Ballet program a big step for these kids

Kyne Franks moves like a cat among two rows of aspiring young dancers. He straightens the line of a leg, lifts a chin off a chest, coaxing forth plies.

Then the ballet instructor offers them a secret of ballet and of life.

''We have a rule,'' he tells them. ''The slower the music, the bigger the step.''

Life's music has indeed been slow for some of these children, ages 8-11, who glance about the mirrored practice room in awe and approach the barre with timidity. Some have never been in a ballet studio before, let alone the practice room for the Cincinnati Ballet. It is a big step to be here.

They hope to become members of CincyDance!, a Cincinnati Ballet outreach program that provides three years of free lessons and ballet attire for underprivileged children. They have come from East End, Batavia, Over-the-Rhine to audition.

Some live very near the city's cultural showpieces, Music Hall and the Aronoff Center. Most have never set foot in them. Some have picked up the idea that they do not belong there.

''They can be discouraged just by body language or eye contact,'' says Jeaunita Weathersby, the ballet's director of education and outreach. ''If I'm staring at you up and down, sizing you up, I don't have to say no for me to be telling you no.''

Ms. Weathersby remembers this well.

Growing up in the West End, she knew where Music Hall was, but her working-class family did not go there. Then the Cincinnati Ballet invited her Washington Park kindergarten class to see The Nutcracker.

''It just completely overwhelmed me,'' she says, shaking her head slowly. ''I came home and said: 'Mom, we just saw the ballet. I want to be just like the little girl on that stage.' ''

Finding a way

They were pieced together from after-school classes at Washington Park, the Over-the-Rhine Community Center, School for the Creative and Performing Arts, and finally at Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music.

Dance shaped Jeaunita Weathersby's life. Now, as a driving force at the Ballet and company manager of a local African-American dance troupe, she is shaping the life of dance in the city.

Her goal: that every Cincinnati child grow up exposed to dance, as performers or appreciative audience members.

But she does not underestimate the obstacles they face.

''One is tradition,'' she says. ''Ballet is more European, not necessarily in the history of African-Americans. It's not common ground. The first thing they're going to hear is that only white people do that.''

Some will be laughed at for trying. The boys will have their masculinity called into question, she says. And some, like Ms. Weathersby, will nevertheless persevere.

Learning discipline

He executes a soaring tour en l'air. The children's mouths fall open.

They are unmistakeably inspired.

When he tells them to stretch forward ''as if you had no bones in your back,'' they move like liquid. He demonstrates a step to a Clementi sonatina. ''Do not stop dancing until you get to the corner,'' he says, and they dance right into the wall.

Somehow, within the small space of the audition, they have got the message that this is their studio, that they belong.

Jeaunita Weathersby leans forward on her seat, celebrating each wobbly arabesque. She can see their success already.

''If one actually becomes a dancer, it will be a miracle. They're starting too late,'' she says, her eyes never leaving the small forms in front of her. ''But ballet will open them up, make them more disciplined, a better student in school. What they learn in this studio will carry over into everything they do outside it.''

Audition

Krista Ramsey's column appears in The Enquirer on Saturdays. Write her at 312 Elm St., Cincinnati 45202 or fax at 768-8340.

Published Aug. 17, 1996.