A longtime dance teacher and local performer is hanging up her toe shoes.

Janet Swain Cox, owner of Le Moulin Rouge de Danse in Washington, has announced she is selling the studio and will be retiring from teaching effective Jan. 1.

“We have everything in place to continue just as we have done,” said Cox, who is selling the studio to one of her staff members, Shannon Reising. “Nothing is going to change except I won’t be here.”

Cox said she and Reising are working closely together to make the transition as smooth as possible.

“The children will not see a change in styles of teaching or the attention they get,” she said. “The level of instruction will be just as high as they’re used to. I hope that the parents and students can be as happy about this change as I am.”

Cox said she made the decision to sell after realizing her daughter, McKenna Cox, wasn’t interested in returning to Washington to run the studio. The younger Cox is currently living and working in New York City, pursing her dream of being an actress.

Cox, a former Miss Beaufort County who represented this area in the 1978 Miss North Carolina Scholarship Pageant, began taking dance lessons at the tender age of 7 under the tutelage of Marie Wallace. Cox herself became a teacher at age 12, when she spent her Saturdays giving baton lessons to 25 students.

“So I’ve actually been teaching 43 years,” Cox said, shaking her head at the thought.

In 1982, joined Wallace’s teaching staff; a few years later Wallace’s ill health forced her to retire and Cox stepped in to run that studio. But on Feb. 4, 1986 Cox saw her longtime dream of operating her own studio come true when Le Moulin Rouge de Danse opened its doors.

Cox said her chosen career has been fulfilling and it has kept her on her toes … literally.

“Never in 32 years, not even when McKenna was born, had I missed a day of work until this year,” she recalled. “I’ve been really lucky … I’ve been sick on the holidays!”

Cox said Reising’s talent and enthusiasm for the art of dance insure that students at Le Moulin Rouge de Danse are in capable hands.

“The studio has gotten a shot in the arm, and we are doing what is needed so that this studio will go on,” Cox said.

Operating a dance studio and raising their daughter with husband Charles occupied much of her time over the years, but Cox still managed to give back to the community in which she was raised. A former member of the Turnage Theater board of directors, she choreographed and helped direct musicals at Washington High School for over 20 years. She was active with the Beaufort County Arts Council’s Art Camp, Shoestring Theater and Beaufort County Schools’ Steppin’ Out productions. For several years she was co-director of the Dancing With Our Stars and East Carolina Star Search fundraisers for Eagle’s Wings food pantry, and for six years she has assisted Patch Clark with East Carolina University’s Storybook Theatre productions.

Her community service efforts were recognized by the Washington-Beaufort County Chamber of Commerce when she was presented the 2011 Community Leader of the Year award.

Cox plans to spend more time pursing her love of singing and playing music with her husband, so performing isn’t necessarily a thing of the past now that she is retiring from the dance stage.

“I turned 56 on Dec. 13, and even though I’m in fairly good shape because of teaching dance, I do have aches and pains,” Cox said. “Most of the dance teachers I’ve know through the years have already retired … I’m like the last of the old dinosaurs!  But I’m going to reinvent myself. I’m old, but I’m not dead.”