Performing Arts School of Classical Ballet has been located at the Military Highway location for 38 years, originally under the direction of Margaret Lorenz.
In 1992, Billie Fielden ("Miss Billie") assumed ownership and began guiding the school. Since then the reputation of the school as a well known classical ballet training site has continued and increased. In addition to the regular ballet syllabus a special class, Ballet Repertory, was offered beginning in 1998. Both Miss Billie and Nancy Smith, who joined the staff of the school in 1997 and now teaches the class, believe that more advanced students benefit by taking what they have learned in ballet technique classes and applying it to the actual choreography of the great classical ballets. The student members of the Repertory class have performed excerpts from "La Bayadere", "Swan Lake", "Sleeping Beauty", "Giselle" and "La Sylphide".
"Over the years", Smith notes, "our students may or may not aspire to be professional dancers, but still they devote many, many hours to ballet training because it gives them an aspect of their lives that they value - the satisfaction of working hard and creating something beautiful."
Comments from students regarding their experience in Repertory Class include:
"This has been an incredible taste of what a joy and pleasure it is to be involved in performing classical ballets. It is never stagnant, because we perform a new ballet every year."
"What a pleasure it is to be able to work with teachers who encourage and support, yet challenge us to our utmost abilities with the original choreography of the great masters"
"The class gives us a taste of what professional dancers do their whole life. It helps us to think as they do, work on the same things they do and partly be like them without leaving San Antonio."
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Ballet, like any other art form, requires years of careful and very repetitive training at the most opportune age to attain the desired result. In addition, intensive ballet training requires physical, mental and emotional maturity that is not attained until at least age 8 or 9, and this cannot be rushed.
Prior to the student attaining this age, Pre-Ballet and Primary classes are designed for children ages 3 to 8 as an introduction to ballet at a preparatory level. These classes include creative movement, imaginative exercises, a certain amount of freedom of expression, and large motor skill training as well as an introduction to elementary ballet technique.
Upon reaching Ballet I, the students are older or more experienced and are now ready to be introduced to more intensive and structured exercises, while still keeping the class brief and allowing many of the freedoms and creativity mentioned above. In Ballet Grade IIA a one hour class attended two times per week is required. The two times per week regimen is necessary for proper advancement since more structured classical ballet technique is introduced at this level and more time is spent in perfecting the steps already learned. By Ballet Grade IIB, pointe (wearing "toe shoes") is offered to the student who is deemed qualified by the teacher. Criteria include: an awareness of proper body placement and the ability to maintain that placement; strength in the back, legs and ankles; proper arch in the foot; knowledge of basic ballet steps and an attitude of attentiveness in class. Progressively, classes increase in length and the students add more classes per week as they mature, become stronger and advance through the ballet grades of our syllabus.
In addition to our annual recital, we make every attempt to provide as many performance opportunities as possible for our more advanced dancers, believing that performing is an integral part of ballet training.
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