One Step at a Time : Education: Members of the touring Dance Theatre of Harlem offer students at Fremont High School an introduction to ballet.

On this stage, on this day, it doesn’t matter what you look like. It doesn’t matter that you did not start ballet when you were 7, as Endalyn Taylor-Shellman did, or that your arms do not ripple with sleek muscles like hers.

As the 27-year-old Taylor-Shellman, a member of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, effortlessly extends her black-sweat-pants-clad legs into a split and then slowly lowers her upper torso until she can practically lick the floor, there are soft murmurs of hopelessness from her proteges for the day.

“Just as far as you can go,” says Taylor-Shellman encouragingly. “That’s all we ask.”

The 30 Fremont High School students assembled on the auditorium stage are game for that. Sprung from a couple of morning classes, they stretch and split--when they can--and learn the five basic positions of ballet as well as try out more adventurous twirls and moves of trained ballet dancers.

“I’m sort of a daredevil,” says 15-year-old Shatana Smith, captain of the varsity cheerleading squad, explaining her lack of self-consciousness onstage.

What Taylor-Shellman and her fellow dancer, 25-year-old Laveen Naidu, were teaching Friday morning was part master class--the kind of class that a performer or master of an art conducts--part introduction to ballet.

The class--preceded by a lecture and demonstration to 250 students in the auditorium--was the third that dancers from the Dance Theatre of Harlem gave this week while in town for performances at El Camino College in Torrance.

The acclaimed, predominantly black company, founded by dancer Arthur Mitchell, was scheduled to open Friday night and perform through Sunday. The dancers usually give demonstrations and lectures wherever they tour. Last year in South Africa, they gave dozens in the townships.

“I’m just trying to give them some self-esteem,” says Taylor-Shellman of the Fremont students. “I don’t want anyone to feel it matters what size you are. What’s important is what you can work on--like self-esteem, like good posture.”

The pupils were mainly cheerleaders, drill team members and students of the school’s new dance class. They were of all sizes.

“It’s fun and it helps us lose weight,” one student said with a laugh.

Only a sprinkling have taken ballet class before. For the most part, they dance at parties on weekends or check out the Fly Girls on Fox TV’s “In Living Color.” They giggled and chatted and did warm-ups, but when it was time to work, they fell quiet, intent on the subject at hand.

Taylor-Shellman moves among the students, gently straightening one neophyte’s back or coaxing another’s hips and derriere into proper alignment.

When some rueful groans surface as the girls attempt to stretch into splits, Taylor-Shellman says nonchalantly, “You know, dancing, I’m sorry, it does hurt sometimes. That comes with the territory.”

But soon the music is on, Janet Jackson’s softly melodic “Where Are You Now?” wafting through the hall. From the auditorium comes the sound of fingers snapping to the music--the only sound, in fact, from an audience of about 40 students--teen-age boys and girls, hunkered down in their seats, raptly watching their classmates on stage.

Within 45 minutes, the student dancers have gone from stretching to ronde jambes and even high kicks, with a few good-natured collisions. For the finale, they are given a quick lesson in twirling, the goal being to do it nonstop diagonally downstage toward Naidu.

The class ends with a couple of jazzier moves and a boisterous picture-taking session--a memento for the school. Then the dancers are off to their own class, a rehearsal, a break and then a performance.

Shatana Smith, the cheerleader, figured she maybe picked up some steps to show the rest of the squad. She had a busy day ahead--a practice, dinner and then her performance as a cheerleader at the football game that night.