Staff writer
newsroom@observer-reporter.com
After nearly four decades as Washington County's reigning dancing queen, Joyce Ellis is hanging up her shoes and bidding farewell to the world of dance.
Canonsburg's Fourth of July parade will be her last event, marking an end to 37 years of dance.
But in lieu of dance, Ellis, a resident of Washington, will devote her time to organizing community programs at the LeMoyne Multi-Cultural Community Center in Washington.
Ellis is restoring the center, which had closed for several years, as a community hub for area youth, and this summer she is holding a daily camp for more than 100 children. Operating the LeMoyne Center and her four dance studios is too much for her to handle financially and physically, Ellis said.
As a special send-off to mark the end of Ellis' career, some of her past students will be kicking and twirling with Ellis in Canonsburg's Independance Day parade. Some students are from as far back as the 1970s.
"It's definitely something that we all cherished in our past, and something we've been wanting to do for a long time," Shannon Paliotta said.
Paliotta first took dance lessons from Ellis when she was 12. After 18 years of taking, and later teaching, dance at Ellis' studio between work and school, Paliotta, now 31, said she jumped at the opportunity to participate in the finale of Ellis' career.
"I want to do all I can to pay her back for all she's done for me," she said.
Alycia Forney, 22, of Avella, started taking lessons from Ellis when she was 5. Having the opportunity to dance with Ellis one last time is something Forney said she "would not miss for the world."
"Getting back together with my friends and dance teacher is something I would never, ever miss," she said.
For some alumni, having spent years away from dance and performing Ellis' physically taxing routines will be one of the main challenges in preparing for the parade.
"Her dances are still hard-hitting and physical," said Alicia Campbell, 20, Monessen, another of Ellis' alumni that will be dancing in the parade.
Campbell said that relearning the dance routines she performed as a child has been fun, but getting to the shape she was in when she left dancing three years ago will be a daunting task.
"I'm just trying to figure out how I'm going to get through the entire parade," she said.
Ellis opened her first dance studio in 1973 at the YWCA in Washington. Ellis was just 17 at the time, and decided to open her own studio when she realized she was doing more teaching than learning at the previous studio where she was taking lessons.
Ellis eventually would open three more studios in Hickory, Charleroi and Pittsburgh. Ellis and her dance crew have performed for the Steelers, Pirates and Wild Things, among other Pittsburgh area sports teams. She has performed in various commercials and other videos, including one featuring former Pittsburgh broadcaster Myron Cope.
Ellis said that her first-ever dance performance was at Canonsburg's Fourth of July parade some 30 years ago. It's fitting, she said, that her career should end at the very same parade.
"It started with the Fourth of July parade, and that's where it's going to end," Ellis said. "It's my alpha and my omega."