The Ballet Club
See website for class schedule
“I want to see ballet change in a lot of ways,” Anne Easterling Freifelder told me as we sat in the cheery Ballet Club studio. She explained that many little girls are told by their ballet teachers that they are not suited for ballet and that they should try another form of dance. Anne believes ballet should be accessible to everyone, not just those who have been deemed to have the right shape feet or the correct body type. After years as a professional dancer and as a ballet instructor, Anne began to successfully build her own school, one student at a time, beginning in 2007. She quickly learned, however, “You can’t build a serious program without your own space.” In 2011, Anne stumbled upon her current location.
The Ballet Club is split into three divisions: the “Dance Together” group for ages eighteen months to three years, the regular children’s classes for ages three to nine, and the advanced Performing Arts Division. The only requirements that Anne has for her students are that they work really hard and that they love ballet. The Ballet Club puts on two major performances throughout the year, often at the Manhattan Movement & Arts Center: The Nutcracker ballet in December, and the spring show. Anne prides herself on the fact that her curriculum is unique and that the spring show is often a lesser-known – or original – work of choreography. Her brother is a composer, so she often collaborates with him in order to write a brand-new piece for the dancers to perform.
When I visited in June 2016, the summer camp kids had just finished up for the day. The Ballet Club summer camp involves a variety of activities on top of normal ballet classes, including yoga, creative dance, theater, and arts and crafts (the results of a tiara-building workshop were scattered around the front room). I was pleased to learn that The Ballet Club has a partnership with Little Picasso, where many students go across the street to the art school for part of the day. Anne loves the summer camp because she often gets to interact with kids from all over the world, whose parents choose to spend these months in New York and want to put their kids in camp. I met Anne’s assistant, Olivia, who pointed out that at the Ballet Club, the children (and parents) always know who their teachers are. The Club is a tight-knit community with devoted, talented instructors who provide consistency to the studio.
Along with being especially welcoming to children who are willing to put in the effort, the program stands out from other schools because it focuses solely on ballet. Anne believes that when other studios offer classes in multiple dance forms, “the ballet training suffers.” She wanted to experiment with what would happen if she guided her students’ attention towards ballet. The result has been “amazing discipline” and the chance to explore “the untapped aspects of ballet.” The curriculum has an added component in that students are taught the history of dance, starting with Louis XIV. Anne encourages the children to improvise to the music of classic ballets, thereby introducing them not just to the techniques, but the history and passion behind the art.
