The scent of dust and diesel mingles with rosin on a Tuesday afternoon in Lamar, Colorado. Through the wide windows of a converted 1920s furniture store, you can see a line of pickup trucks parked along Main Street. Inside, a dozen teenagers are working through adagio, their focus a stark, beautiful contrast to the quiet rhythm of this high plains town. This is the unlikely heartbeat of southeastern Colorado’s ballet scene.
Forget the coastal metropolises. For families within a hundred-mile radius of this agricultural hub, Lamar is the epicenter of serious dance training. It’s a place where ballet isn’t a glossy, distant aspiration but a tangible, community-built craft. The proof? Over 200 students filter through its studios weekly, a remarkable number for a town of 7,500 people.
A Legacy Built on Ranches and Rond de Jambes
How did this start? You trace it back to the 1970s, to summer workshops in the park. But the real catalyst arrived in the late ‘90s with Margaret Chen. A former corps member of Colorado Ballet, she traded the stage for life on her husband’s family ranch outside town. Driving past fallow fields one day, she saw a need.
“I kept meeting talented kids who had to quit dance because the nearest real studio was in Pueblo,” Chen recalls. “I thought, why not here?” In 1998, she opened Lamar City Ballet Academy in that old Main Street storefront. Her philosophy was clear: rigorous Vaganova technique filtered through the ABT curriculum, but with an ethos that extended beyond the barre.
“We’re not a professional mill,” she says, though some alumni have joined regional companies. “We’re building humans. The discipline learned here—working for years on a single combination—that translates to nursing, to farming, to anything. The artistry is just the vehicle.”
Two Visions, One Community
Chen’s classical purity sets a high standard. But the town’s dance identity expanded when Jessica Ortiz arrived from Utah a decade later. At DanceWorks Studio, the vibe is different. Ortiz blends ballet with contemporary and improvisation, challenging the idea that the form must stay “precious.”
Her “Ballet Plus” track is a hit with teens who want to explore multiple styles. “These kids aren’t just dreaming of Swan Lake,” Ortiz explains. “They’re creating pieces about drought, about watching their families struggle on the land. Ballet gives them the technique to tell those stories.” Her studio also houses the area’s only dedicated boys’ class, a small but mighty group that flips stereotypes.
Then there’s the scrappy newcomer: the Prowers County Dance Collective. Run as a co-op, it’s ballet on a bootstrap. Classes meet at the community center. Students bring their own barres—often PVC pipes—and help sew costumes. Tuition is on a sliding scale, and no one is turned away for lack of funds.
“We’re proof that you don’t need a fancy sprung floor to learn,” says one of the volunteer instructors. “You just need a mirror, some music, and the will to work.”
More Than a Stage
The performance calendar here tells its own story. There’s the beloved annual Nutcracker, now in its second decade, which draws families from across the state line. But there are also contemporary showcases where movement is inspired by the vast, open sky. Competitions happen, but so do free outreach performances at county fairs and senior centers.
This isn’t a ballet scene trying to mimic New York or San Francisco. It’s something more grounded, more intimate. It’s the senior company member who helps a shy six-year-old with her shoes. It’s the cattle rancher in the audience, watching his daughter’s relevé with quiet pride.
In Lamar, ballet isn’t an imported luxury. It’s woven into the fabric of the place—a testament to what a community can build when passion meets the open plains. The grand jetés here might land on well-worn wood instead of pristine maple, but the reach is just as high.
