The class started as a fluke, Smith said. Madison-area parents came to him voicing concern at their sons’ struggles to participate in the stereotypically female-centric art form. This prompted Smith to host an all-boys ballet workshop to reinforce the male identity in ballet. It was well-attended and wildly successful, leading the school to add it as a regular course. Smith attributes the class’ success to Madison’s unique liberal environment.

“The stereotypical methods of raising a male are changing. We are becoming more and more tolerant of gender identity and sexual orientation,” Smith said. “Madison is a liberal town [where] it’s cool to be a guy ballet dancer.”

Most ballet choreographers and teachers would likely tell you that the very concept of “cool” is the bane of their artistic existence. Without a Madison-esque free-love embrace and support, other abundantly talented Wisconsin artists must fight much harder to raise audiences in their own communities.

"Apple’s-Way-U.S.A"
Appleton’s Makaroff School of Ballet is one such labor of love. There, artistic director and teacher Jeanette Makaroff instructs an entire school while simultaneously choreographing performances for its newly-revived nonprofit sister entity, the Makaroff Youth Ballet.

The youth ballet, comprised of 20 to 30 intermediate and advanced-level dancers, performs twice each season and operates with the declared mission to “make the fine art of ballet performance accessible to the community through its talented young dancers.”

“This is a small town—I used to call it ‘Apple’s-Way-U.S.A.’ And it’s a beautiful little town. There is a lot of art here, in terms of visual arts, dramatic arts, musical art . . . but the classical dance arts are not [here],” Makaroff said.

The school is one of the smallest in the area, but well known for its excellence, starting with the school’s founders, Nikolai and Juanita Makaroff. Nikolai was born in Russia and trained by the Bolshoi in Moscow, one of the most prestigious Russian ballet companies existing to this day. After World War II, he went on to live and dance in Munich and then in New York City at the School of American Ballet. There he met and married his wife.

In 1960, the Makaroffs moved to the Valley to be closer to Juanita’s family and founded the areas first and only classical ballet school.

“My dad moved to this tiny little town and struggled to get people to take dance seriously as an art form,” Makaroff said. “And just when you think that you are reaching the public and educating the public about what real ballet is about, a whole new generation crops up and you have to start all over again.”

This cyclical pattern reaches beyond the scope of dancers within the school, also affecting the audience and ticket sales, according to Makaroff.

Their problem is certainly not a lack of experience or talent. Jeanette Makaroff was trained from the age of 13 at the North Carolina School of the Arts and later at the School of American Ballet. She moved on to dance for the North Carolina Dance Theater and later Milwaukee Ballet, where she performed as a company soloist, choreographer and teacher for 20 years.

More than a dozen of her students claimed professional ballet careers, including Center Stage’s motion picture star Ethan Stiefel.

“We’re not professionalz; we don’t pretend to be professional, but we are serious about what we do,” Makaroff said.

That same relentless commitment translates through to Makaroff’s teaching style.