Getting Kids Off on the Right Foot

To the infectious lilt of an Irish folk tune, four dancers strike out on a diagonal in the Segerstrom Studio at St. Joseph Ballet’s spanking-new building in Santa Ana.

To the foot-tapping “River Dance”-style rhythms, they roll one leg up, shake out their shoulders, flex their arms in scarecrow poses, then lean way back and snap their fingers in supercool clicks.

A new group of four bounds out for its turn. Then another, and another . . . .

Soon the studio is pulsing with verve, energy, concentrated looks and bright smiles when the young dancers occasionally make mistakes.

It’s a happy collaboration of two troupes, one professional, one eager to learn, although many of the dancers are close in age. Advanced St. Joseph Ballet students are being taught Eliot Feld’s “The Jig Is Up” by members of Feld’s New York-based company, Ballet Tech, as part of a five-day residency at the St. Joseph’s that began Friday.

It’s a prelude to Ballet Tech performances this weekend at the Irvine Barclay Theatre.

Feld created Ballet Tech in 1997, drawing members from the academic and dance school he established through a program to identify children in the New York City Public School system who had a talent for dance.

To date he has auditioned more than 375,00 children from 482 schools and selected more than 10,000 children for tuition-free dance training. Ballet Tech is now a fully professional company, but the two troupes do share common ground.

St. Joseph Ballet was founded in 1984 by Beth Burns to provide free or low-cost dance education to at-risk inner-city children.

The residency is the brainchild of Douglas C. Rankin, president of the Irvine theater sponsoring the company performances and the residency.

“I knew Eliot’s company and was aware of his extraordinary effort for dance education in the schools in New York,” Rankin said recently. “I thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be a grand idea to put those two companies together and see what synergy developed?’ ”

He approached both groups and found immediate interest.

“But there had to be some compelling reason to take some weeks out of the company’s life to go somewhere else,” he said.

“Ballet Tech had to have a legitimate setting, which is our dance series. And secondly, and possibly more importantly, to justify their leaving New York for any period of time, it had to create a significant impact both ways. Their own company had to be rewarded by the interaction, as well as St. Joseph’s.”

Judging from the lively interplay between dancers, it has been a two-way street.

“We’ve gotten a chance to meet new people and interact with new dancers, said Ballet Tech’s Patricia Tuthill, 21, who has been taking classes at Feld’s school since she was 10. “But we’ve gotten something from them as well. We see the joy when they dance. It was sort of a reminder of what got us into it.”

St. Joseph Ballet students proved to be quick learners. After repeating that opening sequence of “The Jig Is Up” maybe 20 or 30 times, the students were getting it down cold and ready to tackle the next sequence.

“They’ve had good training,” said Ballet Tech ballet mistress Patrice Hemsworth. “There are things I don’t have to teach them.”

She seemed suitably impressed. So did Ballet Tech’s Jeannine Lowery, 17. “We were just as nervous as they were, or at least I was,” she said. “We didn’t know what to expect. But it was great. We really got to see how they dance and how we can learn from each other and relate to one another. . . . They had a lot of determination. It was inspiring.”

The inspiration went both ways.

“Watching Ballet Tech perform and then taking class with them has really been encouraging,” said Oscar Gutierrez, 14, who has been with St. Joseph Ballet for nearly five years. “It does encourage me to become a dancer, if I can make it.”

* Eliot Feld’s Ballet Tech will dance “The Jig Is Up” and other Feld repertory Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. at the Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive. The company will dance a shorter program Sunday at 3 p.m. $28-$32. (949) 854-4646.