How can society heal the wounds and raise the aspirations of its poorest youngsters? A ballet studio may seem an improbable place for clues. A Times reporter and photographer spent hundreds of hours over the past nine months with a handful of dancers at the Saint Joseph Ballet. They observed their rehearsals, visited their homes and accompanied them to school, athletic competitions and social gatherings. The ballet offers not a panacea, The Times found, but a path toward hope.
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Marco Aguilera stands alone in a spotlight at the center of the dance studio. The harsh white light accentuates his slight build, making him look even younger than his 16 years. His taped voice plays over a speaker: hard truths in a soft, low tone. "If I wasn't in ballet, I'm sure I would be right now in a gang," says Marco's recorded voice. The studio goes dark for a moment and the spotlight reappears on Maurisio Alconedo, only 13. "Most of them don't live more than 21 years," he says quietly on the tape. "Only the ones that quit live more. Like my cousin was only 19, and they shot him." For Marco, Maurisio and more than 300 other youngsters, the studio spotlight marks the intersection of two worlds: the impoverished, often violent Orange County neighborhoods in which they live and the safe harbor of the Saint Joseph Ballet, where they retreat for a few hours almost every day.
In the donated studio above Santa Ana's Fiesta Marketplace, they feel both safe and free. Here they lower the carefully constructed barriers that help them survive on the street and channel their feelings of fear and anger, love and hope into the music and movement of dance.
For 12 years, these children have been coming to the ballet, learning to dance and to cope--long before any should have to--with poverty, gangs, drugs, domestic violence, divorce and street crime.
"Look," the ballet's founder and artistic director, Beth Burns, tells them during an exhausting rehearsal, "every one of you probably knows seven people in trouble. Maybe five people who've been shot.
"You may not feel young sometimes, but you are. And there are so many reasons to be joyful. Get into the music!"
A dancer for more than five years, Marco was once too embarrassed to stay within the circle of light as he prepared for a role he will dance this week at Saint Joseph's annual spring performance, a role based on his experiences on the streets of Santa Ana.
But now he stands still, gazing out into the darkness around him, clearly more comfortable with his own vulnerability. Though his mother worries about the gang-style clothing he favors and whether he has turned to drugs, it is only lately that Marco can say, sounding certain, that he no longer feels tempted to join the "cholos" who hang out near his family's Santa Ana apartment.
"Some adults don't understand what it's like growing up around gangs," he says.
"You feel, like, lonely sometimes. You think you're going to have more friends [if you join a gang.] Now I know it's not true. But when other people know, they can understand more. They need to know what it's like for us."
Every weekday afternoon, and for most of each Saturday, the ballet's 4,000-square-foot space above the busy central marketplace is bustling and chaotic, alive with the sounds of teenage voices, laughter and music--all kinds of music, from African to Brazilian, classical to contemporary.
The hum surrounds Alicia Luna on a December afternoon. The concert is months in the future; rehearsals won't begin for another week and the mood in the studio is relaxed, even festive. Christmas is two days away.
Alicia walks slowly toward the counter in the ballet's front office. She asks program manager Perri Darweesh if she can look at the day's newspaper.
The 14-year-old leans against the counter, then takes the paper to the girls' dressing room. Her face clouds as she reads a front-page story: Another friend has been killed.
Joseph Pulido, 17, whose sister once danced with the ballet, is dead, shot in the back by Santa Ana police. They describe him as a gang member and say he pointed a stolen gun at officers as he ran from them after being stopped. The teen's parents, who have filed a lawsuit, dispute the officers' version, saying Pulido was unarmed.
Alicia, who joined a gang at the age of 11 but has left that life behind, carries the newspaper back to the counter and quietly asks Darweesh if she can keep the front section. "Is everything OK?" Darweesh asks.
Alicia, her expression stoic, just points to the article. "He was my friend," she says simply.
The second she had lost to a violent death since May.
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There are any number of social programs that try to help kids learn the skills that can enable them to resist the dangers and temptations of their neighborhoods. Few are as successful as Saint Joseph, the only one in the county with dance as its focus.
