NORTH HOLLYWOOD : Trip to America Is Music to Orphans’ Ears

Olga Pryadina looks down at her feet and shuffles nervously when you ask her about how she became an orphan in Russia. It is clearly something she does not want to talk about.

But crank up Michael Jackson’s “Dangerous” album and the blonde-haired, blue-eyed teen-ager explodes with feeling--hip-hopping around the dance floor at the Art of the Dance Academy in North Hollywood.

Olga and 10 other orphans from the former Soviet Union are in the U. S. for a cultural exchange program with the academy, which provides dance and voice lessons.

At a rehearsal last week, the group practiced steps at the academy to the music of Jackson, Mariah Carey and the band Silk.

The youths, who range in age from 12 to 18, were selected by the Russian television variety show “50/50.” After their return to Moscow next week, the program will feature the youths in a singing contest similar to “Star Search.”

“The stars in our country are created through television,” Angela Khachaturyan, artistic director for “50/50,” said through an interpreter. “At the present moment, the level of pop art music in Russia is rather low.”

Khachaturyan hopes that the trip to America will improve the youngsters’ skills at American pop singing and dancing styles. But according to the American instructors and students who have been observing them, the Russians do not have a lot of catching up to do.

“I was really surprised that they could dance as well as they could,” said Elizabeth Masterman, 13, a dance student from North Hollywood. “I thought they would be stiff.”

“They’re very focused on learning,” said Maureen Kennedy-Samuels, the academy director who coached the orphans on Friday. “They fit in with my kids right away.”

A return trip to America for further music study will be granted to the lucky winner of the “50/50” contest. Olga hopes to be that winner--saying that another trip here will help her to express herself like American teens.

“American kids . . . are very free,” she said through an interpreter. “I want the Russian pop art music to reach these standards.”