The Last Dance : Annette Coward Closes Her Studio After 43 Years of Teaching the Classics

Forget Disco. The Bump? No way. And none of this Michael Jackson moonwalk stuff, either.

Day after day, five days a week, generation after generation, it has been the same at Annette’s School of Dance: Ballet, tap, maybe a little Spanish cape dancing.

While everyone else was doing the Twist, the Hustle and the Macarena, Annette Coward was a stickler for the basics at her Temple City studio.

She taught and taught until she could no longer. With aching feet, a sore back and a heavy heart, the woman who got the San Gabriel Valley through the Lambada craze closed her doors Wednesday--ending a tradition that spanned more than four decades.

“There’s only me up there teaching,” said Coward, 61. “I could only do it for so long.”’

Year after year, she has given youngsters the skills they needed to grow into solid citizens, with a few even going on to perform professionally. Through this rite of passage called dance, Coward has taught children discipline, creativity and a respect for things that are time-honored.

Kim Esslinger, a former student, is using the techniques she learned 24 years ago in one of Coward’s ballet classes to start a dance troupe at her church, hoping to pass on the knowledge.

“Annette was tough,” said Esslinger, 31. “She made rules and always stuck to it. But there was something about her guidelines that made you want to keep doing it.

“It really molds you and puts you in the frame of mind where you want to set goals and reach them. We worked really hard and we were proud of what we did.”

Coward’s announcement that she was closing the studio was met with tears Wednesday. With the number of students dwindling over the past few years and the aches and pains growing worse, Coward said she knows she made the right decision.

But it was not easy to say goodbye to the half-dozen students and their parents who turned out for the final day of class.

“We’re going to miss her,” said Kathy Hubbard, whose 11-year-old daughter has been taking dance at the studio since she was 5. “It’s been like a family, and now it’s like a major divorce is happening here. But I understand her reasons.”

It all started for Coward in 1953. She had been taking dance from a woman named Lillian Haughton, who started the studio in the 1930s. Haughton decided she wanted to retire and offered to sell Coward the entire business for $3,000.

Coward, who was 17 at the time, went with her parents to the bank and took out a loan for $5,000. She used $2,000 to buy herself a convertible and gave the rest to Haughton.

Then she went to work, carrying on with Haughton’s strict program. Children ages 3 to 7 were required to take ballet and tap two days a week. Only after they mastered those skills were they allowed to move onto jazz.

And, Coward said, there was none of this “shake your booty” stuff. “Just the classics,” Coward said. “They need to learn the things that will last.”

Starting today--with no more classes to teach--Coward says she will rest for a while and work in her garden. She said she might offer dance lessons to blind and deaf children, but only occasionally.

Coward said she still needs to decide what to do with 3,000 costumes--many of them handmade more than four decades ago. And she cannot help but wonder where her students will go, and who will teach them how to perform a perfect pirouette.

The thought makes her cry.