It’s 4 p.m. on a Monday and a corner of Studio One is piled with backpacks, jackets, water bottles and street shoes. The school day is over but these kids are just beginning.
Stripped down to body-hugging pink tights and black leotards, the 15 young dancers in this advanced ballet class focus on the task at hand.
“Piqué, soussus, plié, soutenu and around. Let’s see some neck!” calls out Mark Foehringer, artistic director of Western Ballet, a Mountain View ballet company and school.
Lanky limbs reach and torsos extend in the airy studio. Light floods in from skylights 20 feet overhead, while the scent of fresh white paint lingers in the air.
Over the past three decades, Western Ballet has grown from a one-studio operation first known as Palo Alto Dance Theater to a Mountain View-based school and performing company totaling 450 dancers. Recently, the group relocated from a 5,000-square-foot facility at 2028 Old Middlefield Way, its home for the past 15 years, to a nearby facility at 914 N. Rengstorff Ave. that is nearly double the size.
But even with three generous dance studios, a pilates room, and on-site storage for props and costumes, the new facility is already busy with classes of all ages, Foehringer said. While he said there’s still room for growth, he noted that just days after the school moved, all three studios were full of students.
One of those regular students is 18-year-old Alison Share. In a recent class, she stands tall and composed at the head of a line of fellow dancers at the barre, helping Foehringer demonstrate a new combination to the class. He briskly calls out the steps in French; her body responds without hesitation.
Share began pre-ballet classes with Western Ballet at age 4 and has been with the school ever since. She says she has seen a subtle shift in the instructional approach since she began taking lessons here.
“The school is focused a lot more on how you dance, instead of forcing your body to do things that it doesn’t want to do,” said Share, a senior at Homestead High School in Cupertino and a member of Western Ballet’s student company.
Under the care and scrutiny of Foehringer, who has directed the school and company for the past 10 years, Western Ballet’s emphasis is on training top-quality performers, not merely dancers who can execute steps.
Previously, the school focused principally on the technical aspects of dance, said Katherine Wells, 25, a Mountain View native who trained for several years at Western Ballet before entering the professional dance world straight out of high school. Now instructors also emphasize issues of artistic performance, like musicality and the questions dancers should ask themselves when preparing for a role, Wells said.
Foehringer said it takes about 10 years, on average, to properly train a dancer. “It’s not an art form that you can dabble in,” Foehringer said. “This is like learning how to play an instrument. You can’t slack off on it. You have to practice the whole time.”
Aside from the pre-professional track for youth, Western Ballet also offers adult classes. The adult program has grown significantly over the last 15 years and now makes up the majority of the school’s student body, Foehringer said. Western Ballet’s comprehensive, leveled adult classes — including pointe for the ladies — make it unusual among adult dance programs, Foehringer said.
“Adult dancers do not have that many options for good ballet training. They are often seen by many as second-class students,” he said. “We provide [adult] students with the same high-caliber training as the pre-professional youth.” As an example, he said the school employs the same instructors in both programs.
Foehringer’s goal is to increase class offerings in both the youth and adult programs from the current 55 to roughly 80 classes within the next year.
Typically, Western Ballet puts on two big performances annually: “The Nutcracker,” plus another classic such as “Sleeping Beauty” or “Coppelia.” These full-length ballets are held in the winter and spring at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts.
Prior to 1999, Western Ballet had been the center’s home company. But due to the center’s extensive performance and revenue requirements, Foehringer opted out of home company status to concentrate on dancer training and quality preparation for his group’s semi-annual ballets.
For example, center officials required Western Ballet to perform four times a year at the center and to do half of its season there, he said.
Foehringer generally sticks to the classic ballets because, he says, rehearsing and performing these works provide excellent training and experience for the dancers. And he doesn’t believe in “dumbing down” the steps.
He gestures to a row of students rehearsing for an upcoming staging of “Paquita.”
“That’s what the real corps [de ballet] would be doing,” he says. “These are smart kids; they can really figure it out. I push them to rise to the occasion.”
Besides putting on full-length ballets, Western Ballet also does a handful of other shows throughout the year. This year, that included the Mountain View Dance Festival, which the company hosted at its new studios last weekend on April 30. Twenty-two local dance groups, including Western Ballet’s company, performed a series of short pieces at the one-day festival.
Typically, performances are what draw new students and parents to the school, Foehringer said. “They’ve either seen a show or heard about the quality of the performance, and they want to be a part of that,” he said.
Back in the school, the floor bounds as groups of taut bodies leap and land in concert. Faces are focused, and eyes stare into an unseen audience.
“Lift the elbow. Bring your upper back forward, please. … How about a smile?” Foehringer suggests. With a dash of humor, he adds: “Don’t be a chicken or it won’t happen. Push yourself!”
He gets results — and giggles — in return.
INFORMATION:
What: The Mountain View Ballet Company and School presents “Paquita and More,” a mixed bill with original new works and classical ballet
When: Saturday, May 20, 8 p.m.
Where: MainStage, The Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro Street
Cost: $15
Info: Call (650) 903-6000, or order tickets online by visiting www.ci.mtnview.ca.us/mvcpa. Western Ballet can be reached by calling (650) 968-4455, e-mailing info@westernballet.org, or visiting www.westernballet.org.
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