For the first time in nearly three decades, the dance studio doors at 57 Mt Pleasant Road are closed.

For the first time in nearly three decades, the dance studio doors at 57 Mt Pleasant Road are closed.

Marsha Ismailoff Mark and her husband Bob have moved out of the Newtown home they designed and are settling into new digs, and a new routine, in Florida. Mrs Mark announced earlier this year that she would be retiring at the end of the school year; the Connecticut native closed the doors to her home-based dance school and studio on June 18.

Students of the Marsha Ismailoff Mark School of Ballet presented their final spring performance, "Ballet in the Meadow," the weekend of June 16-17. The Saturday afternoon performance took place in its traditional location, the side lawn of the Marks' home, but the Sunday afternoon, due to ongoing rain showers, was moved to the St Rose Church Hall on Church Hill Road.

"It was just fabulous, wonderful," Mrs Mark said recently of the final performance by her students under her guidance. "It was probably one of the best days of my life."

In an emotional letter to her students, their parents, and friends of the ballet company, Mrs Mark wrote in May that her 32-year career as ballet teacher, owner of the school that bears her name, choreographer, artistic director, and founder of the Committee for Ballet Miniature and Malenkee Ballet Repertoire Company had provided her with "a most rewarding life. The most fulfilling aspect has been working with so many young people, and watching them grow into beautiful adults."

One of those young people-turned-beautiful-adults is Jennifer Johnston, who has been a student of the school since she was seven and then served as Mrs Mark's assistant for the last ten years. Ms Johnston will continue the tradition of a ballet-only school in Newtown when her school, The Newtown Centre of Classical Ballet, opens in the fall.

"I am mixed up in my head and heart as to whether this was the right thing to do," Mrs Mark admitted recently. "But the energy you need to run a school and productions is incredible and I can't do everything anymore. Your whole focus, from the time you wake up every day, is your students and school."

The Marks moved into Newtown from Ridgefield in 1961. While living on Parmalee Hill Road, the couple began the designs for their Mt Pleasant Road home with the late Newtown architect John Gill, who died before the project was completed. Danbury architect Donald Zaleda helped the Marks finish their home, which was completed and ready for their occupancy in 1972.

Marsha began teaching students while she was living on Parmalee Hill Road, with classes being conducted in the Alexandria Room of Edmond Town Hall.

"I had maybe ten students then," the dancer recalled. "And I remember Frances, the custodian at the town hall, always waxed the floor, of course, but then we would go into a tither," she laughed. One of the specifications when designing the Mt Pleasant home was that the studio would have the non-wax soft wood floors dancers need.

Once the home was completed, the school moved into its studio — but the school's transfer wasn't immediately a smooth one. A town official arrived on the Marks' front stoop one day with a cease-and-desist order.

"I never thought I had to apply for anything for a ballet school," Mrs Mark said. "We had everything all planned for — the parking, fire alarms, two exits. I didn't know about all this hocus pocus."

Mrs Mark and the school dealt with the Zoning Board of Appeals for about a year before the issue was settled. It was when Mrs Mark threatened to close the school altogether that parents and teachers rallied to support Mrs Mark. The ZBA granted Mrs Mark's school its necessary permits, and the school began to make more of a name for itself.

"After I won that, I thought I was established. Many, many people came out to support us," Mrs Mark said.

"It takes many qualities to be a dancer," Mark said last November. "Love of dance and music, talent, discipline, respect, and total dedication. A combination of all these characteristics brings out the professionalism and the creation of magic and fantasy we present to audiences." She has choreographed over 20 original works and directed 11 Nutcracker Ballet performances.

MIM School of Ballet upholds the technical training and philosophy of her mentors, George Balanchine and George Volodine. The instruction at the Newtown school follows the Leningrad Pedagogical Method, a highly successful and structured curriculum of ballet technique that methodically builds upon a student's previous instruction.

Dancers range in age from 3 to 18 years of age. They learn to be in full control of their bodies, to tune their ears to classical music, and to train their eyes to see perfection of line. Students develop poise, good posture, and discipline. Mrs Mark believes the self-confidence gained from the study of ballet carries over into every other facet of life.

Mrs Mark has always taught a technique based on a Russian style in which the legendary choreographer and teacher Vagonova had taken every step and documented when the steps should be introduced and its progression within a student's education.

Before she could begin teaching it, Mrs Mark had to take the Vagonova technique and break it down for her American students. Russians have lessons a few hours every day, whereas their American counterparts are lucky to get into three classes each week.

"It's a whole different culture," Mrs Mark said. The result was a strict teaching that produced students of excellent capabilities, for which the MIM School of Ballet has become known.

Thanks to familial connections and trips to Russia (Marsha has 13 relatives in the former USSR) and longstanding friendships, Mrs Mark has befriended ballet masters such as Shamil Yagudin, the ballet master of the Bolshoi Ballet Company and a graduate of the Moscow Choreographic Institute (The Bolshoi Ballet School), who visited Newtown as a guest master dancer.

Her school has also hosted guest dancers for full productions. In November 2000, Natalia Krapavina and Georgy Smilevski, soloists from Moscow's Stanislovsky Ballet Co., performed the leads in MIM School of Ballet's production of La Fille Mal Gardee.

The school is also celebrated for its dedication to ballet.

"Tap and jazz, among others, are wonderful forms and have their place," the teacher said, "but to learn ballet you have to really focus on only ballet.

"Don't get me wrong, though," she continued. "I love all kinds of music. Just not in the ballet studio."

Among public performances, MIM School of Ballet students have presented 11 full productions of The Nutcracker Ballet, in addition to recent appearances with Nutcracker excerpts during Newtown's annual Holiday Festival. Marsha has choreographed 20 original productions.

Students also performed Peter and the Wolf years ago at the Ives Center for the Arts (now Ives Concert Park) in Danbury, which Mrs Mark believes may have been the predecessor for what became the spring offerings Ballet in the Meadow.

A Career In Dance

Marsha Mark's career as a dancer began when she was in elementary school.

Her father took her to her first class, in Westport, when she was seven years old. It took two transfers to make the trip from her home in Stratford to the studio in Westport. By the time she was 13, Marsha was studying in New York City with George Balanchine and had already worked with another Russian legend, George Volodine.

"I've always liked to dance," Mrs Mark said recently, sitting among some of the boxes packed with the belongings she and Bob would be transferring to their new home. "You put music on, and I just started moving."

When she was in her mid-teens, Balanchine, "being as honest as he always was," Mrs Mark said, told the young dancer's father that his daughter did not have the limbs to ever become a prima ballerina. Her father had to gently break the news to her that she would be a good character dancer.

In the 1950s, George Balanchine arrived in the United States and shortly thereafter offered American audiences their first view of The Nutcracker as a live ballet performance. In a series of scenes from the ballet choreographed by Balanchine, Mrs Mark played one of the Russian dolls. Soon after, Nutcracker made its full debut at Lincoln Center.

Marsha met Bob Mark, and the two were married by the time she was 21. Three children quickly followed: Robert, William, and Stacy. (The Marks now have five grandchildren, who the couple plans to see even more now that they have lighter schedules.)

A few years into her marriage and child rearing, Marsha wanted to begin working again.

"I felt like something was missing, and like any artist I craved my artistic outlet," Mrs Mark said. So she contacted her former ballet teacher, who offered her performances with a character company. Marsha turned that down, so Balanchine instead began training Marsha to become a teacher herself.

In recent years the Marsha Ismailoff Mark School of Ballet roster has varied between 50 and 100 students per year. Serious students took three 90-minute classes every week. Creative Movement and Beginner classes met for one hour each week, and Intermediate students had two 90-minute classes each week.

In November 1997, Mrs Mark told The Bee, "Thirty years ago there was no pressure for women to have a career. Ballet, for me, was always more of an outlet. I grew up doing it, loving it, dancing — for pleasure — and I was lucky to be able to build my teaching career from my home."

Mrs Mark is working on putting together a new home now. She and her husband (along with their Bijon Frisse, Bogart) hope to enjoy their retirement. Mrs Mark said recently that she was looking forward to painting, sculpting, sailing and traveling.

"I have to find a tai chi master," Mrs Mark said recently, "and I hope to find a good art school. Painting has always been in the background, so now I am going to zero in on that interest."

And "of course," she wrote in her farewell letter, "I will continue to do my plies and tendus every day!"