DOWNTOWN : Students Get Lesson From Ballet Troupe

Some fidgeted, some giggled, some sat silent with anticipation.

All eyes were fixed, in wide-eyed awe, on the stage at the majestic Orpheum Theatre as the heavy curtain lifted. There, eight ballet dancers stood poised, clad in leotards and smiling at the audience of several hundred elementary school students.

A roar of ooohs and aaaahs erupted from the audience.

And so began a recent ballet lecture and demonstration provided to local children by the Joffrey II Dancers, the training troupe of the Joffrey Ballet.

In an effort to educate and expose inner-city youths to the ballet, the New York-based Joffrey II and the local Golden State Minority Foundation, a nonprofit minority-support organization, held a week of performance-lectures at the Orpheum Theatre on Broadway for 5,000 students from 18 schools throughout Los Angeles.

During the half-hour sessions, Joffrey II artistic director Jeremy Blanton explained ballet steps, classroom exercises and techniques to the audience as the 15- to 23-year-old members of the company demonstrated. “Dancers never finish their training,” Blanton told the audience. “They never finish going to school.”

Blanton stressed the grueling hours dancers spend on exercises and rehearsals. He and the dancers--four women and four men--then conducted an impromptu class, with the artistic director calling out steps and positions such as the plie (a knee bend) , pas de deux (partner moves), arabesque (balancing on one leg as the other is extended back) and one-foot pirouette twirls, which elicited a “Whoa!” from the audience.

“If you hear me saying funny words, that’s because it’s in French, because the ballet began in the courts of Louis XIV in France,” Blanton explained. Audience members were later heard trying to imitate Blanton as he called out steps in a melodic chant.

The eight dancers performed excerpts from various ballets and, finally, the company answered questions from the audience, including, “Is it hard to lift the girl?” and “Does it hurt?”

“The children are very responsive and attentive,” said Blanton. “Hopefully, the children of today are the audience of tomorrow.”

The outreach program also provides the apprentice dancers a positive performance experience. “Their reactions are so sincere,” said Tara Lee, 18, a Connecticut teen who joined the troupe in October.

“You think they’re going to be laughing at you because they’re so young, but they’re really interested,” said Amy Smith, 19, of Atlanta, who joined the troupe in January.

For 15-year-old Sean Stewart, the youngest troupe member, the importance of the outreach program is clear; he became hooked on dance when he first saw a performance at age 10. Before that, “I said, ‘Dance is for girls,’ ” said Stewart, a Northern California native.

Indeed, all the boys and girls in teacher Ruth Hirose’s second-grade class at Manchester Avenue Elementary School in South-Central were particularly impressed by the male dancers’ performances.

“I think it was exciting when the boy lifted the girl up with his hands and the boy turned around,” said Cristian Carrillo, 8.

“They were strong,” said Deibe Chavez, also 8. “I wish I could be one of them.”