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Inside a former automobile repair shop, children twirl, slide and leap across the floor as they master the pirouette, glissade, grand jeté and other ballet inventions of 16th century French courtiers.

The downtown Mount Airy building may not have constituted the most obvious or opulent beginnings for a fine arts center. But it has become the site of a vibrant arts business that is already recovering from the recession.

Royal Academy of Dance instructor Fiona Ellwood founded the Mount Airy Performing Arts Center 10 years ago to fulfill a lifelong dream and relieve a bout of parental frustration.

Raised in Great Britain, Ellwood had attended the prestigious Bush Davies School of performing arts from age 9-18, then earned a college degree in dance and teaching certifications from both the Greek Ministry of Culture and the Royal Academy of Dance. She operated a ballet school in Greece for nine years. When she moved to America, however, circumstances compelled Ellwood to plunge deeper into the business side of the arts.

A new resident of Mount Airy in 1998, Ellwood couldn't find a suitable ballet school for her seven-year-old daughter.

"So I decided to bite the bullet and open my own school," she said.

She found a derelict building (a former car wash) in Mount Airy and secured a small-business loan to cover the cost of the lease and the renovation.

Starting with just 30 students and no staff, the Mount Airy Performing Arts Center experienced exponential growth in the first two years, propelling Ellwood to search for a larger facility. Armed with an even heftier loan, she renovated a 4,000-square-foot former garage.

Today, the center serves 200 students and offers lessons in everything from classical ballet, tap and jazz, to Irish step dancing, hip hop, belly dancing, theater arts, pilates and music lessons on piano, strings, percussion and woodwinds.

The center charges a $40 registration fee, with tuition fees for lessons ranging from $55 for 45 minutes to $260 for six hours, for dance lessons; and $100 per month for 30 minutes per week up to $180 per month for one hour per week for music lessons.

Its eight-member staff includes instructors from Zimbabwe, New Zealand, Moldova and Russia and individuals who have experience of performing with the Radio City Rockettes, at the Metropolitan Opera and Carnegie Hall.

The center's Chrysalis Dance Company – a non-profit created by Ellwood in 2004 – has given exceptional students added opportunities to perform and enabled them to win multiple regional dance competitions.

The company and performing arts center will perform two shows at "A Nutcracker Tea" Dec. 5 at Calvary United Methodist Church in Mount Airy.

Several graduates of the center have even been accepted into degree programs for dance and theater arts.

"I am doing something every day that I love," Ellwood said. "But financially it has been a huge struggle."

In addition to struggling with the notoriously lean profit margin of any arts business, the center has faced competition from "at least 15 other dance schools within a 15-mile radius," Ellwood said. "There's also competition from sports activities and all kinds of other extracurricular activities."

Then last year, the recession sliced 15 percent off the center's revenues, she said.

"When you are working 60, 70 hours a week and you are not able to pay yourself a living wage, it's hard ... I'm sure my husband would really like me to get a real job," Ellwood said. "But we have seen an improvement in business this year, which is really encouraging."

Specifically, the center's revenues rebounded to pre-recession levels, she said.

The center's high professional standards have fueled its popularity and success, said Kimberly Dinning, the mother of two ballet students at the center.

The center, which only hires instructors with college degrees and teaching certifications, follows the curriculum of the Royal Academy of Dance, the Trinity Guildhall music program and the Kindermusik program for children under age 3.

"It's important for kids to have that structure. It's a confidence builder," Dinning said.

"It also holds the teachers accountable to cover all the material" and meet high, modern standards of arts education, added Dinning, who recently began teaching music onsite. "And I think more parents are beginning to appreciate the value of that."

Participants in such curriculum-based dance classes, however, must also pass tests, such as the annual examinations performed by external auditors from the Royal Academy of Dance.

Fifteen-year-old Angela Di Nardo who spends about 12 hours a week at the center taking classes and participating in the Chrysalis Dance Company, concedes those exams can be intense.

"It is really hard to get good marks because it is all about technique and presentation," she said. "But you can see what different examiners think about you and if you do well, you feel accomplished, you feel great. And it makes me a better dancer."