hill Road — currently the home of Newtown Academy of Karate — that the opportunity to open her dance school presented itself.

“I was looking in the windows of a few of the buildings down here that are available, and while I was looking into [113 Church Hill], Mike Porco [Junior] walked across the street — he was having lunch at Sandy Hook Diner — and asked if he could help me with anything,” Miss Johnston recalled. “He was probably a little concerned, watching me walk up and down the sidewalk and looking into all these windows.”

It turns out Mr Porco’s father, Mike Sr, is the owner of the building and the owner and operator karate school it houses. Mike Sr met with Miss Johnston and the two began talking about sharing the space.

“We spent a lot of time negotiating in order to come up with a schedule to both schools’ advantage,” Miss Johnston said. The paperwork was signed about three weeks ago. Before that, the two businesspeople had been working with a verbal agreement.

“We worked with that and until we had the lease settled,” added Ms Johnston.

“I think this first year is going to be very exciting,” the dancer and now business operator said last week, admitting it will be a challenge to move from assistant teacher and friend to full-time teacher and even disciplinarian when called for.

Observers of Marsha Mark’s teaching style in the past know that the dancer and teacher was always a friendly woman, who was very firm with her students the moment she entered the studio. It was her toughness, however, that produced scores of brilliant productions and well-trained dancers during her 32-year tenure in Newtown.

“You want to give your students structure and discipline,” Jennifer Johnston said, “but you want them to also remain open and creative. There is a very subtle difference that I’m going to have to remember.

“We’ll be fine, though,” she continued. “This is the natural step for me. This is what I’ve been trained — what I’ve been groomed — for.”

Newtown Centre of Classical Ballet can be contacted by calling 426-9299. Interviews will be conducted during the first week of September for those interested in seeing the school and discussing classes.