Edward Moffat leads the “Sleeping Beauty” rehearsal for lead dancers Megan Dini and Morgan Stillman.
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Megan Dini is a tiny teenager. She’s lithe, with a broad forehead and pretty brown hair. When she dons a black leotard and pink tights, she all but disappears … if it weren’t for that blasted tutu, which sticks out perpendicular to her body. It makes it difficult for Morgan Stillman to wrap his large hands around her teeny waist; they keep getting caught in all that tulle.
Dini and Stillman are practicing for “Sleeping Beauty,” the ballet their school will perform in November. This is part of their school day. This is, technically, part of their coursework.
Dini and Stillman attend the New American Youth Ballet & Conservatory in Fort Wayne. For the first half of the day, they learn traditional subjects: history, British literature, math, physics. For the second half, they learn ballet: theory, pointe, modern dance. The conservatory is the only of its kind in the Midwest, founder and dean of ballet Beth McLeish says, and it offers students more than they would get if they went the traditional high school/ballet class route.
A normal high school
Dini, of Avilla, wakes up at 5:45 a.m. She gets dressed in pants, a shirt, and wears her hair down – a typical high school teen. Her father drops her off at school by 7:45 a.m. She might study or go over homework problems in a common room until the bell rings, at 8:20.
Dini moves to the hallway. It is crowded. Her slim young classmates are graceful, even as they open their lockers and crowd the small locker bay area. At 8:23, the bell rings again; Dini is ready for British literature.
The classroom seems a bit schizophrenic: Students talk “Beowulf,” while “steppe,” “highland,” “desert” and other geography-related vocabulary is printed on the white board. “People, Places and Change,” a world studies text, is on the teacher’s desk. Another white board shows the schedule for that classroom; it will also be used for social studies, U.S. history and world literature.
Classes are multipurpose, as are teachers. Marc Bly, 26, is the school’s academic dean, and he teaches biology, anatomy, chemistry, physics and math. McLeish, 29, who had to stop her professional dancing career after an ankle injury, teaches pointe and other ballet classes. There are nine teachers, and all double-dip subjects, McLeish says.
Because teachers keep students throughout their academic career at the conservatory – from fifth grade through 12th – they know the students, Bly says; he’ll know who struggles in which subjects and be able to teach accordingly.
Classes are 30 minutes. Forty-three students are enrolled in the school. Bly has six students in one math class, 11 in a science class. Coupled with the teachers’ knowledge of those students’ academic histories, it makes those 30 minutes plenty of time, Bly says.
Offering options
Bly owns the school. McLeish is technically a volunteer. She does not receive a salary. However, “It’s really not unusual to find Mr. Bly and I here at 11 o’clock at night,” she says.
The school, a not-for-profit organization, is run by a four-member board of directors, McLeish says.
Dini has been dancing since she was 4, she says, and McLeish taught her at a ballet school in Kendallville. At one point, she pulled the little girl aside and told her about the school she was starting. The first year of the school, Dini was in fourth grade, too young to attend, though she continued training with McLeish.
She started formally attending the conservatory in fifth grade; she is now a sophomore.
Lower grade, the equivalent of junior high or middle school, consists of fifth through seventh grades. Upper grade, or high school, is eighth through 12th. This gives students the option to graduate a year early should they choose to pursue dance when they are 16 or 17, McLeish says.
Dini plans to finish. She wants to dance professionally with the Pacific Northwest Ballet, where she has spent two summers dancing. If it weren’t for the conservatory, Dini wouldn’t even think of going the professional ballerina route, she says.
“What Mrs. McLeish has done here is amazing,” Dini says.
Dini can graduate next year if she chooses, but the economy has struck the dance world, and companies aren’t taking in dancers as young as they used to, Dini says. This means she hopes to dance professionally from age 18 into her early 30s, when most ballerinas retire. She hopes to go to Indiana University, perhaps for dance physical therapy.
It may seem to be a far way out to plan, but, says McLeish, “So far, every graduate that has desired to have a career in dance has. We’ve never had a student not accepted to their college of choice.”
Not all go that route; the best student last year opted to become a dentist, McLeish says. Two of the school’s students are enrolled only in the academics. Six attend high school elsewhere and get early dismissal so they can take ballet classes at the conservatory.
Back to dance
Academics end around noon. Then, students transform. Dini’s regular-school-gal clothes are gone, stuffed into a locker or gym bag. Now, she and seven other girls in this class wear shades of carnation pink tights and black leotards; their hair is pulled back in tight buns. This is the highest level of pointe that students at the conservatory can reach, and Dini is the best in the class, McLeish says.
The large, mirrored studio has a small stereo system and a piano. The door is open to let in fresh air. Barres are along one wall, near five enormous windows.
An accompanist plays, and the dancers use the music to follow McLeish’s direction. She gives each student attention, pressing in on a lower back that needs repositioning, pushing down on one girl’s shoulders that are up too high.
At the end of the class, the students clap and thank McLeish individually; it’s something the school teaches the students when they are young, McLeish says, and they grow accustomed to it.
“They thank me four or five times a day,” she says.
Following her pointe class, Dini readies for rehearsal with Stillman. In the school’s production of “Sleeping Beauty,” which will be performed at the Scottish Rite, Dini will dance as Aurora, the lead, in the evening show. During the afternoon show, she will dance a smaller role and another girl will dance as Aurora.
“I was definitely shocked about the casting,” she says. “I definitely didn’t expect to get Aurora.”
Edward Moffat, a ballet master at the conservatory, leads this rehearsal with Stillman, one of three boys in the school.
At first, Dini is wobbly. She pops up on pointe, and Stillman holds her hand and spins her slowly. He looks afraid, as though he’ll break her.
They practice some lifts, and Stillman bats down Dini’s tutu – it hides her waist and makes it difficult for him to see where he’s supposed to place his hands, Moffat says.
This is part of their school day.
“I always have thought about what it’d be like to go to a public school,” Dini says. “I do compare them.”
She does have some regrets.
“Having a bigger social life,” Dini says, “and having more friends, and having more free time, like a normal teen.
“Sometimes I want that, and I miss that, but I look at all the opportunities I have here, and they outweigh having more friends, having more free time.”
