Third story in a month-long series on Tri-City arts educators
On the shelves and the walls at Port Moody’s Caulfield School of Dance, student trophies and certificates are displayed prominently.
They are from the dance competitions around the Lower Mainland, a sign of success for the students and the owner-operator Cori Caulfield, who started her booming business at the age of 12 in the basement of her parents’ home in Port Moody.
Then, Caulfield had been studying dance with Dolores Kirkwood and Ellen Andrews at studios in Port Coquitlam and New Westminster when the mother of a fellow student asked Caulfield to teach her daughter privately.
After distributing brochures and spreading the word about her skills, Caulfield’s roster grew to such a size that her father gave her the boot from the family residence, where her mother was also running a daycare facility.
At 17, with the help of her iron-worker dad who advised her “the world needs artists just as much as it needs doctors,” a profession she had considered, the entrepreneurial Caulfield found a former lawnmower repair shop on St. Johns Street and stripped down the 2,000 sq. ft. space for a one-room dance studio.
By the time she opened, in September 1988, she had 40 children under her wing.
A few years later, Caulfield moved to her Spring Street location where she stayed for 20 years and trained 80 students a year with her faculty.
Today, she caters to 300 families annually in a former hair salon on St. Johns Street that has three classrooms and a small space for voice lessons.
There, they learn ballet, contemporary, jazz, musical theatre, tap, acrobatics, hip hop, Chinese dance, character, pas de deux, stage and acting from nine core faculty members, including from her sister Hailley Caulfield Postle. Each June, they showcase their talents at year-end shows — which sell out quickly — at the Terry Fox Theatre in Port Coquitlam.
Caulfield works hard to maintain her company’s reputation, typically spending 12-hours a day, six days a week, on her practice.
But hard work and dance are in her blood. Her maternal grandmother was a professional dancer, too: a “hoofer” who worked the West End of London circuit during the Second World War, performing eight shows a week including a few times with Julie Andrews (The Sound of Music).
“Dancing has always been a big part of my identity,” Caulfield said. “At nine, people asked what I did. I said, ‘I dance. I will always dance.’”
These days, though, Caulfield is somewhat more reflective than super-driven.
She takes great pride in her business and students but, with her parents ailing, she’s had to take time out this year to drive up to the Okanagan to care for them. Recently, she’s also enjoyed not having the pressure to perform as frequently as she used to.
“I think that I’m always striving to do better,” the Vancouver resident said. “That’s just a part of who I am but I like just sitting in the audience, relaxing and having someone else be on the stage now.”
“I started my business as a child,” she continued, “and I haven’t really stopped yet. I don’t know when that will be.”
Seeing her students be challenged and excel “in a non-elitist” academy is her focus.
Not all will go on to be professional dancers — like her past students Alex Wong (So You Think You Can Dance); Heather Dotto (Move: The Company); and Ben Freemantle (San Francisco Ballet) — but what they learn at her studio will translate to other areas of life, she stressed.
They know how to stay healthy, physically and mentally, which for parents means better grades at school. They also know about having to perform under the limelight and teamwork.
Caulfield is strict with her rules. “I love my students. They don’t always love me back,” she said, “and that’s OK with me. I’m not their pal. I’m a mentor, not a friend. In the end, it all pays off for me and them.”
jcleugh@tricitynews.com
