Auburn Dance Center  

Mr. Robert Smith, Director

55 years of quality dance instruction!

The Director of Auburn Dance Center, Mr. Robert Smith, is a life member of Dance Educators of America and is also one of the charter members of Dance Congress. 

He has had extensive dance training from some of the finest teachers in the country, including Caird Leslie, Nana Gollner, Paul Petroff, Robert Joffrey, Olga Ziceva, Joseph Levinoff, Ruthanna Boris, Thalia Mara, Dimitri Romanoff, Henry Danton, Rochelle Zide, Alexandra Danilova, Vassili Sulich, Valentina Oumansky, Bill Martin-Viscount, Andra Corvino, Gail Grant, and Joseph Carow.

Mr Smith's tap training includes classes with Dany Hoctor, Jules tone, Louis Da Pron, Jack Stanley, Ernest Carlos, Phil Black, Paul Draper, and Violet Holmes (Radio City Music Hall).

During jazz training he worked with Eugene Loring, Matt Mattox, Luigi, Stanley Hahn, George Jack, Peter Gladke, Harry Woolever, Danny Carroll, and Betsy Haug.

Historical Site

Auburn Dance Center is a historical site, and was the former Auburn Library.  The Auburn Library’s website shares its history.....

In 1904, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union sponsored traveling collection of 50 volumes from the State Library. These circulated out of the back room of an Auburn drug store. Mayor A.H. Meade appointed a Library Board and a free room was provided in City Hall for library use. Miss Isadora Ayers was appointed librarian and kept the library open three afternoons and evenings a week.

By 1912, the population of Auburn had reached 938. The Library Board obtained a grant from the Carnegie Corporation in the amount of $9,000 to erect a Carnegie Library building. Arthur Ballard, son of one of the founders of Auburn and a member of the Library Board, donated a piece of property at 3rd and Auburn Avenue. The new building was completed in 1914.

By 1962, the need for a new and larger facility became apparent. The town voted to authorize $225,000 for a new building at 9th and H Street SE. The new 12,000 square foot building was dedicated on April 14, 1964......

For more historical information on the Auburn library, visit their website at

www.kcls.org/auburn/history.cfm