Experienced and nurturing ballet instructors in Columbia

Here at the Perlman-Stoy School of Ballet, we are committed to providing a positive environment for our students. 

We challenge and encourage them to reach their full potential as strong, confident, and self-aware dancers. 

Through our experiences as teachers and as dancers ourselves, we have come to value the beauty of individual artistry and we strive to nurture the unique creativity of each of our students.

Nancy Stoy

Nancy Stoy began her formal ballet training at the Halcyone Ewalt Perlman School of Ballet at age 12. As a teenager, she augmented her dance training through summer programs at Kansas University, the Perry Mansfield Performing Arts School in Colorado, and the Banff School of Fine Arts in Alberta, Canada. She studied at Stephens College in Columbia, MO, with John Marshall, examiner for the Royal Academy of Ballet, and Harriet Ann Gray, founder of the dance department. She received her BFA with an emphasis in Pedagogy from the Canadian College of Dance, Ryerson Polytechnical Institute in Toronto. She also received her teaching certificates from the Royal Academy of Dance in ballet, character dance, and modern dance. 

Pursuing her interest in pedagogy, she studied extensively in London with Master Teacher, Joan Hewson. During this time, she successfully passed her examinations in the Cecchetti Method of Ballet, both as a teacher and as a performer. This experience strongly motivated her to continue teaching ballet and to share her love of dance with her students in Columbia. 

 Halcyone Ewalt Perlman

Halcyone Ewalt Perlman was raised in the ballet studio founded by her parents in 1933. At age 14, she became very interested in ballet and went on to study with a number of leading ballet instructors of that time. Among her strongest influences were Victoria Cassan of the Anna Pavlova Company, Alexandra Danilova of the Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, Igor Schwezoff of St. Petersburg and New York, and Joan Hewson in London. Perlman has performed in the Starlight Theatre in Kansas City and has also pursued studies in modern dance, tap, Spanish, character and Dalcroze Eurhytmics. An avid cellist, she also has an extensive background in music, having played for several years in the Stephens College Burrall Orchestra.

She has choreographed for the Missouri University’s Opera Workshop, Stephens College, and the Columbia Civic Orchestra. One of her ballets, On The Green, was chosen for a gala performance of the Midwest Regional Ballet Festival in 1968. In the late ‘70s, she served for two years on the Dance Advisory Panel of the Missouri Arts Council. In 1966. Traveling with England’s Society for Cultural Relations with the USSR, she visited classes and performances of the school and theatre of the Mariinsky Ballet in St. Petersburg, at that time known as the Kirov Ballet of Leningrad, as well as the Bolshoi School and Theatre in Moscow. She has attended seminars in Copenhagen, Denmark and Winnipeg, Canada.  She received the 2016 Arts Education Award from the Missouri Arts Council. 

She has operated the Perlman-Stoy School of Ballet, formerly the Halcyone Ewalt Perlman School of Ballet, since her mother’s passing in 1967. She serves as producer and principal choreographer for the Mid-Missouri Dance Theatre, the ballet school’s own performance troupe.