Amber Baker of New Lenox “just wanted to start dancing” when she signed up for ballet lessons about four years ago.
What started as a whim quickly became a passion, and the 17-year-old Lincoln-Way High School senior has become so accomplished that she passed an audition to attend a summer school program at the Joffrey Ballet School in New York.
She said about 20 aspiring dancers were selected in a nationwide series of auditions.
“It’s one of those common dreams like `I want to be Miss America.’ I want to be a ballerina,” Baker said.
The Joffrey schedule will test that resolve. Young dancers enrolled in the eight-week program spend 8 to 10 hours a day perfecting their skills.
There are special classes devoted to individual ballet moves, including the turn, the jump, the pas de deux.
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This intensive practice should result in “better technique, make it better, cleaner, especially my turns,” she said. Long hours of practice are necessary, according to Baker, who practices as often as she can, even using the hallway of her parents’ home as a practice space when she can’t get to the studio at one of the American Dance Centers in Orland Park or Olympia Fields. “You have to keep up your strength,” she said.
Dance also figures prominently in her school activities. Besides participating in the Lincoln-Way Student Council and the French Club, she also performs with the Rhythm Knights and Orchesis, the school dance group.
All that movement occasionally takes its toll. Like athletes, dancers sometimes have to play in pain. Baker, who is practicing daily for an American Dance Center recital at Governors State University, has shin splints and a sore right knee at the moment.
Those minor discomforts are worth it, she said. “I just like performing, the stage, makeup, the whole concept,” she said.
Motivated dancers have a number of opportunities, according to Kathleen Villari, who has run American Dance Center with her husband, Jack, for 30 years. “We see a lot of happy things,” she said. “If you have it in your heart, you can dance anywhere.”
Baker plans a dance career. “I have two options,” she said. “I can audition for a dance company or study dance in college.”
Dance isn’t her only interest. After the eight weeks of classes, she’ll add another week to her stay in New York–for shopping.