By the time Walter Schalk opened a retail dancewear shop on Morse Court some 30 years ago, his famed dancing school—launched in 1959 with classes held in Ponus Ridge Chapel—already was well established in New Canaan.
Dance Corner Plus, on Morse Court near the corner of Main Street in New Canaan, has closed after some 30 years in business. Credit: Michael Dinan
In fact, Dance Corner Plus at 1 Morse Court never was designed as a money-maker, Schalk said: He just wanted ready accessibility to dancewear for students in his popular program.
Yet in recent years, with the rise of Internet shopping and big box stores that have connected with once-exclusive suppliers, that accessibility has become far easier for consumers. And that has prompted the new owner of Dance Corner Plus, Sarah Duffy, to shutter the store, for decades a fixture near the corner of Main Street.
“The Walter Schalk School of Dance has been in business for 59 years and it’s been a tremendous success over the years, and I want to thank everybody for their support, including those who have supported Dance Corner, now closed after it was sold to Ms. Duffy,” Schalk told NewCanaanite.com. “It’s too bad. It was a good thing in this town, and it’s unfortunately to see it go. It was a fun thing and we had good times and I have always appreciated everyone’s support.”
Schalk’s iconic dance school continues to operate—though in lower numbers than it had decades ago (“All the girls today are playing all the boys’ sports, and the arts unfortunately are starting to slip because of the commitment that sports are making on kids, to play a sport and do nothing else,” he said)—with classes in Darien, New Canaan and Wilton.
Duffy said she closed the shop on April 30. She had worked for Schalk for four years and then took over the business two years ago, knowing it would be a difficult road.
In addition to losing the ability to provide dancewear from suppliers exclusively, it was difficult to sustain Dance Corner Plus as a standalone business not tied to the dancing school directly, she said. In the past year, Internet shopping also took its toll on sales, Duffy said.
Even so, the ties to Walter Schalk were deep and meaningful, said Duffy, who also expressed gratitude to local families and loyal customers of Dance Corner Plus.
“It went into multiple generations for the customers,” Duffy said. “So many parents would come in and say that they’d studied under Walter when they were young, and now their kids were doing it. He had a very big following in that respect.”
To those customers, Duffy noted that she is working at Beam and Barre Dancewear in Greenwich, and may well set up “pop-up” retail stands at local dance-related events in New Canaan.
Duffy said she deeply appreciated how locals rallied to support the shop.
“I appreciate that people tried so hard to support us in what ways they could, and their support toward me as I tried to take over the business,” she said. “I really felt that from them.”
For Schalk, the larger chain stores’ selling products that once had been exclusively sold by smaller shops was the number-one factor in Dance Corner Plus’s inability to succeed long-term as a business.
“For a small shop to make it is almost impossible,” he said.
Dance Corner Plus was my first job in college when I returned to New Canaan. I was a Walter Schalk student in elementary school in the 70s too. So sad they had to close their doors. I know that is a permanently wonderful memory from my youth.