Charlie Sosnick
Editor of Online Content
Whatever you do, don’t say it’s not a sport. For the students at the New England Academy of Dance (NEAD), ballet is a way of life that draws their time, energy, and dedication. From age three, students train for hours every day as they develop their talents. In high school, many dancers join the company, which is currently preparing for their Spring Show, Les Sylphides and Peter and the Wolf.
The company is the highest level of ballet offered at NEAD for student dancers. Freshman Maria Fagerstal joined the company this year. According to Maria, company members are “people who really fit the role, work really hard, and have all their technical stuff down.”
Classes and rehearsals consume much of the dancer’s time. “We have class for two hours, six days a week,” Maria said. “You have to be really dedicated and work really hard.”
Junior Kristin Davis is also a company member who feels the draw on her time. “It’s a really, really big time commitment because attendance is very important,” she said.
This time commitment is required because ballet is such a demanding activity. “Ballet has more discipline, it’s more methodical, and it requires more grace than other dance forms,” Kristin said.
Maria believes that ballet is as difficult as other sports. “A dancer works just as hard as any regular athlete,” she said.
Kristin goes one step further; she thinks ballet demands even more than other sports. “We dance every day of the week except Friday and we have rehearsal for as long as eight hours on Saturday and Sunday,” she said. “Other sports don’t require as much time put into them.”
NEAD director Ginna Ortiz finds that ballet dancers have the same physical qualities of even the best athletes. “Our dancers are amazing athletes with a strong core, defined muscles, power, great aerobic capacity, balance, grace, and flexibility,” she said.
The dancers are accustomed to the time commitment because they start so young, beginning ballet as early as three years old. “I think that, in the long run, it’s made me who I am today,” Maria said. “I’m a lot more disciplined person than the average regular person.”
The company member’s experience makes them leaders within the NEAD community. “All the little kids look up to us and follow us during class,” Kristin said.
Though the company members are the oldest dancers, the NEAD directors make decisions for the whole troupe regarding the spring show. “The directors really enforce the rules,” Maria said. “They make sure you know how to behave so that when you go out into the world you’re not going to be an inexperienced dancer.”
The dancers have built strong bonds with the directors over time. “Since I’ve been doing it my whole life, the directors know me and my comfort zones,” Maria said. “They know me as a dancer.”
According to Ms. Ortiz, the director’s responsibilities for the spring show are numerous. She must select music, create props, design scenery, and coordinate over 400 dancers for the performance. The rehearsals for this show last from January to early June.
Skills learned at NEAD can open other doors for dancers in the world of ballet. For the past five years, Kristin has spent her summers at the Bolshoi Academy of Ballet in New York. “I have friends from Russia, France, Belgium, Israel, and Portugal,” she said. “It’s a very cool opportunity.”
NEAD’s performance of Les Sylphides and Peter and the Wolf will be on June 14 at New Canaan High School.
