Her life is the dance

During a move to the Madison area from a small town in Wisconsin, Kristin Dimmer and her parents drove past a dance studio.

“My mom said, ‘Kristin would love this. She’s always dancing around the house,’” Dimmer said.

Her mother enrolled her the day they drove by the studio. Dimmer was 5.

“My mom was right. I loved it,” Dimmer said.

Soon afterward, Dimmer knew exactly what she wanted to do, and would answer accordingly when asked as a youngster in school: lawyer and ballerina, doctor and ballerina and so on.

The ballerina dream came true, and more than a quarter of a century later, though retired from performing, dancing is still her career.

Dimmer, who lives in Port Washington, was recently named general manager of the Milwaukee Ballet School and Academy’s three locations in downtown Milwaukee, Fox Point and Brookfield.

She is motivated in her new position to pass along all that ballet has given her.

“Ballet teaches you discipline. It teaches you the value of hard work, practicing something until it’s as close to perfect as possible. It’s striving, expecting more of yourself every day,” she said.

“Ballet for me was a competition for myself.”

It also fit her personality.

“I am very type A. I love when things are logical. There’s an order. There’s a routine,” she said.

Dimmer began studying at Monona Academy of Dance. She tried other activities too, such as soccer.

“My dad said play defense, and if the ball was on the other end of the soccer field I would be doing cartwheels,” Dimmer said.

“My dance teacher said it was affecting my dancing, so I had to make a choice.”

Dimmer quickly became skilled and at 16 was offered a scholarship to train with the Houston Ballet. She grew to love the classical ballets. “Onegin” is her favorite but she also loves a good comedy such as “Coppelia.”

After two years of training, she joined the Colorado Ballet.

Dimmer wore a Wisconsin Badger sweatshirt to a rehearsal one day when she was approached by a man who asked, “Excuse me, miss, are you from Wisconsin?”

It was Michael Pink, the artistic director at Milwaukee Ballet. Dimmer ended up coming home to Wisconsin. She took an apprenticeship with Milwaukee Ballet, dancing for Milwaukee Ballet II.

Nothing compares to performing, Dimmer said.

“The exhilaration of being on stage, you can’t even describe it. Feeling the audience’s applause, the adrenaline that would rush through your body,” she said.

Soon, she entertained offers to dance at several different companies across the country. She turned them all down.

Dimmer had met her future husband, who runs a business in Belgium and wasn’t  going anywhere.

“I always say I retired for love,” she said.

While a dancer’s career is short — the average retirement age is 29 — Dimmer laughs when she said she left at 22. She went right back to school, this time as teacher and soon after also as student.

Dimmer became Pius XI Catholic High School’s artistic director in its dance department and worked toward a bachelor’s degree in marketing and business administration at Lakeland College in Howards Grove.

At one point, Dimmer was taking 18 to 20 credits per semester and held six jobs. She worked part time in retail, taught at Milwaukee Ballet School, did community outreach for another ballet company, taught at a small dance studio in Milwaukee and taught and choreographed for a dance competition.

“Dance really taught me how to juggle it all and do it all well,” she said. “I just have that discipline and to be the best in whatever I did.”

When Dimmer arrived at Pius, the dance program had four levels and 40 students. When she left, it had seven levels and 125 teens.

She also started an extracurricular program for people who didn’t have the money to go to a traditional dance studio or ballet school. Dance, along with hockey and horse riding, are among the most expensive sports.

When Dimmer danced, she went through a $50 pair of shoes per week, and she wore the low-cost brands. Students did fundraising to offset the costs, and Dimmer found underwriters and grants to cover the rest.

While most of Dimmer’s students were girls, she was proud that boys got involved in dance at Pius as well. Four guys who played football and basketball were interested. They had no experience in the activity. Dimmer choreographed routines that helped show the boys’ power.

“Men are very strong in dance,” she said.

At Pius, Dimmer could see how dance helped students become focused and work toward other goals. Most of her dancers took difficult courses and were on the honor roll or were valedictorians.

In 2017, Dimmer earned a master’s of education degree from Concordia University Wisconsin in Mequon.

Dance teaching is much like an oral tradition, Dimmer said. “Teachers worked with these great teachers before them, which leads back to these great masters.”

Dimmer’s favorite age to teach was middle school, which other teachers told her was an acquired taste.

Dimmer has seen students come in excited about dance from watching the popular competition shows on TV.

“Great, let’s start with ballet,’” she told the students.

 “Ballet is really the foundation of everything. If you want to do something in dance, you have to have this.”

The Covid-19 pandemic affected Milwaukee Ballet School, but the school, after it worked with physicians and got advice from the Milwaukee Health Department, held a four-week summer program and nobody caught the virus, Dimmer said.

In fall, protocols were improved and classes recently reached 70% of their normal capacity.

“Dancers have risen to the occasion and have proven to be really adaptable. They are really good at keeping distance, using spaces marked on the bar and are getting used to wearing a mask and dancing in a mask, which is not easy,” Dimmer said.

Dimmer may help add to the school’s enrollment some day. She has two sons, ages 3 and 1, whom she plans to put into dance. It helps improve their spatial awareness and motor skills.

“Dance just does so much for them,” she said.