When Leslie Nolte’s daughter was 12 years old, she attended an open-call audition in Chicago, and with a tap of the shoulder, she was recruited to the Houston Ballet. What began as a full-ride scholarship for the summer program swiftly evolved into a year-round study opportunity, signifying a remarkable ascent into the world of professional dance.

By 15, Nolte’s daughter had relocated to Houston alone, separated from her family in Iowa City, all in pursuit of the specialized training vital to her success as a professional dancer.

That emotional experience inspired Nolte to create Iowa’s first private conservatory-based school focused on the arts. Iowa Conservatory (ICON) opened its doors eight weeks ago in Iowa City, welcoming the inaugural class of 12 students who have chosen to specialize in either dance, theatre arts, music, or visual arts/design production.

Nolte is the head of ICON, located at 123 N Linn Street. She also founded the local dance school, Nolte Academy, in Coralville. She’d been developing the performing arts school idea since her daughter moved to Houston, noticing a need for a specialized art curriculum in Iowa.

The newly established Iowa Conservatory sets the stage for a groundbreaking high school experience for local students as well as kids across the country. Located in the heart of downtown Iowa City, ICON is a performing arts high school that prioritizes academic excellence and fosters a deep understanding and cultivation of the arts, positioning the curriculum at the crossroads of creativity and education. 

Nolte said the idea for the performing arts school also grew out of a desire to keep kids within the state, youngsters who sought a future in the industry but had no other options.

“[At Nolte Academy] what was happening is we were training these dancers and around 14 years old, a lot of them felt like they had to leave the state of Iowa to be competitive. One of them being my daughter,” Nolte said. “I remember when my daughter left thinking there’s a way we can do this here. It might not be connected to a professional ballet company, but there’s a way that we can do this here in Iowa City.”

Nolte opened the James Theater last year, formerly The Riverside Theatre at 213 N. Gilbert St. in Iowa City, as a community performing arts space. She uses it as a workshop for ICON students.

A new start in a legendary building

ICON is housed in the newly remodeled historic building, Union Brewery, founded in 1856 by German immigrants Anton Geiger and Simeon Hotz. Until 2019, it was home to La’ James International College, which trained collegiate hair stylists. The end of the beauty school’s 40-year run propelled Nolte to act, sticking with the building’s educational theme by readying for a new wave of creative thinkers.

Nolte started working with Newman Munson roughly eight years ago to design the concept for ICON, then switched gears to a preexisting location in the heart of downtown Iowa City.

When the Union Brewery building became vacant in 2020, Nolte jumped at the chance, initatiting an important remodel.

“It was about a two-year remodel, Nolte said. “This is a building from 1856. So, there was a beautiful surprise every time we went into a wall.” 

An innovative curriculum

ICON’s inaugural class is two months into a 10-year plan. The 12 students hail from all over the United States, each boasting different specialties, with some fully enrolled and others following a half-day schedule. Next year’s class size is expected to rise to 45 to 65 students. ICON officials believe they will reach a maximum class capacity of 265 students in five years, much smaller than the average class size at a local public high school. ICON anticipates the current class to grow to 20 students in the second semester, with teachers planning curriculum tweaks to better fit student needs. 

ICON students have already put on their first production in the school’s initial eight weeks, working with three professional actors who emphasized the importance of real-world experience before pursuing higher education or careers. 

“We are finally to the point where we can be we can it can be real practice, instead of pretending,” Nolte said. “The ideas that we had for the school have already been put aside because when you put real people in the room, ideas don’t always work. Textbook sentences don’t always work right when dealing with real people and real kids. We need to uphold our promises. We all believe in it, and we’re backing what we say.”

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A typical day at ICON

A typical day at ICON starts at 9 a.m., a later start time than average high schools, and goes to 5 p.m. From 9:50 a.m. to 11:20 a.m., students are in Zoom classes or private lessons. Students then scatter to visual design or dance classes, with two more hours of standard academic courses later in the afternoon. Production rehearsals are held from 7 to 10 p.m.

“I would say the easiest way to describe like just a general schedule would be in the mornings is all those private intensives depending on what discipline you are, so if you’re musical theater, you get some vocal coaching, some acting coaching, some dance coaching, all those private lessons that may fit in those synchronous or asynchronous coursework,” said Dr. Jessie Frerich, Director of Admissions at ICON. “Then they have some lunch, and then the afternoon is the project-based learning, and it is also when our half-day [commuter] students would join us around 1 p.m.”

ICON has also partnered with the Iowa City Community School District (ICCSD) to provide students with the core curriculum recognized as the best in the state by U.S. News and World Report. Students work directly with in-person learning coaches to embody the typical help received in the classroom. Nolte and Frerich note that students in Iowa City are lucky because, within the ICCSD, arts programs are strong. They’ve seen many students travel from other parts of Iowa and nationwide, searching for a better arts education.

ICON’s emphasis is on project-based learning designed to give students tasks and challenges they will encounter when they enter the workforce, whether they choose a career in the arts or not. 

“The (ICON) schedule is built to be student-centered, so the students to do their academics and to put the arts education first,” Nolte said. “We just want to be the space for those that want or, to be honest, need us, which is why I just remind everyone we have a partnership because we trust the Iowa City Community School Districts Academics.”

In addition to their general academics, ICON students have required arts coursework, regardless of their specialization, like piano lessons, to learn musicality. 

“If we have a dance student, they’re well versed in dance, they take a lot of dance courses, but we also require them to take a visual arts course to learn to draw the body right, then they also take dance kinesiology, so they understand how the body moves,” Frerich said. “We’re being very specific about the cross-curricular design of the curriculum.”

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Tuition at ICON

About 35,000 students attend U.S. private schools as boarders each year at campuses scattered nationwide, though mainly on the East Coast, according to the Association of Boarding Schools. While there are other boarding schools in Iowa, ICON is the only one emphasizing the arts. Students come from as far as New Jersey to go to ICON. Nolte and Frerich said some parents feel more comfortable sending their children to Iowa City rather than a larger metropolitan, like New York City or Chicago. 

ICON is cognizant of students who have left their families, making it a point to help smooth the transition, enlisting a guidance counselor/residential assistant for every eight students. The adult helps students with everything from appointments, grocery shopping, and even cooking, a personal touch from Nolte’s daughter’s experience.

“We focus on the child as a whole because my daughter didn’t have that,” Nolte said. “These students had the arts education, but nobody supported them. Finding out your daughter is on day 17 and eating cereal on day 17, you start realizing that nutrition is so important to the mental and physical health and not feeling lonely is important.” 

Mental health support is part of ICON’s curriculum, ensuring basic needs are met while also organizing student life engagements and events. 

ICON also offers a “gap year” experience for students who need another year to prepare for college or their career. 

Tuition is $22,000 annually, $11,000 per semester for an ICON gap year, and $3,600 a trimester for ICON commuters. Out-of-state residents will pay an additional $7,635 in academic tuition for the Iowa City school district’s online program.

While ICON provides innovative arts education, Nolte notes how the school will positively impact Iowa City’s local economy.

Emphasis on the Arts for lasting success

Frerich, an educator with 15 years of experience, got her start on the Broadway circuit in New York City as a musician, doing eight shows a week before she burnt out. She played piano at a jazz club which often brought inner-city students to the heart of downtown Manhattan. Watching the kids experience live music for the first time and touching piano keys inspired Frerich.

“I thought I only knew how to do was just the musician, performer thing, but seeing their expressions light up when they were banging on the piano lit a flame for me in a way I hadn’t experienced before,” Frerich said. “So, I thought, ‘that’s it. I’m going to be a music teacher’.”

Frerich’s experience as an Iowa City public school teacher allowed her to notice how arts can positively impact a student, ne of the reasons she moved to ICON. While Iowa City has a strong emphasis on the arts, Frerich believes that creativity and interdisciplinary arts education support not only cognitive growth but also social skills.  

“When we looked at research data in support of performing arts, visual arts, and the fine arts, it shows that all those creative skills increase literacy scores,” Frerich said. “The statistics show that academic scores increase when students are involved in performing and visual arts.”

A recent study, “The impacts of a high-school art-based program on academic achievements, creativity, and creative behaviors,” found that art-based education programs have a high and positive impact on academic achievements; however, art-based education at the public level has limitations, which Frerich often experienced. 

“As a music teacher, I spent so much time educating families, students, the community on the importance of education, and it’s in, they were all in, but you also are fighting against, what the state mandates, what the country mandates,” Frerich said. “The gaps in the public-school education are made right here.”

Jessica Rish is an entertainment, dining and business reporter for the Iowa City Press-Citizen. She can be reached at [email protected].