At the young age of 7, Brooke Desnoes attended The Nutcracker by the Alabama Ballet with her uncle. She decided then she wanted to be a dancer.

“I knew when I saw The Nutcracker that I wanted to be a dancer,” Desnoes said.

Her parents put her in dance lessons and by the sixth grade she was attending the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham.

From there she tried out for Alabama Ballet.

The instructors were impressed and admitted her. She said there are a few basic requirements for a dancer. You must have long legs, long arms, and be thin and flexible.

“Your legs must be longer than your backbone,” Desnoes said.

After leaving the Alabama Ballet, Desnoes went on to earn her degrees in ballet pedagogy and early childhood development from Brenau Women’s University in Georgia.

She eventually moved to Paris in 1991, after meeting her soon to be husband Vincent, while both were teachers at a summer camp for the arts in Maine.

Desnoes accepted a job with the prestigious Conservatoire National Superieur de Paris, but quickly realized it was not for her.

“I couldn’t do it. It was frigid; it’s not how I was taught ballet,” she said.

There was no real dialogue between instructor and student. It was very strict and the children were not having fun, said Desnoes. She wanted to be in an environment were the students were learning as well as having fun.

After moving to France, she learned the language fast.

“I was glad I took history classes because that helped me a lot. I just picked up the language from being there,” said Desnoes.

Desnoes opened the L’Academie Americaine de Danse de Paris in February of 1998. She started with about 8 students and has now grown to more than 600. It is the largest dance school in Paris, and possibly in all of France, she said.

Students range in age from 3-19 and are admitted without auditions.

“I still know every child,” she said. “I can still flag every child who has potential.”

The school is an American run school and has been helped by a million dollar grant from the Annenberg Foundation. The Annenberg Foundation was started in 1989 and provides funding and support to nonprofit organizations in the United States and globally through its headquarters in Pennsylvania. Its major program areas are arts, culture and humanities.

The grant allowed the company to build a new state of the art complex and can now compete with the French.

“When children start dancing with us, it is rare they leave,” said Desnoes.

About half of her students are American. There are also some American teachers. The school uses a bilingual approach with classes given in both English and French.

Upon graduation, many of the students come to the United States to dance professionally, rarely do they stay in France, said Desnoes.

“My dream was to open an arts center where kids could study dance, art, music all under the same roof,” Desnoes said. “I found it was to hard to control all of these so I chose to focus on dance.”

Desnoes said she learned a lot from growing up in a small town.

“Growing up in Cullman taught me honesty and respect for people, which allows a person to do what they want to do in life,” Desnoes said. “(You take) good baggage with you when you leave Desnoes said.”

Desnoes enjoys teaching and watching her students learn and grow.

“Teaching kids is a bit like cooking a good Southern meal. Some need spice, some sugar, some salt, they are all different. But in the end, all the time and hard work has been worth it when you see them succeed,” she said.