A dance studio gets back on its feet

Maritza Cruz Salinas is not about to settle for a bad ballerina bun of a hairstyle.

"You're not doing it right, Mom," the 10-year-old snaps, reaching for her brown locks and wiggling impatiently in her black leotard and powder-pink tights. "It has to be perfect."

Perfect because class is about to begin -- and, for the first time, the fifth-grader will dance on her toes like a real ballerina. And she must look the part.

Across the shiny walnut floors and freshly painted walls of Gabriella's Place dance studio in the Pico-Union district, she and nearly 500 other children are celebrating the return this month of a popular dance program that closed three years ago after losing its home. The closure came after rain heavily damaged the makeshift studio inside a dilapidated church building, making it uninhabitable.

It was a major loss in the immigrant neighborhood, where the $5-per-month classes offered a rare relief to families, many of whom live in tiny apartments and travel by foot or bus. One student, Norbert de la Cruz, went on to receive a full dance scholarship to the prestigious Juilliard School in New York.

"It was heartbreaking," said Liza Bercovici, executive director of the Gabriella Axelrad Education Foundation, which runs the program. "This was a very important part of many of these kids' lives."

But Bercovici was not about to let it vanish entirely.

The families had grown very attached to the classes, Bercovici said. She quickly shuffled about 400 children to another dance studio the nonprofit operates near Lafayette Park. But with little space, many children were left out. And although the new site was just a mile away, it was too far for many parents.

Bercovici was determined to raise enough money to find a spacious new home. She partnered with Philip Lance, the founder of Pueblo Nuevo Development, a nonprofit that runs a charter school in Pico-Union. They began asking charitable foundations for donations.

It took the two groups three years to raise $1.5 million, enough to buy a warehouse at 661 S. Burlington Ave. and turn it into a dance studio.

In the meantime, the program was so sought-after in the community that its waiting list grew to 2,300 names. Today it's at about 1,700.

Maritza Cruz Salinas, who was 7 at the time, signed up and waited, hopeful that the program would find a new building and reopen. In September, her invitation finally came.