The Local Life: Simone Endres

It's early morning at Simone Endres' dance studio in Kitty Hawk, and there are hours to go before any students will arrive – but there’s still plenty to do when it comes to managing the daily operations of a business Simone’s been dreaming about in some fashion since she was 10 years old. Looking casually comfortable in tights and a loose sweater, she stretches a few times before executing a graceful pirouette for the camera.

“Wait, let me do that again,” she says, pausing to laugh. “That’s the thing about dance teachers. It’s never true when we say ‘only one more time’ – we always want to keep going until we get it just right!”

Yes! [Laughs] I was working for a public relations firm when one of the deejays at a local radio station said I needed to meet a friend of theirs who was dancing for Janet Jackson – and I was one of those girls who stayed up until three a.m. listening to “Rhythm Nation” on vinyl when it first came out. They were holding open auditions for the All for You Tour in Washington, D.C., and I got in and trained from October until February [2000] when I found out I was pregnant with my first child. It’s hard to keep those hours with a baby, but I still stay in touch with a lot of those dancers to this day.

I started dancing when I was three, and when I was 10 years old, I wrote a list of goals. One of them was to be in a video with Janet Jackson – and another was to own a dance studio. I still have that list, so I must have manifested it! The funny thing is, I used to do little classes here and there, but I never really thought I was going to be a teacher. Then, when my daughter Jalen was two, I put her in a dance class, and the studio happened to be looking for a hip-hop instructor. That was 2003, and I’ve been teaching ever since.

I teach ballet, tap, jazz, pointe, hip-hop, modern, Latin ballroom, musical theater, acro and Bollywood, which is a mix of Western pop and Indian folk dancing. I know it looks like a lot, but here’s the thing: I’ll never teach something I’m not trained in. And I don’t teach just the moves or the idea of dance – I want my students to understand the background, too. It’s all about being part of something larger, and you can learn so much from that.

Janet Jackson, definitely. And Tina Landon, one of Janet’s head choreographers. Also, Vera-Ellen, Debbie Reynolds, Paula Abdul and Mikhail Baryshnikov – he was the first male dancer I ever fell in love with. And my teachers. They all expect hard workers, and they want the best. You can have natural talent, but it comes down to what you do with it, so you have to find a good balance. The most important thing is to find out what your passion is – and it might not be dance. But whatever it is, you need to be true to that.