Cecilia “Cissy” Slowinski was the founder of the SOA Dance Department, who lost her battle to cancer in 2010. Ms. Slowinski was an original arts faculty member of the Charleston County School of the Arts, teaching dance from the school’s inception in 1995 until 2010. Her memory is still honored with the Cecilia Slowinski Scholarship, to help fund summer study for worthy students.

She was immortalized in the dancing statue in SOA’s Memorial Garden, an abstract metal sculpture done by a visual arts student and created from photos of her dancing.

Cecilia’s lifelong passion was dance, and her true calling was teaching. In her 40-plus years as a ballet/dance teacher, Cecilia touched thousands of hearts with a love of dance, the arts, and life. Cecilia Slowinski began her professional training at the Harkness House in New York City. Her professional dancing career includes dancing with the Harkness Youth Company, Radio City Ballet Company and the New Jersey Ballet and locally with the Robert Ivey Ballet. She earned a B.A. in Theater from the College of Charleston, and an MFA in dance choreography from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

Cecilia’s second passion was the ethereal natural beauty of Madison County, Montana. Describing it to her students, Cecilia wrote of climbing to the mountain top: “I would close my eyes, breathe the air, feel the warm sun on my face and think ‘Isn’t life wonderful.’ Life IS wonderful. I can still now close my eyes and imagine I am there.”