THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 5, 1995 TAG: 9511030147
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: Ida Kay's Portsmouth
SOURCE: Ida Kay Jordan
LENGTH: Medium: 74 lines
The Richmond Ballet's Nov. 11 performance at Willett Hall will be special for one Portsmouth native whose love of dance was kindled by Jean Ballance.
It's a lot of fun to have the ballet in Portsmouth, said Robin Robertson Starr, the president of the Richmond-based ballet company's board of trustees.
Robin was 5 years old when she first took dancing lessons at the Ballance dance school. From there she moved on during her high school years to Old Dominion University's dance program.
Devoted as she was to ballet, she opted to go to Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, where she also could study dance at the North Carolina School of the Arts.
``Sometime during those years, I decided the life of a professional dancer was not for me,'' she said. ``So I went to law school.''
A 1976 graduate of Wake Forest, she received her law degree from T.C. Williams School of Law in Richmond and married a fellow student.
Robin is the daughter of Dr. Clayton Robertson of Portsmouth.
Now a 41-year-old Richmond attorney, Robin's been on the Richmond Ballet's board for nine years and is now in the second year of her term as president.
``I was fund-raising chairman for five years, so I think they decided to give me a rest and let me be president,'' she said by telephone Thursday.
Robin was somewhat disturbed that plans for the professional ballet company to work with schoolchildren here had to be canceled because Friday is a school holiday.
``I'm very committed to programs in the schools,'' she said.
In Richmond the ballet company does a regular project called ``Minds in Motion,'' an exploration of creative movement for children, she said.
Dancing, she said, teaches discipline and pride in accomplishment.
``Besides, how can you go through life without the arts?'' she asked rhetorically.
Robin said she would support ballet for the rest of her life because of the years she studied with Jean Ballance.
And she's not the only one! Regina Goffigan Carreras, another Portsmouth person who danced with Robin at Jean Ballance's school, also lives in Richmond and until her term expired recently, she also was on the Richmond Ballet board.
As Robin noted, art is important to life and appreciating the arts comes from exposure to them.
Children who hear only noise, often broadcast in the name of music, never know the real pleasures of music. But if a child learns to play the piano or a band instrument, the child sooner or later realizes the difference between noise and music.
Those who never see a live performance of ballet or of a play never get the full impact of a performance that comes when you're seeing the real thing in three dimensions. Applauding from the audience gives a child a sense of participation in the performance, making it all more personal.
Taking lessons in dance or music or in painting or any of the arts gives us a real appreciation. It looks easy until you try to do it.
As Robin noted, once you've tried, you're forever committed.
Hundreds of Portsmouth kids took dancing lessons from Jean Ballance whose studio was at the corner of London Boulevard and Middle Street until recent years. Most of them did not go as far as Robin toward a career in dance, but I bet most of them still enjoy seeing other people dance.
I expect to see a lot of them at Willett Hall next Saturday night.
The performance, sponsored by the Portsmouth Community Concert Association, is the first time the company has danced here, although it has appeared a number of times in Norfolk.
In a variation from the usual membership requirement, the concert association will sell individual tickets for this performance. They are $15 for adults and $8 for students. by CNB