If you go
› What: Dance Alive/Elite performance.› When: 6 p.m. Friday, July 22.› Where: UTC Fine Arts Center, 752 Vine St.› Admission: Free.› Phone: 423-821-2055.
About the visiting artists
* Samantha Shelton is ballet professor at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Mich., and has performed with or choreographed for professional companies across the country. In May 2012, she spent three weeks in Taiwan, teaching and presenting a piece of choreography for National University of Tainan.* Marlayna Locklear is in her eighth season with the Dayton (Ohio) Contemporary Dance Company. She teaches and choreographs at universities around the nation and is founder/director of Indurance Dance Intensive.* Mark Burns began his dance training at age 8 in New York City with the Harlem Children’s Theater. He made his Broadway debut two years later as a dancer and vocalist in the “The Magic Talisman.” At 11, he received a full scholarship to the Joffrey Ballet, and at 16 he received a full scholarship to New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. After graduating from NYU, he received apprenticeships from Miami City Ballet and Dance Theater of Harlem. He currently works with Collage Dance Collective, Roswell Dance Theater and is a master instructor at the Tolbert Yilmaz School of Dance in Georgia.* Brian Gephart is a professional dancer who received ballet training from North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, Houston Ballet II and Ballet Tennessee.
For the past two weeks, children from Chattanooga recreation centers have been learning fundamentals of ballet in free lessons taught by Ballet Tennessee's Dance Alive program.
These dancers will join with intermediate and advanced students in Ballet Tennessee's Summer Intensive for a free public performance Friday night, July 22, in the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Fine Arts Center. It's a show-and-tell performance of what the 8- to 12-year-olds in Dance Alive have learned; and it's a recital for the company's more advanced dancers, many of whom got their start in Dance Alive.
Dance Alive is an introductory dance program taught through a partnership between Ballet Tennessee and the Chattanooga Department of Youth and Family Development. Auditions are held for interested children in area rec centers in June. Those selected are transported from their centers for two hours of dance and choreography instruction, Monday through Friday for two weeks, at Ballet Tennessee in the John A. Patten Recreation Center in Lookout Valley. The children are encouraged to be creative, and sometimes their ideas are incorporated into the choreography they learn.
Not all children will develop a passion for dance, organizers say, but all benefit from these sessions' reinforcement of life skills such as taking responsibility to be on time and arrive to class prepared, and instructors' encouragement to develop creative thinking.
Children from the introductory program are eligible for Talent Identification Program scholarships, which provide further training in classical ballet, modern dance and jazz at Ballet Tennessee.
Students from these Ballet Tennessee classes have received full-tuition scholarships to nationally known programs such as Ailey School Summer Intensive, Joffrey School, American Ballet Theater summer programs and Boston Ballet's Summer Intensive.
Ballet Tennessee's most recent success story is LaJeromeny Brown, a student at Center for Creative Arts, who has received a full scholarship to the School of American Ballet's winter term.
Ballet Tennessee's most famous success story is Fred Davis, who began training with Ballet Tennessee at age 11 and was given the opportunity to pursue a professional career as a dancer with The Joffrey Ballet School by the time he graduated from high school.
Guest artists joining the Ballet Tennessee company this summer have included Davis, Samantha Shelton, Marlayna Locklear, Mark Burns and Brian Gephart.
Davis documentary available to PBS stations nationwide
“From the Streets to the Stage: The Journey of Fredrick Davis,” the life story of Fredrick Davis produced by WTCI-TV, is now available to PBS stations across the country through PBS Plus.The documentary tells how Davis was a child living in poverty and homelessness when he was introduced to Dance Alive, a city-sponsored ballet class, at age 11. Despite a turbulent personal life, he received support from instructors at Ballet Tennessee, teachers and staff at Center for Creative Arts, his church family and community to further his dance instruction. His talent and perseverance helped him overcome the odds to make his dream of becoming a professional dancer a reality.Upon graduation from high school, Davis was invited to study at the prestigious Joffrey Ballet School and eventually joined Dance Theatre of Harlem. He returns to Chattanooga each year to assist Anna VanCura and Ballet Tennessee in teaching today’s children through the same city-sponsored program that changed his life.WTCI will present a repeat airing of this inspirational documentary at 4 p.m. Sunday, July 31.