Ballet Tech: How a Unique New York City Public School Redefines the Art of Ballet
As the sun radiated through one of the four wide windows of the ballet studio, Audrey Wong laced up her shimmering pointe shoes. It was around 11 in the morning, but Audrey had already been dancing for several hours. She pointed out the smattering of small scars on her feet -- a common price to pay for dancing pointe.
Ballet instructor Cathy Rhodes watches over a group of incoming 7th graders as they practice.
For Audrey, an 11-year-old from Queens, ballet seems to be her whole world. Audrey was selected to join Ballet Tech, a prestigious public ballet school in New York City, when she was only 8 years old. In comparison to Audrey’s massive public elementary school back in Queens, Ballet Tech was strikingly different.
The school was founded in 1974 by Eliot Feld, a prominent choreographer and instructor in the ballet community. Ballet Tech annually tours hundreds of New York City public elementary schools to audition over 30,000 students, most with little to no dance experience. After a 10-week audition process, the school picks about 40 students per year to join Ballet Tech full time. Since its founding, the school for fourth- through eighth-graders has trained and prepared students for both ballet and the real world through combining a public education with ballet training.
“We’re the only school that does it,” instructor Patrice Hemsworth says. Hemsworth, who has taught at the school since 1987, danced professionally at the School of American Ballet and Chicago City Ballet. “It’s what these high schools do, and it’s what Juilliard does, and we just do it at a younger age.”
The school has completely free tuition for its 150 students, and even provides ballet clothes and shoes. These costs are covered by its partnering non-profit, The Ballet Tech Foundation.
On the inside, for the most part, it seems like a normal public school: brightly drawn pastel self-portraits decorate the walls of the cafeteria. A filled bookshelf lines the hallway. Tiny desks fill up the colorful classrooms, which are adorned with handmade projects and posters of classroom rules. Travel a floor above, and one will find multiple well-lit ballet studios. Instead of art and posters, professional photographs of ballerinas accessorize the white walls of the hallways. Each room has a piano, often being played by one of the many professional pianists whom the school hires. Boys and girls are in most of the rooms, gracefully prancing across the wooden floors to the sound of the piano.
“Remember, what’s the main objective of ballet?” instructor and former professional ballerina Ashley Tuttle asks the crowd of incoming 7th grade girls. In unison, they respond, “To make it look easy!”
It certainly seems so as the girls stand on the tips of their pointe shoes, balancing ever so carefully as they lift their hands off of the wooden bar, stretching up to the ceiling.
Audrey keeps a careful balance on the tips of her pointe shoes, her scars covered up by the glowing laces that she tied up with care. The scars themselves are long forgotten as she attentively focuses on her poses. Ms. Tuttle shouts out ballet terms in French, and the girls immediately comply. The room is silent besides Ms. Tuttle’s commands and the soft taps of the pointe shoes along the wooden floor.
By combining a public education and such rigorous ballet training, one cannot help but wonder about the distinct impact that Ballet Tech has on its students in comparison to other public schools.
“I don’t think the schools, particularly in New York City, are as disciplined as we are,” Hemsworth says.
Student Audrey Wong practices ballet poses on the bar.
Audrey, for one, is certainly excited about the independence that the school gives her. She takes the 45-minute subway ride alone to school and back, learned to sew her own pointe shoes and mastered the piano on her own to make music to practice her ballet skills.
“Since it’s a smaller school, they focus on us more,” Audrey explains. In fact, Audrey’s ballet class currently has 26 students, which she views as a “really, really big class” for the school. Audrey is excited about the small classes, and expresses that it was a monumental difference from her old public school back in Queens.
Hemsworth believes that the school’s unique discipline and education is truly beneficial to their students, both inside and outside of the school.
“They do their homework without being told. ... They do their chores,” Hemsworth says, describing what she has heard from overjoyed parents over the years. “It immediately has an impact.”
Ballet Tech must be doing something right.
Alongside ballet, Ballet Tech educates children in subjects such as Spanish, social studies, science, ELA, math and health. The school has some of the top statistics in the city of New York.
For their 2015-16 NY State Math test results, 86 percent of their students scored at level 3 or 4 on the exam and 77 percent of their students scored at level 3 or 4 on the NY State ELA exam, according to the Ballet Tech website.
These percentages are much higher than city and state averages. According to state standards, “proficiency” is achieved when a student scores a Level 3 or Level 4 on the exams -- Level 4 being the highest possible score. According to the New York City Department of Education, 54.8 percent of students in the state of New York who took the exam in 2018 were not proficient in ELA. This shows that Ballet Tech students are excelling in academics, in comparison to most public schools, while maintaining and perfecting their ballet skills.
“In the ballet studio they are not allowed to talk,” Hemsworth explains, “so it’s the focus on the teacher that’s laser sharp that carries over to the classroom.”
A co-ed group of 7th graders practice.
Both Hemsworth and Tuttle believe that the dance is what truly brings the children together. Not only through mastering ballet, but also through learning the etiquette, discipline and independence that comes with it.
Ballet Tech, Hemsworth says, “gives you a whole world of how you set yourself up to be successful.”
Unpublished, 2019
Edited by Helen Stapinski, The New York Times
For the full Ballet Tech photo portfolio, please click here