THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, June 21, 1995 TAG: 9506200085
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 13 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY GARY EDWARDS, CORRESPONDENT
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
Carla Miller works out for ``at least 2 1/2 hours a day'' five and sometimes six days a week. Miller, 16, a rising senior at Kempsville High doesn't play basketball or softball, or any team sport. Her passion is ballet.
``I've been a student for five years'' she said. ``I couldn't dance a step at first.''
Anamaria Martinez of Virginia Beach Ballet Academy changed that for Miller. Miller and about 100 other students can now perform plies and pirouettes with graceful effortlessness.
Martinez and her family run the academy. Refugees from Castro's Cuba, the family has taught ballet for 10 years at the studio on Virginia Beach Boulevard.
Anamaria Martinez, 31, has studied ballet since she was 6. She showed enough ability to earn a four-year scholarship to the School of American Ballet in New York City where she studied under George Balanchine, sometimes called the most influential ballet teacher of the century.
The Virginia Beach Ballet Academy year's work will culminate with a spring performance at Lake Taylor High School in Norfolk Friday and Saturday. The two-hour program will begin at 7:30 both nights.
``Ballet is extremely demanding, physically and otherwise,'' said Martinez. ``We have adult classes, and a lot of the people who take that say it's the most vigorous aerobic workout they've had.
``Our strength is classical ballet. That is the basis for all dancing, and we focus on technique rather than performing.''
Miller and two students practicing with her nodded agreement.
``Without ballet training, you can't dance,'' Miller said. ``It's the ABC of dance.''
Renata Sheppard, 12, crosses the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel three or four times a week to learn from the Martinez clan. Sheppard lives in Cape Charles.
Anamaria's uncle, Enrique Martinez, has an international reputation in dance. He has worked with Mikhail Baryshnikov, she said.
``And there's Uncle Rudy and, of course, my mother'' (Teresa Martinez), Anamaria said. ``It's definitely a family business.''
The academy sends students all over the country to schools and summer programs.
Miller will soon leave for Pittsburgh to begin a six-week summer study at the Point Park International Summer Dance program.
Laura Collins, 13, a nine-year student of ballet, will further refine her talents at the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem. She will spend five weeks there.
Although Anamaria Martinez considers classical ballet the backbone of dance, her school also teaches modern, jazz and contemporary dance.
``We will perform those at Lake Taylor,'' Martinez said. ``There will be several different musical pieces we'll dance to.'' MEMO: The Virginia Beach Ballet Academy spring program is at 7:30 p.m. Friday
and Saturday at Lake Taylor High School. Donation is $3. Phone,
456-0104. The school's summer classes start July 5. ILLUSTRATION: Photo by GARY EDWARDS
Left to right, Carla Miller, Renata Sheppard and Laura Collins work
with ballet instructor Anamaria Martinez at Virginia Beach Ballet
Academy.
by CNB