“And 1, and 2, and 3, and 4…” The instructor stood front and center, demanding the attention of her pupils without uttering a word. She concocted a series of steps in her head and demonstrated them. The slim, muscular figures in skintight leotards nod and easily execute the dance without question.
It seemed the dancers had a language of their own. All the strange terms pouring out of the instructor’s mouth baffled me, but the girls had a graceful move to match every word. I cringed as I watched the girls slowly fold in half with smooth ease — something that would just about snap me in half.
These ballerinas are not professionals — not yet.
They walk down these hallways, they sit in these classrooms. Sophomore Adriana Gramly, junior Sophie Laufer and senior Nora Byers are Free State students by day, ballerinas by night.
“Dance is an individual and a team sport,” Laufer said. “Don’t compare yourself to others. Observe what they are good at and use them to improve and motivate yourself.”
The dancers are currently preparing for the annual presentation of The Nutcracker (showing at the Arts Center this December) with about 17 extra hours a week, on top of their regular rehearsals, which range from an hour and a half to three and a half hours every night.
Laufer and Gramly have the honor of participating this May in the Regional Dance America Festival in Montreal with their company. The festival involves 85 ballet companies from across the nation. They were accepted after submitting an audition video. The company will receive a visit by representatives of the festival, who will then decide which dance they will perform.
“It feels awesome knowing that we got accepted,” Gramly said. “I can’t wait to spend a week of dance with my best friends.”
The girls believe they couldn’t have gotten anywhere without their faithful instructor, founder and artistic director of Lawrence Ballet Theatre, Cynthia Crews. She expects a lot from them, which obviously pays off in the end.
She advises her pupils to “work every day like you want to be the best one in class, on stage, or in the world.”
Although most of the girls intend on receiving scholarships from their dancing careers, many do not plan to dance as a profession. Byers doesn’t plan on following in Crews’ footsteps.
“I don’t want to major in dance, but I’ll probably take classes,” she said.
At school, each is just one of us, tiredly trudging down the hall; but onstage, they’re a ballerina, moving with the utmost grace and precision.
As Crews says, “Love the work as much as the magic of the dance. Dance because you love it and can’t imagine life without it.”