Saint Joseph Ballet

Students perform in Los Angelitos, choreographed by Mark Haim.

Photo: Rose Eichenbaum

Saint Joseph Ballet has developed comprehensive year-round programs to help youth effectively transfer the esteem, motivation, and risk-management skills they gain through dance to other aspects of their lives. More than 400 young people attend Saint Joseph Ballet each year, and enrollment has grown steadily since its founding in 1983. Most students are from families with limited means so they attend Saint Joseph Ballet on scholarship; 96 percent participate free of charge.

The dance training reflects Saint Joseph Ballet's commitment to artistic excellence; 42 classes are offered weekly, with six levels of proficiency. Students affirm their achievements and build confidence through performances. By inviting accomplished artists to collaborate with participants on its annual production, Saint Joseph Ballet honors the efforts of its students, and its presentations earn a prestige that many annual recitals never realize.

In addition, Saint Joseph Ballet encourages family involvement in participants' development as dancers and as young citizens. To cultivate skills and tools for coping with the many demands of raising healthy children, Saint Joseph Ballet offers educational seminars for parents on such topics as health, parenting skills, and personal finance. Ongoing professional counseling, crisis intervention, and social service referrals are also available to students and parents.

Saint Joseph Ballet also provides services that increase students' academic competitiveness, raising the chances that they will graduate from high school, enroll in college, and ultimately graduate. Students with grade point averages (GPAs) below 3.0 are offered on-site, one-on-one tutoring by community volunteers and students from the University of California, Irvine. And academic achievement is substantially rewarded: All students who attend Saint Joseph Ballet throughout high school and graduate with at least a 2.5 cumulative GPA are awarded a college scholarship.

Participants in Saint Joseph Ballet show remarkable self-assurance, social skills, expectations, and commitment to learning, according to a University of California, Irvine study. These are the tools, the report explains, that adolescents need to succeed in life. And Saint Joseph Ballet's children are succeeding. Since 1998, all of Saint Joseph Ballet's seniors have graduated from high school, with 93 percent attending college in a city with an overall college enrollment rate of 19 percent among college-eligible high-school graduates.