Children Dance for Joy at Arts School

Maya Marshall always wanted to take dance classes, but there were no dance schools in her South Los Angeles neighborhood until the Sammy Davis Jr. Performing Arts School opened three years ago.

Now the school’s dance studio is the 13-year-old’s second home. Four times a week after school, Marshall takes modern, ballet, jazz and street dance classes there. She also sweeps the dance floor and stocks shelves in an adjacent convenience store that augments the school’s income.

“The teachers care about us,” Marshall said. “We learn a lot from them, and we have a lot of fun.”

Transformed from a run-down storefront at 11154 S. Western Ave. into a community arts center, the Sammy Davis Jr. Performing Arts School--formerly the South-Central Los Angeles Performing Arts School--is the dream of Bill and Sonya Evans.

Although the school’s students have provided voice-overs for the Saturday morning cartoon “MC Hammer and Kids” and performed in the motion picture “The Five Heartbeats,” among other productions, Bill Evans said his primary aim has been to give area children the chance to explore the arts at a nominal cost.

“We looked around for a long time and chose this neighborhood,” Evans said of his search for a site for the dance school. “There are few recreational activities for kids in the area, and many schools don’t have art programs.”

Students pay $1.20 per lesson or $20 per month.

The fees are not enough to cover expenses, so parents and children often volunteer at the school to help offset costs.

In addition to driving students to performances, Tanya Marshall, Maya’s mother, also volunteers as the school’s bookkeeper.

“I was surprised by the amount of attention they (the students) get for the money they pay,” Marshall said. “I wanted to help because I believe in what they are doing. It means a lot to the community.”

If booming enrollment is any measure of success, the Evanses have more than met their goal. Offering acting, ballet, and jazz, modern, street and tap dance, voice and instrumental music, tumbling and kung fu classes, the school--founded in 1989 with a few students--now reaches an estimated 450 children in South and South-Central Los Angeles.

From 1990 to 1991, revenues at the nonprofit school grew from $18,000 to $88,752, said Sonya Evans, who is the executive director. Because demand for the classes has outgrown the storefront site, sessions are being offered at Jesse Owens Park.

Ballet instructor Bronica Nettles, a 22-year-old senior dance major at Loyola Marymount University, said the friendliness of the students and teachers at the school differs from the strict ballet teachers she had as a child.

“There is a loving atmosphere here,” Nettles said.

“We’re not here just to teach, we’re here as friends. They (students) talk to me and say what’s on their mind . . . They are very excited to be here.”