Under Ballet Teacher’s Critical Eye, Dancers Show the Right Stuff

Although she lived every ballerina’s fantasy childhood--growing up the daughter of a famous dancer backstage at the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo and the Pacific Ballet Theater--Jocelan Tylor is convinced that sweat, not genes or environment, is the main ingredient of a professional dancer.

Her philosophy, which she expounds with the zeal of an evangelist, will be tested Sunday afternoon at North Hollywood High School during a performance of “The Nutcracker.” The traditional Christmas ballet will be danced by Tylor’s dance company, the Young Artists of the Ballet, 15 regular and 15 “assistant” members from 7 to 17 years old who are all aspiring professionals.

In preparation for the performance each member of the company has practiced almost daily since September, two to three hours a session, several of those hours under Tylor’s meticulous and sometimes critical eye.

“This field is the most difficult and competitive there is--more than acting or athletics,” Tylor said before a recent weekend rehearsal.

Starving Dancers

“There are so many dancers in New York, and most of them are starving, living with 10 people in one room. It’s crazy. I saw a lot of very scared kids when I was in New York.”

Tylor, 23, dark haired with finely chiseled features, knows well the grueling realities of ballet. The daughter of famed ballet star Andrei Tremaine, Tylor took the stage name Tylor when she was just a teen-ager.

“It was tough being known as Andrei Tremaine’s daughter,” she said. “That put a lot of pressure on me.”

She performed with the Joffrey II ballet in New York and Europe before returning home to Los Angeles, where she danced with the Pacific Ballet Theatre, did guest appearances with dance and opera companies, and began an acting career.

Then, seven months ago, Tylor experienced a dancer’s worst nightmare: a car crash that left her with seven cracked vertebrae.

6 Months in Brace

She spent six months in a neck brace. “I literally had to relearn how to walk,” she said. Although hopeful that she will dance again professionally, Tylor is resigned to the fact that it will not be a quick or easy comeback. “I still have a lot of numbness on the whole left side of my body. It’ll take a few years of physical therapy to get the nerves and muscles all working again.”

For someone whose whole life was ballet, it was natural for Tylor to turn her full efforts to teaching and choreography. Although the inability to dance was at first a bitter pill, she finds her new career both rewarding and therapeutic.

“If it had happened to me when I was 30, I would have said ‘OK, that’s it.’ But I didn’t get my chance. These kids have really helped me through this. They’ve given me a reason to go on.”

The home of the Young Artists of the Ballet is the Andrei Tremaine Academy of Dance in North Hollywood. During the week, Tylor conducts individual and group classes. On weekends she presides over lengthy group rehearsals. Tylor’s 15 to 20 students come to her from all over the city. Some of them are kids she “discovered” dancing in shows. Some, who cannot afford the $50 to $100 monthly fees for lessons, were granted scholarships by Tylor.

Looks for ‘Guts’

“The first thing you look for in a dancer is guts,” said Tylor. “This is a strict, disciplined art. A dancer has to be able to stick with it, whether he’s sick, depressed, has sore feet, a twisted ankle, a bad day--it doesn’t matter--they have to keep going. I tell my kids: ‘What if you were on tour? You would never make it! You can’t just collapse there on the floor!’

“And they have to be the type who can take very strong correction. Maybe they’ll go out later and cry, but they won’t fall apart in rehearsal. They’ll take it. That’s important. And they have to be perfectionists--that’s where the discipline starts. I also look for kids with a lot of feeling, soul, who have passion--because it takes a lot of passion.”

Most of Tylor’s students have grand aspirations: the American Ballet Theater, the Joffrey, the San Francisco Ballet. “And some of them are here to find out if this is what they really want,” said Tylor. By the time they take their final bows on Sunday, most of them should have a better idea.

Gianna de Fonte, 14, of Granada Hills, who plays the Sugarplum Fairy, one of the “Nutcracker’s” demanding lead roles, is already a fairly seasoned trouper. She started dancing when she was 2 and began studying with Tylor when she was 8.

Dances 2 to 3 Hours Daily

A freshman at Chaminade High School in Chatsworth, De Fonte dances two to three hours a day, seven days a week. Her goal is to be a professional dancer--preferably with the American Ballet Theater. “I like to entertain people,” she said. “It’s fun just being somebody else.”

Tylor’s strict regimens don’t faze De Fonte: “It’s really good to have a strict teacher--because she really helps you to be good--she makes you be good.”

Victor Kibbee, 15, who attends North Hollywood High, will play the cavalier opposite De Fonte. Kibbee has been studying ballet with Tylor for five years. He generally has a one- or two-hour class every day and rehearses eight to 10 hours on weekends. “But,” he said of his future, “I’m not really sure yet what I want to do.”

Ten-year-old Alec Resnovics of North Hollywood is not as ambivalent about his future plans. “I’d like to dance with the Joffrey Ballet,” he said, matter of factly. Resnovics, who plays Fritz and the Russian boy in “The Nutcracker,” has been dancing since he was 4.

Resnovics takes three dance classes and practices five times a week--usually for three to five hours on Sundays. Resnovics allows that working with Tylor is very rough. “But that’s good,” he said. “She’s training us just like they would in a professional shop like the Joffrey or the American Ballet.”

Tylor teaches the Russian, or Kirov method of ballet, which is the most demanding. “I learned Russian training since day one from my father, so my kids are learning that too.”

Young Dancers in Demand

Her charges are learning a lot more than Tylor did at their age. “They have to,” she said. “Professional dance companies want them young. I don’t agree with that, but I can’t fight it either. They used to want them when they were about 18. Now they are taking them at 16. So I have to train them a little harder and faster, especially the boys, who are often late starters.”

Eric Carroll, 17, lives in Gardena but studies in the performing arts program at Hollywood High School. Carroll, who studied jazz for a number of years, began taking ballet with Tylor just three months ago. “I’ve improved a lot, just since I’ve been here,” he said. Carroll is a bit amazed, but delighted, that he managed to land a role--that of the Spanish dancer--in “The Nutcracker.”

“I think she choreographed the dance technically to fit what I can do right now, but I still have to trim it up. I’m getting the feel of it. I still have to develop more of the Spanish attitude. I’m studying how Spanish people dance, and listening to Spanish records to develop that attitude.”

Carroll rehearses two to three hours every day. “It takes a lot of dedication and hard work,” he said. “It hurts.” Carroll also works out with weights, “reads a lot” about dancing and studies acting as well. He hopes that, by the time he graduates from high school this spring, he will be ready to audition for openings in professional dance companies.

“I enjoy dancing, I don’t ever see giving it up,” he said. “That’s something that will always be there.”