Prima Ballerina : Dancer, Teacher Diane East Sows Joy and Reaps Its Reward

Ballerina Diane East, who has put on free shows since she was a small girl, was at it again. Barefoot and wearing a flowered dress, she danced to “Blue Hawaii” on the patio of the Regency Oaks convalescent home in Long Beach.

After performing her numbers, East watched with a smile as her ballet students, dressed in colorful costumes she had designed, went through their routines, including one to “Climb Every Mountain.”

“That was the best entertainment we’ve had in a long time,” Pat Smith, 82, said when the show was over. “You get tired of just playing bingo.”

East, who at 49 is semi-retired from dancing, was praised recently by the Bellflower City Council for her years of entertaining free at nursing homes, hospitals and schools. She has also presented many benefit shows for the city’s William Bristol Civic Auditorium, where she danced in her farewell public performance in August.

Her devotion was first recognized when, at 16, she was named Bellflower’s businesswoman of the year, the youngest person to ever win the award. By then she was already a dance-school owner--she had taken lessons since she was 3 and moved into teaching when her own teachers died.

“When I started teaching,” East recalled, “I was 15 and what interested me most was not having major theater productions, but to be able to go to all these convalescent homes and to senior citizen centers and bring joy to them. I never belonged to a regular professional ballet company.”

A week before the show at the Regency Oaks, piano music could be heard outside the Diane East School of Dance, which, for the past 17 years, has occupied a green, frame building at the corner of Flower Street and Ardmore Avenue.

Inside, in a rectangular room lit by a large front window, students practiced ballet as Michael MacMullen, East’s music director, played a selection by Chopin.

“ Passe ,” East instructed in her soft voice. Each of the 10 students, who ranged in age from preteen to adult, lifted a slippered toe against the opposite knee. “Very good,” she said.

When she requested a grande jete , she leaped across the wooden floor. When she demonstrated a pirouette, she spun with the litheness of a much younger dancer. Asked if she has the stamina she used to have, she laughed and said, “Why, absolutely not. I’ll be 50 in May, and I don’t think any 50-year-old can be the same as a 30-year-old.”

A woman with a classical, narrow face, East reflects ballet’s grace and discipline, and insists that her students do the same.

The ballerinas practiced in lacy skirts over leotards and white tights. Their hair, adorned with bows, was pulled back into buns. East, whose own hair fell to her waist, looked elegant in a pink skirt.

“I’m a very old-fashioned person,” she said. “I don’t think I’m a snob, but I like refined things. I feel manners are very important, and I stress grooming in my school. You act as you are dressed. You can go to any school around and you’ll see a lot of garbage--sweat shirts and all different things. My students are very neat.”

The students do not complain about her dress code or her insistence that they come to class on time. “It makes you a better person,” said Roxanne Gautreau, 25, of Norwalk, who has been coming to East since age 3. “She’s become a little softer, but she expects you to respect her rules. If you’re not disciplined, you’ll never be able to dance.”

East’s eyes sparkled as she watched her students, who were now dancing to a piece by Cole Porter. The young ballerinas focused intently, but couldn’t suppress giggles when they saw themselves in the mirror trying to keep their balance.

“They’re very, very lovely girls,” East said. “They have a certain air about them, a lot of self-confidence. They have very few of the normal problems of the teen-agers of today, because they are so involved with what they do. They’re willing to give hours of their time to the community.”

East still attends classes--sometimes with her own students--that are taught by Tatiana Riabouchinska in Beverly Hills. Riabouchinska, who danced with the Ballet Russe Monte Carlo and the London Festival Ballet, said of East, “She’s a wonderful teacher. All her children are well-trained.”

One of them, 11-year-old Alina McHugh of Long Beach, danced last year with the San Francisco Ballet, playing Clara in “The Nutcracker” at the Orange County Performing Arts Center.

“I like to play tennis, but mainly I’m here,” Alina said in the small Bellflower office--decorated with certificates of appreciation--that adjoins the dance studio.

East’s students, about 60 altogether, including five men, spend between eight and 15 hours a week practicing for about 30 shows each year. “In ballet you need to work,” said East, who does her own choreography. “It’s continual work.”

The dance business has repaid East, not with a financial bonanza, but with a sense of satisfaction. “The money is nothing,” she said. “I’m an artist, a teacher and a giver to the community.”

In the early 1970s, she formed the Bellflower Performing Arts Company, an informal group that performs at the Bristol Civic Auditorium, which is on Civic Center Drive.

Her job has always been time-consuming, even now that she’s cut back to teaching only twice a week.

“For a Meals on Wheels (benefit) performance in May I literally got about 4,500 yards of material, cut that all up and made 80 costumes myself,” she said. “My mom has always done that since I was little, but she’s 80 years old now and has arthritis. I don’t mind the time but I have a wonderful husband and I would like to spend more time with him.”

Her husband of 30 years, William Anthony, is an asphalt concrete specialist. “On the other end of the spectrum from me,” she said with a laugh. “But he’s very supportive. He’s built scenery all these years.”

Though East will no longer put on benefits and major productions, she still intends to perform, along with her students, at hospitals and nursing homes.

“I started doing this kind of thing when I was 5,” she had said after the show at the Regency Oaks, looking out at the residents in the wheelchairs. “It’s such a joy. All these people are very happy because of us.”