A Message from the President
Valerie Barsky
Since the doors of Ballet Russe were opened in 1984, the school has pur sued one goal: to offer the highest quality education in the performing arts with classes purely taught and built on basic tech nique. Dance and the arts are steeped in tradition and dis ci pline, and are a great part of the humanities that are the back bone of our society. Dance doesn't com mand the place it should in the ed u ca tion world, but we're getting there. If we get very young people in ter est ed in dance, we can keep the art alive. Ed u ca tion in the arts is so im por tant. If you learn some thing ki net i cal ly, you don't for get it. This dis ci pline can then be applied to other areas. Not ev ery one has the body for dance. We look away from that, and we teach as if everyone is going to be a pro fes sion al. We try to get our students to have en er gy and pas sion, since after all, these should be the happiest years of their lives! We want stu dents to have wonderful memories of ballet and dance, to build last ing friend ships, and for this experience to have re al ly changed their lives. Wheth er they are dancing pro fes sion al ly or just for fun, bal let training will enable them to explore their nat u ral love of movement. The pa tience, dis ci pline, and de ter mi na tion learned in the studio can be ap plied to all their future endeavors. Since chil dren want to please their parents and teach ers, they will strive to obtain that goal. Our stu dents use the tools they de vel op in their train ing at Bal let Russe to be even better students academically, as well as struc tured and con fi dent in di vid u als. Our stu dents become physically healthy and ap pre cia tive of the soul and the beau ty of music and the Arts. We wish them the very best and hope that there will be many more children who fol low in their foot steps. We want our stu dents to re mem ber that dancing is a very sol i tary ex pe ri ence and re mem ber, "You're the one who has to be in control of your own body". Our pledge for the future is to foster our students' general well-being by con tinu ing the tra di tions, discipline, consummate train ing; and bring them even more worthwhile pro grams. We are the lucky ones; for the creation of beauty through the arts is the ultimate in human satisfaction. It passes on tradition and gives us hope.