Downtown dance in L.A.

When you're hot, you're hot--especially in Los Angeles. It's not, however, the temperature that's got people buzzing, but the downtown arts climate. Adding to Grand Avenue's "cultural corridor," where Frank Gehry's steel-clad Walt Disney Concert Hall and its black box theater, REDCAT (a haven for small dance companies) have earned kudos since its 2003 opening, is the Colburn School of the Performing Arts. Situated next to the Museum of Contemporary Art, the school recently opened a dance wing, the Colburn Dance Institute.

Colburn, which opened in 1950 as the preparatory division of the University of Southern California's School of Music, became an independent, nonprofit institution in 1980 through its benefactor, the late Richard Colburn. It moved to its current 55,000 square-foot home in 1998. And while dance was once considered a poor stepchild to Colburn's musical studies (out of 1450 students, 350 study dance), the newly formed institute, with its $1 million endowment, is reason for celebration.

Limited to 12 students selected from a rigorous audition process, the program is designed for serious high schoolers seeking a professional dance career. Says CDI director Charles Edmondson, who formerly danced with Bella Lewitzky, "Our main goal is to bring an awareness that if students are really taught properly on a daily basis, we'll know them inside and out."

In addition to Edmondson, the faculty includes former Joffrey Ballet principals Leslie Carothers Aromaa and Glenn Edgerton. The trio's charges participate in a 32-week program and are expected to take a minimum of 12 classes per week, including ballet, pas de deux, and modern dance. Edgerton, a Texas native who recently ended a 15-year stint with Nederlands Dans Theater, says that in spite of having to navigate the Los Angeles mega-sprawl by car, the Colburn gig is a wonderful opportunity.

"The potential is great," Edgerton declares. "Leslie and I are old friends from the Joffrey, where there is a clean, clear aesthetic and there's no affectation. I want to give these young students that type of ballet, as well as my Kylian background, which is pure movement based on imagery." He adds. "That way, they're ready for all sorts of styles--modern, contemporary, the whole realm of dance."

The Colburn School of Performing Arts, which has aspirations to being the "Juilliard of the West," is on its way to achieving that goal. It has recently broken ground on a 13-story, 300,000-square foot addition, set to open in 2007. At a cost of $120 million, the project, designed by Pfeiffer Partners Inc., includes a 200-seat performance lab, a 3,900-square foot rehearsal hall, and housing for 147 students. It's currently under construction at the rear of the campus on Olive Street.

Edmondson, who has been with Colburn for 22 years and received the California Dance Educators Association Award in 2003, is thinking ahead.

"In 2008 we plan on having our first summer dance intensive and we will have a place to house students. I also want to increase the faculty, because I want these students to know how to do flamenco, jazz, African--every dance form. When I went to see Movin' Out, it was a good example of people who studied ballet and could also do jazz. I don't want students limiting themselves."