‘The kids hold me together’
Studio owner being honoured after more than 50 years of dance
Editor’s note: This article is the first in a series of stories featuring this year’s Cape Breton Business and Philanthropy Hall of Fame inductees.
Her life story could be turned into a Broadway musical, much like the ones she’s danced and sang in over the past 68 years — small-town girl makes it big and then opens her own successful performing arts studio.
The small town would be Balls Creek and the girl would be Susan Gallop, owner of Cape Breton School of the Arts and one of this year’s inductees into the Cape Breton Business and Philanthropy Hall of Fame.
When Gallop, 71, opened her first studio in 1970 called Susan’s Dance Studio, it was only the second studio on the island offering ballet, tap and jazz classes.
The other was Doris MacDonald Dance Academy where Gallop trained from the age of six to 17.
Gallop had already been doing highland dance for four years when she moved over to MacDonald’s school, the only one on the island at the time. It was an evident love of dance that led her mother to put Gallop in classes.
“My mom and my aunt took me to a concert when I was about two … I got away from them and they couldn’t find me. Next thing they knew I was on stage dancing with Winston Scotty Fitzgerald who was doing the fiddle. I was up and I kept going,” she said with a laugh.
“My mom said, “Oh my God, if she’s going to do this I better put her in dance so then she knows what she’s doing.’”
While studying highland dance, Gallop often performed with the MacDonald band, calling herself “kind of the mascot.” By six, the heavy regalia and her dreams of being a ballerina had her asking her mom to move her to MacDonald’s dance school.
Her mother, who raised Gallop alone after separating from Gallop’s father, supported her family by working at the corner store owned by Gallop’s uncle. She also supported her daughter’s dance dreams, as did Gallop’s grandmother ,who bought her a sparkly, red jazz costume that is being used by one of Gallop’s students this year. But she didn’t always get the same support from her grandfather.
“My grandfather used to tell me I would never amount to anything with dance,” she said, sitting in the kitchen of her home with one of her cats, Misty, on her lap.
“My uncle tells me all the time how much he wishes my grandfather
was still alive, so he could see me now.”
She also didn’t get much support from her peers when she was a teen and still dancing.
“Back then teens didn’t dance so you’d get ridiculed. They’d say, ‘Why do you dance?’” she said.
That didn’t stop Gallop. Full of passion and drive, she continued to book shows locally
and away. She danced and worked many times with her mentor, Don Gillies, who was a regular on CBC’s “The Wayne and Schuster Show.” During the 1969 Rotary show production of “Guys and Dolls,” Gallop performed with American singer/actor Brad Hayes, who starred in the soap opera “Days of Our Lives”. At 16, she got her first teaching certification and, over the years, has done other certifications in England, New York and at the National Ballet in Toronto.
“I would borrow money to go to training and then pay it back. I always paid it back,” she said.
After graduating from Holy Angels High School in Sydney at 18, Gallop worked as a court reporter for a Sydney judge but quickly realized the graphic evidence she was recording was too much for her. That’s when, at age 20, she decided to start her dance studio in the basement
of her house.
By 1981, the school had outgrown the basement and Gallop started renting space in Sydney, relaunching as the Cape Breton School of the Arts, offering art, singing, dance and acting.
Twelve years ago, Gallop’s school relocated to Westmount and there have been some tough challenges over the past few years.
The building was extensively damaged during the Thanksgiving Day flood in 2016. Then vandals broke in and caused tens of thousands of dollars damage in August 2017. The studio is still being repaired and classes are being held off site.
Gallop said some parents of students at the school were worried she would close the school after the vandalism, but she said the thought didn’t cross her mind.
“The kids hold me together, basically. When all the disasters happened, the kids are still looking at me and looking to dance,” the married mother of five said.
“I’ve got the support of the kids and I’ve got the support of the parents.”
With 100 students attending the school, Gallop continues to help train top-notch performers. Julie Martell, who is starring in the upcoming production of “Mama Mia” at the Savoy Theatre in Glace Bay and has performed at the Stratford Festival, is one. Wesley Colford, Highland Art Theatre’s artistic director, and Thomas Colford, an actor/ singer known for a starring role on the teen TV drama “Centre Stage: On Pointe,” also studied with Gallop.
Other alumni of Gallop’s school have gone on to start their own dance studios in Cape Breton, including Angela Gratton, Lucy Wintermans and Kim Roper, Gallop’s daughter.
Gallop said it is “love and passion” that drive her, especially when she sees that same love of dance in her students.
“When you get some children … that you just see it in their eyes, that passion, and you think, ‘they’re just like me.’”