Published: July 26, 2008 11:45 pm      

Longtime teacher hangs up her ballet slippers

Betty Hayes took her first dance lesson at age 4.

“My grandmother took me to dance school because she said I was too shy,” Hayes said, recalling that she cried at the lesson.

“She said, ‘If you cry, I’m going to give you a spanking,’” Hayes said, so she stopped crying and participated in the class.

Now 87, Hayes is hanging up her ballet slippers in August, after teaching her final class. She opened the Betty Hayes School of Dance in Kokomo in 1950, first on the Courthouse Square and then on Hoffer Street. Hayes closed her school in January, but has continued to teach at the Kristie Wright School of Dance.

After retirement, she plans to continue teaching her Saturday adult dance class, because several of those students have been with her for 30 years. She plans to add to her exercise dance classes at Jefferson Manor, where she and her husband, Grant, have lived since January. She thinks her continued exercise through dance has contributed to her good health, and said her doctor who treats her arthritis encourages her to keep dancing.

She started teaching ballet in Indianapolis as a teenager during the Depression, so she could afford to continue taking her classes. During that time, the teen also danced in nightclubs to earn money — but she noted it wasn’t the kind of sexy dancing done in clubs today, and she was well-chaperoned.

Hayes considered a career in professional dance, but because of the Depression, there weren’t many opportunities for professional dancers.

“Nobody could afford a cup of coffee, let alone to see a ballet,” she said. After high school, she continued teaching during the winter, and during the summer she would train in Chicago and at the National Ballet School in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

“I’ve never tired of it, never tired of teaching,” she said.

In 1950, Grant’s job brought the family to Kokomo and she decided to open a dance school in a space on the east side of the courthouse square. She called a few children her daughter knew and told their parents what she was doing, and within six months she had enough students to move to a larger location.

Hayes had a school above a dime store on the Courthouse Square for 11 years, but was concerned about the children having to wait for their parents on the street at night after classes. She then moved to a studio on Hoffer Street, where her family lived upstairs.

“I’ve had a lot of students here. I’ve taught children of the children I’ve taught, even grandchildren,” she said, adding that in her career she’s placed four students with professional dance companies and “I’ve trained a lot of teachers.”

The teachers she’s trained include Kristie Wright, who has had her own dance school in Kokomo since 1971.

Wright said she started taking lessons from Hayes when she was 7, and began working as a teaching assistant with her when she was 12. In high school, Wright taught classes at Hayes’ school, and she continued teaching there for a time after she opened her own school.

She said Hayes has been a mentor and teacher to her over the years.

“She was a wonderful teacher, she was very knowledgeable,” she said. “She instilled in me that it is important that children have a fun time, but also learn the proper way of doing things.”

When Hayes approached her about closing her school and teaching at Wright’s school, Wright did not hesitate.

“I was happy she’s been able to do this as long as she has, because she loves it, and was happy to provide a place for her to continue doing that.”

Wright is sad to see her teacher retire.

“She’s been doing this for so long and loves it so much, I’m sad for her, and I’m sad for the children who won’t get to experience her.”

When Hayes moved to Kokomo, she learned that many students wanted to take tap dancing, so she “went back to Indianapolis nine winters and learned all the tap I could,” to teach those classes in addition to ballet.

During her years of teaching, she organized a dance recital once every two years, because she thought doing one every year would take too much time learning a dance and take away from time learning how to dance. Her first recitals were at the Sipes Theater downtown, then she moved to Kokomo High School. When Indiana University Kokomo opened its Havens Auditorium, Hayes moved her recitals there. Her last few recitals have been in the Central Middle School auditorium, because of smaller numbers of students participating.

“I enjoy doing the recitals, although it’s a lot of work,” she said.

When she started doing recitals, she ordered fabric and had costumes made, but in more recent years, it became more cost-effective to order costumes ready-made. Hayes liked the costumes she had made better, though, because the sizes were always right, and she had more control over how they looked.

She remembered that in 1965, when the Kokomo-area was hit by tornadoes, one of her seamstresses’ homes was damaged, and the sewing projects moved to her own living room.

Her husband built all the props for the shows, and ordered costumes for her.

“He was always a big help,” she said.

Hayes said she has good memories, and funny memories, of the shows, like the year the recital theme was “By the Sea,” and during the second show of the day, one little girl sat down and picked sequins off the stage rather than doing her dance, and a little boy walked to the edge of the stage and hollered hello to his mother.

“There are funny things the children do,” Hayes said. “The big girls work so hard, and the little ones get all the applause.”

She’s kept in touch with many former students and taught their children.

Two who stand out in her memory are Sharon and Karon Foust, twin sisters who had been blind since birth. Hayes said she learned the most in her career from teaching the sisters, who started lessons at age 13. She taught them by standing by each one so they could feel and hear what she was doing.

“Everything was body contact,” Hayes said. She remembered placing the girls in a class with other students, and in their first lesson, “each child at the bar had her eyes closed. They wanted to see what it was like. It was very touching.”

Kathryne Foust, Sharon and Karon’s mother, said her daughters were working with specialists at Purdue University, who recommended they take dance lessons to help them feel movement. Through the university, they found Hayes, who agreed to take them as students.

“I know she had never taken blind children before. It was amazing how she did teach them to dance, to make the movements. She had to first show them exactly how to do them and them feel her movements.”

The twins, who are now 54 and live in the Mary Bryant Home for the Blind in Springfield, Ill., performed in nine recitals.

Hayes said dance instruction has changed over the years, as have the students. She has fewer students who are seriously interested in dance, and more who are enrolled in many classes and who play on many athletic teams. Coaches used to be willing to work around dance lessons, because the students who took dance were better athletes, but now, she said, students often have to choose between dance and their sports.

She recalled in the 1960s, a coach from Eastern brought eight boys to take classes from her, to become more coordinated. She sees fewer boys in classes these days.

She said more children want to learn jazz and hip-hop dancing now than ballet. She likes jazz dance, but worries that some teachers make it “too sleazy” for the children and dress them up too old. As for hip-hop?

“I don’t like hip-hop, can’t stand that stuff.”

While she enjoys working with students who are talented, Hayes said she also likes the challenge of working with a student who may not have as much natural talent, but who works hard.

“I love teaching and it is very satisfying because you actually see the child develop. It isn’t overnight. I have patience for learning. I don’t have patience for nonsense, but I have patience for someone who is learning.”

Danielle Rush may be reached at (765) 454-8585 or via e-mail at danielle.rush@kokomotribune.com