The sound of a tin roof drumming in a thunderstorm isn’t what you’d expect to underscore a ballet class. But here, in a converted cotton warehouse on a quiet North Carrollton street, that rattling percussion is just part of the rhythm. Step inside, and the world shifts. The air smells of rosin and sweat. The mirrors are crystal clear. And the turnout—oh, the turnout—is as sharp as anything you’d find 150 miles away in Jackson.
This is the North Carrollton School of Ballet, and it defies every expectation.
From Cotton Bolls to Barres
Margaret Cheney never planned to open a school here. A former American Ballet Theatre dancer, she moved to Carroll County in 2016 for family, bracing for a quiet retirement. What she found was a vacuum—a community starving for serious dance. By 2018, that 4,000-square-foot agricultural shed had a new soul. With Harlequin sprung flooring—the same kind used by the School of American Ballet—she built a sanctuary. "I thought we'd get a handful of curious kids," she admits with a laugh. "Thirty-two showed up by Christmas. We had to start a waiting list."
Discipline Without the Drama
Cheney’s Vaganova-based method is tailored for this place, but it’s not softened. Dancers train six days a week. Pointe shoes aren’t granted on a birthday; they’re earned after passing a rigorous strength assessment Cheney herself designed during her years with ABT. Classes are intimate, capped at eight. This isn’t a factory. An instructor can adjust a single student’s arm during a tendu without breaking the flow for everyone else.
Even the annual Nutcracker fights tradition. There are no fixed stars. Leads rotate, a deliberate choice Cheney made to shield young artists from the corrosive pressure she saw elsewhere. The focus stays on growth, not glory.
Proof is in the Pirouette
The results speak in scholarships and contracts. Since 2021, three graduates have earned full rides to the University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Two more dance with Southeastern companies. Last February, their junior ensemble stunned the competition at the Youth America Grand Prix semifinals in Atlanta—the first Mississippi group to place since 2014. On Saturdays, Cheney’s husband, former Houston Ballet soloist David Moreau, drills the boys in men’s technique and partnering. Their combined Rolodex pulls in guest artists from Nashville and New Orleans for masterclasses that feel like mini-events.
More Than a School
In a town where incomes often fall below the state average, this school is a lifeline. Tuition slides on a scale; no child has been turned away for lack of funds since 2019. The Nutcracker now fills seats from three counties, with shuttle buses running from Greenwood and Grenada. It’s become an anchor, a point of fierce local pride. The artistic director of Ballet Mississippi has made the trip twice. “These dancers could walk into any top pre-professional program in the South,” she told Pointe magazine.
If You Visit
Come on the first Saturday of the month for open observation. Watch the tiny beginners, ages six to nine, solemnly mastering first position. Stay until the afternoon, when advanced students, sweat on their temples, run audition variations with breathtaking focus. Look down. The floor, salvaged from a shuttered Nashville studio, is a map of ghosts—scuff marks from professionals who danced here before. Now, a new generation is leaving its own marks, etching Mississippi’s name into the wider world of ballet, one thunderstorm at a time.
