On Saturdays, the serious study of dance starts early at this renovated church in Foster. By 10 a.m. at ballet tech ohio's school in this Warren County hamlet, the 4-year-old pre-ballets are finished and out the door when the 5-year-olds begin to stretch and twirl.

        On a recent morning, seven little girls with sleepy eyes sit quietly, legs crossed, fingers pointed on knees to keep busy hands still. Director Claudia Rudolf Barrett nudges them gently into a slow warm-up with head circles and shoulder rolls.

Lauren Thomas, 5, gets personal instruction from Ms. Barrett. (Dick Swaim photos) | ZOOM |

        “Blow up a big balloon,” she says when she wants them to round their arms in a ballet position. To encourage ballet's turned-out walk: “Your heels should kiss as they pass each other,” she instructs. Giggles and “I can do it” are heard throughout the room.

        Ms. Barrett has the look of a picture-perfect ballerina — long slim legs and straight back, her strawberry blond hair pulled up off slender shoulders and neck. Who is this graceful woman who can slip easily into the world of a 5-year-old beginner yet attracts teachers the caliber of Russian dancers Anna Reznik and Alexei Kremnev?

        She's a wife and mother, a teacher, mentor, employer, choreographer and organizer for about 150 students and seven teachers. Her company features children in professional productions with kids' themes, which means professional dancers and choreographers are hired to take part. The productions are staged in a major theater, this spring in the Aronoff Center.

        Classes — from beginner to advanced, ballet to jazz, including nutrition and injury prevention at summer workshops — continue five days a week as students come and go, keeping three studios buzzing. She spends the other two days rehearsing her performing group.

        She must be making a bundle, right?

        “Is there any money in it? No,” she says in her quiet, soft-spoken voice. “It's a labor of love.”
       

Do as I do

        Her manner is genteel, her carriage courtly, so it's a jolt when all 5 feet 9 inches of this former ballerina who says she's “old enough,” rolls on the floor with her young students. It's a “do as I do” moment. Crawling from girl to girl, she helps them stretch their tiny legs and reminds them to pull in baby soft bellies.

Ms. Barrett leads a group of 5- and 6-year-olds in ballet basics. | ZOOM |

        Asked if she dreamed she would be doing this, she laughs. “You mean did I think I'd have a school this large and a performing group, too? No. I just thought I'd teach a few students.”

        “Claudia is great in communication with small kids,” Mr. Kremnev says of the woman responsible for bringing him and his wife to Cincinnati. “She is very creative when she works on choreography ... and we don't know when she sleeps.”

        Mr. Kremnev and wife Anna were hired to teach at ballet tech ohio's summer workshop in 1997. After Ms. Barrett saw the couple in the studio, she tipped off Cincinnati Ballet, which signed them immediately. The couple won the hearts of ballet audiences. They left the company in October for the faculty at Northern Kentucky University. They still teach at ballet tech.
       

Tutus worth the trip

        Ms. Barrett met her husband, Ian Barrett, when they both danced for Cincinnati Ballet. Retired from dance, except when she can pull him onstage in one of her productions, he maintains the X-ray equipment for the Mercy Hospital System. Their son Alexander, 22, studies music production in Florida.

        But most of her time is spent passing on a passion for dance in this tiny town nudged between Paramount's Kings Island and Landen.

        “I'm always doing one thing and thinking about five others,” she says.

        One fit of passion took her on a bus ride to Philadelphia to fetch some affordable tutus she had located because “we were doing Sleeping Beauty,and the girls needed real tutus to dance as real fairies.”

        The jeweled net skirts are difficult to make and usually outrageously expensive. She shoved about 20 of them in large garbage bags for the bus ride home.

        “You wanna see my closet?” she asks between classes.

        Who could resist? Hers is an antique glass and wood case that holds memorabilia from a lifetime of collecting: Old pointe shoes worn and autographed by famous ballerinas, including Suzanne Farrell and Melissa Hayden. George Balanchine's signature leaps off a page of an old book that has been signed by a who's who of names in the ballet world.
       

Uniform look

        Ms. Barrett is a keeper of tradition. Every class has its uniform, a variation on black leotard and pink tights. Hair is pulled back in neat buns. No jewelry is allowed. She's miffed to see jewelry in one of her advanced classes and walks around asking girls to take it off.

        Not a leg warmer in sight either. Why? “Because when they get onstage, they can't wear leg warmers. Besides they need a respect for their art. And when they're all dressed exactly the same, you can tell what they're doing.”

        Grabbing a book with pictures of students from the Bolshoi and the School of American Ballet where she once studied, she points out that there's not a single bauble on a single ear lobe.

        “Every major school has a dress code,” she says.

        Ms. Barrett attracts students looking for that kind of discipline. Lynn Spiegel says she drives daughter Hannah, 12, 50 miles every day from their Bridgetown home to classes and rehearsals.

IF YOU GO

What: ballet tech ohio performing arts association in La Fille Mal Gardee, staged by Anna Reznik and Alexei Kremnev     When: 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday 2 p.m. next Sunday Where: Jarson-Kaplan Theater, Aronoff Center for the Arts, downtown.     Tickets: $15 at the Aronoff and Music Hall box offices, Ticketmaster locations, 241-7469 or www.ticketmaster.com

        “We tried other local schools, but after a summer workshop three years ago, Hannah said "This is it. This is where I want to dance.' ”(Hannah won a gold medal at the school's first competition at the prestigious Youth America Grand Prix in Chicago.)

        Courtney Sanborn, 14, a silver medalist at the competition, says she enrolled at the studio two years ago after studying other places and not finding what she needed.

        “The technique is very good here and we have lots of performance opportunities,” Courtney says. She also is learning first-hand how a professional company should be run, a direction she would like to go after “ ... a professional dancing career.”

        Epiphany Davis, 12, has been at ballet tech as long as anyone, initially tagging along as a baby with mom Marvel Gentry Davis.

        “It feels like family,” Epiphany says. “And I love all the teachers she brings in for summer workshops.”
       

Generous to others

        Ms. Barrett generously opens her doors to others, teachers with international reputations and busy teaching schedules, such as the Bolshoi Ballet's Aleksandr Bondarenko and Larisa Sklyanskaya. How does she get them here?

        “I pick up the phone and call ... and I pay them well. You know, I studied with many wonderful teachers, and each one had something to offer. They inspired me. I feel I'm a good teacher, but they (students) need to work with other teachers, too.”

        Her generosity extends beyond the studio, Mr. Kremnev says. “We lived in her house for almost four months (when they first arrived), and she drove us every morning to Cincinnati Ballet. She was always helping us in every possible way.”

        Because of a major dance injury at age 26 (“I nearly lost my foot”), she moved into teaching early and continued her career at Cincinnati Ballet as rehearsal assistant and ballet mistress until she retired in 1990.

        It was a chance drive through out-of-the-way Foster that sparked the idea of her own place. She fell for the crumbling old Catholic church nestled in a stand of trees.
       

Taste of the big stage

        Ms. Barrett mounts four major productions at the Aronoff each year where she brings students together with professional dancers onstage.

        It's part of the drill; if you study, you need to perform. Including professionals raises the level of the production from the dance recital format.

        Stopping three little girls on the way out of class, we ask “Who wants to dance on the big stage some day?”

        In unison, Lauren Thomas, Claire Hauck, both 5, and Kate Etter, 6, squeal “Me!”

        They get their first chance this week when all three make their big stage debuts in the comic ballet La Fille Mal Gardee. An 18th-century chestnut, this story ballet has classical dance — and clogging, too.
       

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