Dancing toward her dream A Eugene 15-year-old heads to New York City to study ballet.

Byline: Mark Baker The Register-Guard

Sara Lombardi, owner and director of the Eugene Ballet Academy, says this about Alexandra McGlade's potential the first time she saw her in class: "You could tell. Her ballet walks were so controlled."

Alexandra was 4.

"Alexandra asked me if she could do ballet when she was 3," recalls her mother, Veronica McGlade, who explained to her daughter that one had to reach the ripe old age of 4 before beginning classes at the academy.

Now, instead of starting her junior year at South Eugene High School this week, Alexandra begins classes today at not one, but two New York City schools: Professional Performing Arts School in the morning, and the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School at American Ballet Theatre in the afternoon.

The 15-year-old spent this and last summer in ABT's summer intensive program on scholarship. Before returning home at the end of July, she auditioned and was accepted for a year of study. She is one of 10 or 11 girls and a few boys nationwide ages 14 to 16 accepted for the prestigious academy's intermediate level this school year, says Franco De Vita, principal of Onassis School.

At an age when most teenagers are worried about how to fit in, get rid of acne or just get out of bed in the morning, Alexandra will be negotiating the streets and the subway system of the Big Apple - pursuing her dream of becoming a professional ballerina.

Asked about the commitment and passion which has been the focus of her young life as far back as she can remember, Alexandra says, with a typical teenage shrug of the shoulders, "I don't know. I love ballet."

Her desire probably has something to do with her aptitude for what is a difficult and demanding art form to master.

"She has a real interesting manner about her," says Riley Grannan, managing director of the Eugene Ballet Company, which oversees the Eugene Ballet Academy. "She's remarkably adroit for her age."

Grannan notes that ABT, where Mikhail Baryshnikov was once artistic director, is considered America's premiere ballet academy.

He likens Alexandra's opportunity to that of a singer being offered a chance to join the Metropolitan Opera.

"Those chances don't come along too often," he says.

"You never know ..."

Alexandra, in fact, is the second Eugene Ballet Academy student in recent years to be accepted to a premiere American ballet academy. Lahna Vanderbush, a fellow South Eugene High student, was accepted to the San Francisco School of Ballet two years ago.

Alexandra says she has mixed feelings about leaving Eugene.

"It's not even that I'm really sad to be leaving high school, but I'm sad to leave my friends," says Alexandra, a straight-A student with dark hair, hazel eyes and just a smattering of freckles around her nose.

"It'll be really hard not being there, but junior year's really hard at South, so I won't miss that," she says with a grin, while stretching before a workout last week.

Family involved

Alexandra began classes at the Eugene School of Ballet, now the Eugene Ballet Academy, in 1996 with her twin sister, Anastasia. Younger sister Larissa, now 13, also began as a toddler a couple of years later. While Alexandra continued with ballet, Anastasia and Larissa went on to other things. Their passion is now soccer, Alexandra says.

Alexandra has appeared in many Eugene Ballet Company and Oregon Ballet Academy productions. She played the role of Fritz in the Eugene Ballet Company's production of "The Nutcracker" at 12 and 13, and toured with the company out of state, says her mother, who accompanied her daughter to New York last weekend. She also played the lead role of Princess Aurora in "Sleeping Beauty."

Last summer, Alexandra auditioned in Seattle through Regional Dance America, a national association of ballet companies, and received a scholarship to ABT's summer program.

The Jacqueline Kennedy Onannis School is a pre-professional ballet training program for students ages 12 to 18. There are three levels - elementary (ages 12 to 14), intermediate (ages 14 to 16) and advanced (ages 15 to 18), with about 15 students per level accepted each year. Admission is by audition only, and the advanced level includes students from all over the world, De Vita says.

Alexandra is not on scholarship for her first full year of study at ABT, where tuition is $5,000 annually, Veronica McGlade says.

Alexandra has a good chance to succeed to the advanced level, De Vita says. "Because she's a strong dancer," he says by telephone from New York. "And she's quite gifted."

Asked about the potential of Alexandra, who is maybe a bit undersized now for a ballerina, to make it as a professional, De Vita says: "This is a very difficult question to answer. You never know what will happen. The possibility is there. She's young, she could grow."

After two years at the San Francisco School of Ballet, Vanderbush, also once a summer student at ABT, recently landed her first professional job with Alberta Ballet Canada, says Lombardi, the Eugene Ballet Academy director.

"I'll be back"

"It takes not only incredibly hard work, but you've got to have the right body type, flexibility and strength," says Lombardi, who was a two-time state champion gymnast at Parkrose High School in the late 1970s before becoming a ballet dancer. "And you've really got to have an understanding of kinesthetics, and an awareness of alignment."

Alexandra seems to have an innate understanding of ballet, along with the grace and versatility that's required to succeed, Lombardi says. "She's a fabulous performer, too."

Alexandra will share an apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side with a young woman, a first-grade teacher who has a friend who works at ABT and offered to share her place with a student. Alexandra has family back East, in upstate New York and Connecticut (her parents both grew up on the East Coast) and her mother will stay for a couple of weeks to help her settle in, and plans to visit often.

"I'm not worried," says Veronica McGlade, who spent six weeks with her daughter in New York last summer and a couple of weeks this summer. "Alexandra is a very capable and confident kid. I've made sure she knows her way around. This is something she's been thinking of doing for a while."

Alexandra will attend classes at Professional Performing Arts School on West 48th Street - about 17 blocks south of LaGuardia Arts, another public high school for students pursuing a career in the arts and the inspiration for the 1980 film "Fame" - and then head downtown for afternoon ballet classes at ABT.

It will be school and ballet, every day, just like in Eugene. Only now, Alexandra will be surrounded by prodigies like herself, in the city where everyone wants to be a star.

Her friends here "keep asking me questions about it," Alexandra says. "I don't know. It's weird. I'll miss Eugene. But I'll be back a lot."