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mokenamessenger.com life & Arts
the Mokena Messenger | June 7, 2018 | 23
Church music directors bring the arts to Frankfort studio
Amanda Stoll, Assistant Editor
Simonetta Pacek has been
teaching dance and theater
for more than two decades,
but the arts have had an impact
on her life since before
she was born.
Her father was a musician,
and her mother was
an opera singer. Now, at
her own studio, Pacek is
teaching alongside her four
daughters — Helen, Mary,
Anna and Simonetta-Marie
— who are all deeply involved
with the arts themselves.
Pacek previously taught
from the family’s home in
Homer Glen, and, after taking
the last couple of years
off from work, she decided
to open her Frankfort studio
in late April.
Simonetta and Anna both
also are music instructors at
St. Mary Catholic Church
in Mokena — Anna as the
director of sacred music
and Simonetta as the associate
director of sacred
music.
“I looked around at different
places, and this just
felt right,” Pacek said. “...
We had been, for 20 years,
just building up this art
center, so it wasn’t like
just coming here and going,
‘Ok. We’re just starting
from scratch.’ It’s something
that had been going
on for many years, just not
in this location and not this
way.”
Although she enjoyed
teaching from her home,
Pacek said it is nice to
have a separate location for
classes now, as her basement,
family room and
front rooms in the house
had become spaces for ballet,
theater and music lessons.
“I used to say, ‘This is
not my home, it is basically
everybody else’s home.’
Which is fine. I was very
good with that,” Pacek
said. “I loved doing what
we were doing and doing it
for the reason we were doing
it.”
Formerly called Little
Flowers Performing Arts
Center, Danse Integro has
taken the school to a new
level. Pacek has incorporated
adult classes into the
schedule, which now encompasses
ballet, modern,
ballroom, aerial and swing
dance as well as theater, improv
and music classes with
independent instructors in
piano, voice and violin.
“Integro means restoring
— restoring arts to the
beauty of each of their essence
of when they began
and how beautiful they
are,” Pacek said.
While before her classes
were mostly taken by children
of people she knew
from the community or
from her church in Mokena,
Pacek said opening
the studio in its location
has opened the doors for so
many more people to attend
and learn.
“[We’re] just getting to
know a lot of different people,
which has really been
wonderful,” Pacek said.
When she began teaching
more than two decades
ago, Pacek said the foundation
of the studio was virtue.
With her background in
ballet and degree in dance
choreography, she said she
had many moms asking her
if she would teach.
“The core was always
trying to keep the beauty of
the arts,” Pacek said. “...We
are constantly going back
to where they’re keeping
them beautiful [and] keeping
them focused.”
Aside from building
skills and perfecting techniques,
she said students
also build character and a
selfless attitude in the process
of learning their ballet
Danse Integro
750 Center Road in
Frankfort
Phone: (815) 462-3809
For more information on
classes and upcoming
summer camps, visit
danseintegro.com.
positions.
“We were about going
out there and not being
about ourselves,” Pacek
said. “When they have rehearsals,
they have to learn
how do you work with that
girl who is maybe getting
on your nerves? Or how do
you work with this frustrating
situation where it’s long
days and days of rehearsals?”
Those types of life lessons
are universal, and
Pacek said they are what
is at the core of Danse Integro.
“We can incorporate virtues
here and become a
better person so that when
you’re done, you on that
stage will be somebody
who is growing as an inner
person because you’re not
out there for you, you’re
out there to teach, to show
the beauty of that art,” she
said, “and you will be able
to get there if you learn
these things along the way,
the virtues and how life
isn’t always about you and
getting your way.”
All of the performances,
whether they are theater or
dance, are designed to be
family friendly, which is
something Pacek values in
the arts.
“When you perform on
stage, nobody should be
uncomfortable to watch
you,” she said. “Nobody
should feel like they have to
look away. Nobody should
feel embarrassed. Nobody
should feel like you said
something and they have to
Danse Integro owner and instructor Simonetta Pacek (left) and her husband Len Pacek
(right) dance during a ballroom class. Amanda Stoll/22nd Century Media
Mary Pacek dances with a student during the ballroom class on May 24. She teaches ballet
and aerial hammock classes at Danse Integro.
cover their kid’s ears.”
The value placed on that
is part of what makes her
studio what it is, and, while
other studios may push
those boundaries, Pacek
said that is not what they
have set out to do.
“You should be able to
leave there and go, ‘Wow, I
was inspired. I want to do
something good,’” Pacek
said. “That’s why we’re
doing it: to inspire people.
Not just to have a show,
not just to perform to win
something. It’s to inspire
people.”