Youths Dance Their Cares Away

Marco Aguilera stands alone in a spotlight at the center of the dance studio.

The harsh white light accentuates his slight build, making him look even younger than his 16 years. His taped voice plays over a speaker: hard truths in a soft, low tone.

“If I wasn’t in ballet, I’m sure I would be right now in a gang,” it says.

The studio goes dark for a moment, and the spotlight reappears on Maurisio Alconedo, only 13. “Most of them don’t live more than 21 years,” he says quietly on the tape. “Only the ones that quit live more. Like my cousin was only 19, and they shot him.”

For Marco, Maurisio and more than 300 other youngsters, the studio spotlight marks the intersection of two worlds: the impoverished, often violent Orange County neighborhoods in which they live and the safe harbor of the Saint Joseph Ballet, where they retreat for a few hours almost every day.

In the donated studio above Santa Ana’s Fiesta Marketplace, they feel both safe and free. Here they lower the carefully constructed barriers that help them survive on the street and channel their feelings of fear and anger, love and hope into the music and movement of dance.

For 12 years, these children have been coming to the ballet, learning to dance and to cope--long before any should have to--with poverty, gangs, drugs, domestic violence, divorce and street crime.

“Look,” the ballet’s founder and artistic director, Beth Burns, tells them during an exhausting rehearsal, “every one of you probably knows seven people in trouble. Maybe five people who’ve been shot.

“You may not feel young sometimes, but you are. And there are so many reasons to be joyful. Get into the music!”

A dancer for more than five years, Marco was once too embarrassed to stay within the circle of light as he prepared for a role he will dance this week at Saint Joseph’s annual spring performance, a role based on his experiences on the streets of Santa Ana.

But now he stands still, gazing out into the darkness around him, clearly more comfortable with his own vulnerability. Though his mother worries about the gang-style clothing he favors and whether he has turned to drugs, it is only lately that Marco can say, sounding certain, that he no longer feels tempted to join the cholos who hang out near his family’s Santa Ana apartment.

“Some adults don’t understand what it’s like growing up around gangs,” he says.

“You feel, like, lonely sometimes. You think you’re going to have more friends [if you join a gang]. Now I know it’s not true. But when other people know, they can understand more. They need to know what it’s like for us.”

Every weekday afternoon, and for most of each Saturday, the ballet’s 4,000-square-foot space above the busy central marketplace is bustling and chaotic, alive with the sounds of teenage voices, laughter and music--all kinds of music, from African to Brazilian, classical to contemporary.

There are any number of social programs that try to help kids learn the skills that can enable them to resist the dangers and temptations of their neighborhoods. Saint Joseph is the only such program in Orange County with dance as its focus.

It is one example of how to break the cycle of social problems experienced by troubled children, an alternative in a society increasingly focused on punishment instead of prevention.

Burns’ philosophy has never varied: The dance classes and performances help her students develop self-esteem, discipline and a sense of achievement, she says. These attributes make them stronger and more self-reliant, able to make better decisions when confronted with the ever-present call of the streets.

“Whether it’s on a daily basis here at the studio or when our young dancers have that shining moment on stage, I think the joy that they experience can make a practical difference in their lives,” Burns says. “It can give them the energy and the reason to not choose all those bad alternatives that constantly surround them.

“I judge [success] by what I see on their faces, by their choices, by the way they relate to themselves and each other.”

Even by more objective measures, Saint Joseph’s accomplishments are remarkable.

One graduate, Melissa Young, dances lead roles at the Dallas Black Dance Theater, returning to Santa Ana periodically to teach special classes at Saint Joseph. Sonia and Christiana Melendez, 15-year-old twin sisters, will spend this summer at the National Ballet School of Canada in Toronto in the hope of winning admission to a pre-professional ballet program. Flor de Liz Alzate, a 20-year-old Saint Joseph graduate, is enrolled at the North Carolina School of the Arts. The ballet pays a third of her tuition.

A study of 113 students in Saint Joseph’s 1993 class showed they boast an overall grade-point average of 3.0 and high levels of self-esteem, both well above similar groups of their peers.

The average Saint Joseph student comes from a family of five with a monthly income of $1,000, according to the study. Virtually all of them receive their lessons free. For 96% of the dancers, the $500 annual cost of classes, costumes, shoes and field trips is covered by scholarships provided by individual and corporate donors.

Since 1984, when the ballet was founded by Burns, a former Catholic nun blessed with an infectious enthusiasm, it has provided dance training to 1,485 children in year-round classes. More than 25,000 other Orange County children have participated in the ballet’s special workshops and community outreach programs, which offer a week of free dance classes to entice youngsters to join.

The students perform throughout the year, but the program culminates each spring with an elaborate series of concerts that is attended by thousands and requires five months of rehearsal. This year’s performances at the Irvine Barclay Theatre begin Wednesday and run through Saturday..

Burns holds auditions twice a year for new members after a series of introductory dance workshops, called DanceFree Weeks, at 24 elementary and middle schools in Santa Ana and Orange. About 3,200 kids attend the workshops each year.

All children 9 and older are invited to try out for the year-round program. In October, 77 of 120 were accepted.

Not every story ends in success, however. Some youngsters start taking the classes but drop out quickly, deciding that leg cramps and sore backs are more than they bargained for. Others stay longer and make progress but then quit and, in some cases, drift into trouble.

Two students who have left the ballet are running with gang members again, though they have not been “jumped in” as full members of the gang, says Sara Kuljis, the ballet’s managing director. Several girls have become pregnant after quitting the ballet, including one who was back to visit this month with her infant.

“Sometimes it’s very hard to get into the mentality of the kids. It can be very hard to reach them, especially if they’re the kids who are most at risk,” Burns said. “It takes real repeated efforts to try to [counteract] the messages they receive everywhere else: from the streets, from their friends, in some cases from the home.”

Counterbalancing those disappointments are the success stories. One of them is Alicia Luna, who left a Whittier gang and, after four years in the dance company, has become one of its most faithful and disciplined members.

“You can see a real iron will in her,” Burns said.

The Saint Joseph program involves much more than dancing. The ballet and sponsors in its “Adopt-a-Dancer” program send many of the students to summer camp in Idyllwild or the Sierra. Some of the camps specialize in the arts, including music and dance. Others are more generalized, featuring sports and other outdoor activities.

Burns and her three-member staff--program manager Perri Darweesh, Kuljis and Kuljis’ assistant, Monica Vasquez--also become intimately involved in the lives of many of the students, providing counseling on everything from college plans to birth control.

The ballet’s most ambitious adjunct effort began this year when it established an academic tutoring program in an adjacent building. With funding from ballet sponsors and tutors provided by UC Irvine, 13 students have received assistance since January in additional space donated by Saint Joseph’s landlords.

Even as Saint Joseph prepares for its major annual fund-raiser with the Barclay performances, the staff is looking to the future. Its annual budget of $337,000 is expected to grow to about $380,000 next year, with a planned expansion of the tutoring program, Kuljis says.

About 50% of the ballet’s funding comes from individual donors, who gave contributions ranging from $10 to $40,000 last year. The rest of the money is equally split between foundations and corporations; the donor list includes prominent Orange County companies such as Disneyland, the Irvine Co. and Taco Bell.

All three ballets to be performed this week were choreographed by Burns. One of them, titled “Talitha Koum” (which means “Little girl, get up,” in Aramaic), was first presented at last year’s performance. Based closely on the lives of the dancers, it is a multimedia presentation that includes dance, words, original paintings and black-and-white photographs that ballet members took of their families and neighborhoods.

Burns interviewed Alicia, Marco and many others, then incorporated their words--about the beauty of a positive spirit, the violent end of a gang-member cousin, the sadness of a grandmother’s death--into her choreography.

“The first year, I think they liked it but may have been a little embarrassed by it,” Burns says. “It made them feel vulnerable. But this year, there’s more of a pride: ‘This is about us. This is our community. This is who we are.’ ”

* Times correspondent Jeff Kass contributed to this story.