Thursday, December 1, 2005
In a large storage room off the Melrose Elementary School gym, dance instructor Christine Negulescu stretches out her long, thin arms and slowly reaches down to touch her bare toes. The three boys and six girls in her class watch her, then inch their own hands toward sock-clad feet. Swaying slightly, the children hold their positions, peeking at Negulescu for the cue to roll back up.
Nuts and bolts
For more information, visit Mid City Dance Project, or call (225) 924-5210.
The Mid City Dance Project also performs Giraffes Can't Dance each spring.
More stretching exercises follow. Athletes, says the lithe instructor, aren't the only ones who need to warm up. In the midst of it all, one of the girls raises her hand.
"Um. Um," she says. "What is going to be the title of our dance?"
All heads jerk toward Negulescu. It is the question of the hour. The children are itching to know their roles in the December performance of The Inner City Nutcracker.
One child asks about stage fright. Someone else pipes up about make-up and costumes. "I heard," says one of the boys, "that the soldiers get to carry guns with blanks."
"Well, not blanks," counsels Negulescu. "But there is a big battle scene between the mice and soldiers, and the soldiers carry toy guns."
The students stare wide-eyed. These children, and hundreds of others across Baton Rouge, comprise the Mid City Dance Project, an 11-year-old ballet troupe created by Renee Chatelain, a former attorney and professional dancer. Chatelain, Negulescu and eight other instructors teach at the organization's Lobdell Avenue studio and in classes at public schools and community centers. Their mission is to expose children, many of them low-income, to classical dance.
Hey, you wanna be in the show?
Eleven years of work on any social initiative is enough to leave even the most well-intentioned person jaded. But Renee Chatelain, 40, still sounds giddy. The Baton Rouge native spent several years as an attorney, then shifted her focus from the law to launching a dance troupe, and it all started with a phone call.
"It was totally by accident," she says. Chatelain was teaching dance in Baton Rouge when she got a call from organizers at the Leo S. Butler Community Center. They wanted to offer ballet to neighborhood children and needed a volunteer teacher. Chatelain accepted.
At first, it was hard to drum up interest, but Chatelain was armed with fresh enthusiasm. She hopped in her car, drove around the area and approached the children milling around the neighborhood looking bored. Her hook was the performance.
"I'd say, 'Hey, do you wanna be in the show? Get in!' and I'd drive them to practice."
Today, Chatelain teaches both dance and history at Episcopal High School, while also serving as the volunteer artistic director of the Mid City Dance Project. She credits her involvement more to timing than to anything else.
"I just fell into it," she says.
"When you're around them, you just fall in love with the kids. I get so much in return. . . I'm the lucky one."
"There's a lot of talent, but not a lot of opportunity for these kids to be introduced to ballet," Chatelain says. "For some of them, it's the only time they'll ever get to perform."
The Mid City Dance Project is a small, grass-roots program that has succeeded despite few resources. The staff is mostly part-time, and goods and services are generally donated. The company's traditional Nutcracker costumes, donated by a studio that closed, are reused and repaired each year. Sometimes, generous seamstresses will quickly sew new outfits to accommodate a sudden run on particular characters. No one who wants to perform is refused.
But Chatelain also notes the performances, which fetch up to 800 attendees each, are high-quality entertainment. The Mid City Dance Project has sparked intensive study for several young dancers over the years, including Baton Rouge native Trey Gillen, a Julliard School graduate who is now performing in the Broadway musical Movin' Out.
Four years after the project launched, Chatelain and co-founder Cecile Bankston expanded the company to include children with physical and developmental disabilities. Their belief is dance and self-expression help build an appreciation for diversity. In 2001, the lead role of Clara went to a child named Tameka who was completely deaf.
"We never turn anyone down," says Chatelain. "It's amazing, but it always works out."
Back at Melrose Elementary, Negulescu's precious hour with her students is ticking away. She herds them back into a circle, prompting one girl to ask, "Are we gonna pray?"
"No," says Negulescu. "We're gonna dance."
She switches on a portable CD player and suddenly some up-tempo piano music reserved for ballet class fills the storage room. For the children, the meager surroundings disappear, and lush costumes and battle scenes take over their imaginations. As the invisible accompanist bangs on the keys, teacher and students bend, leap and twirl.
And dream.
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