Dorothy Percival's Life of Dancing

Editor’s note:  Part of the mission of the Mokelulmne River Ward Blog is to occasionally feature stories about one of our members.  This is the first.

Dorothy lives in a home filled with pictures of students (above) and hundreds of mementos from her years of dancing.

Dorothy Percival

   After attending the Sacramento Temple open house in 2006, Dorothy asked a lot of questions, got answers, and joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 2008.  She is good friends with her neighbors across the street—Dave and Ardell Gillingwater.

    Dorothy is famous for her ballet dancing and teaching, having studied and danced around the world, including the San Francisco Ballet, the Joffery Ballet in NYC, and throughout Europe.  She was a soloist with the Sacramento Ballet Company and spent 11 years there.

   It seems Dorothy was born to dance. As a young girl she begged her parents for lessons and at the age of nine she began her first dance class.  It cost 10 cents a lesson and was a sacrifice for the family as it was the Great Depression and the money could have been used to buy groceries.

    When she walked into that first dance studio, in Tracy where the family lived, she thought she “had died and gone to heaven. That was it!”  At age 15 she started her own dance studio.  In 1969 she founded Ballet San Joaquin.  She has choreographed more than 50 performances throughout her career.

   At age 87, Dorothy is still teaching dance lessons every weekday at her Stockton studio. She enjoys teaching children “who want to learn.”

Left: The last time Dorothy danced professionally was in 1983 in the Role of Bernarda Albain the production, The House of Bernardo Alba. Right: Dorothy reflects fondly on one of the many ballet costumes she keeps in her home.

Dorothy has produced many Nutcracker Christmas shows in Stockton.