Budding ballerinas learn art of concentration in summer classes

“Form your line! Go, go, go,” shouts dance instructor Katie Shea.

They’ve been working this choreography for more than an hour.

And, oh, there’s Sidney, a little out of step.

Focus. Focus.

“When are we going to eat?”

“I need a tissue.”

Someone else needs the restroom.

“Let’s just do it one more time and then we’ll all go potty,” Shea says with a promising smile.

Summertime is the offseason for ballet dancers, time to soak the feet, heal old injuries and rest, right?

Not here. Got to keep it together. Next season is around the corner — sort of.

Careers aren’t actually on the line at the Academy of Nevada Ballet Theatre Creative Dance Camp, where more than 20 giddy ballerinas, ages 3-8, are astonishingly attentive. But there are steps to master, lines to learn and props to make.

“Each week we do a new production,” instructor Annie Hickey says. “This week is ‘Broadway Babes.’ Next week is ‘Wild Wild West,’ then ‘Time Warp.’ ”

Shea is back at it. Formation time. She asserts herself by staying loud, gracious, animated and smiling. This despite the fact that the “Jubilee!” dancer had a show last night and made it to Nevada Ballet by 9 a.m. for class.

She loves this. It’s her baby. She develops the choreography, selects the music and manages to encourage the young dancers. Shea took over the summer camp three years ago and has developed it into a focused and fun all-inclusive project in which children can broaden their experience in dance.

For each dance number there is an arts and crafts project in which the students build props or contribute to set design. On the first day they make invitations for Friday’s performance. They dabble in singing and acting and hurl arbitrary thoughts and questions at Shea.

By the time the dancers are 5 and able to enter primary dance class, they’re surprised to realize how adept they are at plie, relieve and pantomime. Some of the older dancers are already in academy classes.

“The goal is to teach the basics — movement, choreography and posture,” says Shea, who also teaches creative movement for the academy during the regular year.

Hickey, who taught acting at Interlochen Center for the Arts in northern Michigan before moving to Las Vegas, works with the older group.

Wednesdays are hectic. That’s when the two age groups, 3-5 and 6-8, merge their numbers into one production. On Thursdays they move into the professional dance studios for dress rehearsal. Friday is the production for parents and Nevada Ballet staff, which is all the talk among dancers at snack time.

Kristen Peterson can be reached at 259-2317 or at [e-mail].