Dancing a happy ending

Young Chang

Young dancers flitted about in half-finished costumes during a

rehearsal charged to extra tizzy this week.

There was a sense of wanting to impress, of wanting to help each other

out, of wanting to make sure they wouldn’t let anyone down.

Elizabeth Chasteler, 18, and Kirby Killiam, 17, confirmed that with

ballet icons Julie Kent and Damian Woetzel scheduled to dance alongside

the members of Festival Ballet Theatre this weekend, there is greater

pressure (in a good way) to one-up even themselves.

“That we can see her dance on stage while we’re on stage is an amazing

experience,” Chasteler said of Kent, a principal ballerina with the

American Ballet Theatre.

Kent and Woetzel will perform the lead roles in “Swan Lake” for

Festival Ballet Theatre’s run of the Tchaikovsky ballet at Orange Coast

College’s Robert B. Moore Theatre today. They also performed with the

troupe on Friday.

But members of the company, made up mostly of young adults and

children, know the difference between being challenged and being

intimidated.

Kent has danced with both Chasteler and Kirby during two previous

performances with Festival Ballet. She and Woetzel, a principal with the

New York City Ballet, both danced with the company last year for

“Sleeping Beauty.”

In recent years, the Fountain-Valley based ballet company has hosted a

number of guest artists including Vitaly Artiushkin and Alla

Khaniashvili-Artiushkina, formerly of the Bolshoi Ballet; Steve Beirens

of the Joffrey Ballet; and Marcelo Gomes of the American Ballet Theatre.

Salwa Rizkalla, artistic director of the company, said Festival Ballet

is always honored to be visited by prestigious guests, but that her

dancers put on quality shows.

Kent, whose credits include the title role in “Anastasia,” Nikiya in

“La Bayadere,” Juliet in “Romeo and Juliet,” the title role in

“Cinderella” and almost a decade-full of other principal roles with ABT,

explained why she keeps returning to Rizkalla’s local company.

“It’s always a pleasure to work with young dancers and inspire them,

and their enthusiasm and dedication in striving for a high level is

inspiring for us to be around,” she said. “And when you come back year

after year, you see the children grow up, mature, and [you see] the ones

that stick with it.”

The ballerina, whose mother teaches the young students program at the

Academy of the Maryland Youth Ballet, added that she knows how difficult

it is to run a local ballet school.

“So I understand the amount of work that’s involved in putting on a

production like ‘Swan Lake,”’ said Kent, who trained at an early age at

the Maryland academy.

Plus, she added, Rizkalla is a “nice lady.”

“She is very dedicated to providing Orange County with quality ballet,

and I really admire that,” the dancer said.

Kent first performed with Festival Ballet about four years ago. She

had returned to the United States after an international performance and

found a rather frantic request from Rizkalla for an emergency dancer.

“I was replacing another dancer who had canceled at the last minute

and [Rizkalla] had advertised that a dancer from the American Ballet

Theatre would be dancing. She had to come through with that and I was

happy to help,” Kent said.

This is her ninth year of dancing “Swan Lake,” including an ABT run at

the Orange County Performing Arts Center in February, where she also

danced the role of Odette/Odile. Kent said performing with Festival

Ballet will offer her the obvious -- a chance to perform.

“It’s not the Metropolitan Opera Stage, but besides that, there are

many other qualities and aspects of a performance I can work on and use

for my own exploration and to further myself artistically,” Kent said.

The ballet is about a girl -- Odette -- who is cursed to live as a

swan and who can be released from the spell only by love. Prince

Siegfried is deterred from loving Odette, though, as the wretched

sorcerer tricks him into falling for an evil replica of Odette named

Odile.

In traditional versions of the ballet, both Siegfried and Odette

plunge off a rock and break the spell through their self-sacrificing act

of love.

In Rizkalla’s version, there is no dying.

“The ending is a happy ending,” she said. “And their love will break

the spell.”

For the dancers of Festival Ballet, the privilege of performing with

Kent and Woetzel affords each of them their own happy ending.

Scott Weber, who danced with Kent during “Sleeping Beauty” last year,

said most dancers don’t get the opportunity to dance with professionals.

“When you dance in studios, everyone has the same style and the same

mistakes, but when you see a professional, you see the little things and

what you’re doing wrong and what you need to learn,” he said.

FYI

* What: “Swan Lake”

* When: 2:30 p.m. today

* Where: Orange Coast College’s Robert B. Moore Theatre, 2701 Fairview

Road, Costa Mesa

* Cost: $17 or $20

* Call: (714) 432-5880, Ext. 1