About:
We are proud of our local history.
In 1979, founders Nancy Tolbert Yilmaz and Mary Lynn Taylor opened the Tolbert Yilmaz School of Dance in a small house in North Atlanta. Anticipating only a few students their first year, they were amazed to enroll many more than that at the grand opening. Those early years kept them both busy taking turns teaching and answering non-stop telephone calls to register new students.
From those humble beginnings grew a program that has trained thousands of young dancers. After 38 years, the studio has over 1000 students, a resident performing arts company, 25 faculty and 10 staff members and several affiliated musicians. The school offers over 130 classes each week taught by dedicated professional instructors who have experience teaching across the USA and abroad. Special events combine with training and performances to keep the dancers’ calendars full year-round.
In 1985 Tolbert Yilmaz founded a 501c3 resident performing company, the Roswell Dance Theatre. The purpose for the company was to provide training and performance opportunities to the school’s growing numbers of dedicated and gifted dancers. Acceptance is based on annual auditions. Successful dancers exhibit high levels of proficiency in ballet, pointe and modern dance.
In addition to an annual holiday performance of The Nutcracker, Roswell Dance Theatre produces a spring show each year, performing classical and original works including Giselle, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Swan Lake, Coppelia, Peter and the Wolf, Frozen, Aladdin, Mary Poppins, Alice in Wonderland and many others. Other favorite annual performances include a Modern Company concert performance and a dancer choreography showcase to benefit a local charity.
As the dance school begins its latest dance season, Nancy Tolbert Yilmaz and Mary Lynn Taylor are at the studio every day, teaching and overseeing classes and rehearsals. The school is now teaching the children of the children that began dancing with them in 1979. And the goal remains the same: to provide a positive nurturing environment for each dancer to excel to his or her potential in the dance disciplines offered.
