Founded in 1976, Ballet
Tech is a unique phenomenon: a public ballet school. Although
Ballet Tech is a training ground for the dancers in Eliot Feld's
professional company of the same name, it also serves as a safe
place for inner-city kids to learn more about dance and the arts
in general. The school does hold auditions, but unlike its more
exclusive counterparts, tuition is completely free. Mr. Feld
draws students from schools all over New York City, accessing
talent that might otherwise be stopped by lack of money.
Each year,
the school of Ballet Tech holds auditions for third-graders throughout
Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. Children that show promise are
invited to attend weekly classes at the school. By the time students
are in the sixth grade, a select group of about twenty kids is
chosen to attend Ballet Tech full-time. They join the eighty
middle shool and high school students who are also enrolled in
the school's academic program and begin an exhausting schedule
of classes.
This grueling
school year culminates in a student performance series aptly
titled Kids Dance. Designed to appeal to primarily younger
audiences, Kids Dance performs in New York at the Joyce
Theater and in several other major cities around the country.
Whether
they continue in the main company or not, few of the students
who train and perform at Ballet Tech would have discovered the
power of dance if it hadn't been for that first audition in elementary
school. Jim Varriale, author of the book Kids Dance: The Students
of Ballet Tech, explains, "That little jump in the air
they made as third graders has taken them very far indeed; it
has given some of them a life many dream of - a life of dance."
'And
Patricia Tuthill, who has been dancing with the professional
company since 1995, says: "Dancing has to be something that
you do, I think, only if you love it. It's very hard, but the
joy that you receive cannot be measured. No money, no anything
could replace that feeling. Some people never feel that in their
entire lifetime."
' Photo by Jim Varriale
'
You can order Jim Varriale's Kids
Dance at Amazon.com.
