Young dancers prepare for prestigious ballet school
Centralia, Washington: It is exceedingly likely that no one in the hifalutin world of big-time ballet has ever heard of the hayseed hamlet of Adna. Brenna Witchey and Delanie Hill are doing more than hoping change that — they are working hard to make it so.
The sprite ballerinas first met at the Adna Grange Hall where they were enrolled in youth dance classes when Ms Hill was 5 years old and Ms Witchey was just 3. Now 14 and 12 years old, respectively, Ms Hill and Ms Witchey are only a few weeks away from taking their hard-earned skills to the Joffrey Ballet Academy in Manhattan for a week-long immersion in the upper crust of big-city ballet dancing.
During the school year, Ms Witchey attends St. Joseph Catholic School and Ms Hill goes to Adna High School. Both girls are 4.0 students. A typical summer winds up being a bit of a break from their busy school year schedules when they practice three to four days per week and one to five hours at a time. The short summer break always ends in August though, when practices for the mid-winter Nutcracker performances begin again. This summer though, the girls are going to work on their craft through the break with what promises to be a first-rate fleet of fancy feet instructors.
Ms Hill and Ms Witchey will leave for Manhattan on July 8 and stay through the 14th, although they wish they could stay longer. In years to come, the girls hope to earn scholarships that could help pay for additional time in the extensive program, which can stretch all the way out to an eight-week commitment.
After performing in an audition and ultimately getting accepted to the Joffrey Ballet Academy in Manhattan for the very first time this year though, the girls are simply excited to get their respective feet in the door.
“I think there’s different teachers from around the US going there,” said Ms Witchey. “It’s always good to learn new things from different people.” Finishing the thought of her friend, as they frequently do, Ms Hill added, “Sometimes it’s hard to adjust to but sometimes it’s helpful because different people learn differently.” Through their years of studying and practicing ballet, Ms Witchey and ms Hill have seen firsthand the struggles that all students inevitably encounter when trying to master increasingly difficult skills.
They noted that ballet is so humbling and demanding that most dancers don’t stick with it for very long. “A lot of girls just do it because their parents put them into it,” said Ms Hill.
Ms Witchey remembers her first struggles and gets why someone who is not in love with ballet wouldn’t want to keep at it for very long.