Twirling, leaping soaring; many may not know Juliette Tonnacliff, but she is one of the happiest people you may ever meet, and she lives for dance. “Juliette started dancing since she was able to walk,” Kathy Tonnacliff, Juliette’s mother, said.

Juliette was diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome at a young age, a hereditary disorder arising from a chromosome defect. Dance is one thing that keeps Juliette happy day in and day out. Juliette said her number one reason she loves dance is “because I love to dance with my friends.” Her favorite class is hip hop taught by Mr. Josh.

Mrs. Tonnacliff started Juliette in dancing when she was six. “We have videos of Juliette dancing from the time she could stand, however she started at the Rec. Department for one summer when she was 6 and then at Mirror Image when she was 7, and now she dances at Bella Via Dance Studio.”

When Mirror Image closed, Juliette followed her teacher Mrs. Megan to her own studio, Bella Via in Mequon. “Juliette loves to perform and when her friends started doing more and more classes and having more dances to perform in for recital, I offered her the opportunity to take those classes,” Mrs. Tonnacliff said.

Looking to the future, Mrs. Tonnacliff said, “Juliette would love to be able to teach a class and we are hoping to include that in some of her work training in the next couple of years, so she could help with warm-ups or the little ones.”

“Miss Megan has a philosophy that everyone can dance. She has never tolerated any bullying in the studio and has advocated for total acceptance. So many of the girls come up to Juliette outside of the studio to give her high fives, to say hello or to give her hugs. As those are the absolutely best rewards she can get. We feel as though her contacts through the studio have made her life very happy,” Mrs. Tonnacliff said. She said this is what makes Ms. Megan and Bella Via so special compared to other studios.

This year at Homestead, Juliette and Emmery Wilson, freshman, will be performing a hip hop routine at the AFS variety show to the song “Rotten to the Core ”in early November.