Only the best Will Do.

Jean Gedeon of Pittsburgh Youth Ballet: `I never give up on anyone'

AN HOUR before company class, Jean Gedeon, Pittsburgh Youth Ballet Company's artistic director, drives a massive maroon van through detour-gnarled city streets. Completing errands be fore her troupe's second European tour, she phones the Byham Theatre, planning a quick stopover.

"I don't come into the city often," she says, turning the corner to discover a barricade. "This is why I started my school--road construction." In 1983, subway installation and four offspring (including a toddler and a kindergartner) complicated the eight-mile trek from the southern suburbs of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to the classes she taught at Point Park College. When studio space in her neighborhood became available, the popular pedagogue took the leap to establish her own school.

Her gift is teaching youngsters correct technique through nurturing, generosity and patience that extends to a maternal understanding of the highs and lows of teenage angst. The key is making each student "feel special and providing encouragement," she explains. "I never give up on anyone." She expects the same devotion from her faculty: Tamar Rachelle, Melissa Allen, Janet Furtney, Lindsay LaFrankie, Svetlana Novodran, Steven Piper and Amy Shorts.

Allen, who joined the faculty last spring, was immediately impressed with Gedeon's technically clean, well-rounded dancers--qualities she attributes to "the opportunity to perform and work with top-notch professionals. This doesn't happen often in a school."

Notes Piper, the ballet master and an eight-year company affiliate, "Jean lets the teachers teach the way they want, but keeps an eye on things." He credits the students' burgeoning professionalism and artistry to "the opportunity to dance Balanchine ballets and learn Balanchine technique."

Technical standards are high, Gedeon explains, "because I possessed a clean technique and am so determined to make everybody else that way." By storytelling, tricks, reverse psychology and gentle criticism, she instructs without the austerity that dominated her education. Trained at the Pittsburgh Playhouse School primarily by Yugoslavian ballet master Franco Jelencic, a strict disciplinarian, and by Duncan Noble, Edward Caton, Leonide Massine, Frederic Franklin and Nicolas Petrov, Gedeon developed a solid base.

"Franco said that everyone in New York could do ten pirouettes, recalls Gedeon, whose forte was six (even while nine months pregnant). "I went to study in New York and discovered that wasn't true." She returned home and joined Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, which was then guided by Petrov, its founder.

During a performance of Walpurgisnacht Ballet, Gedeon fell from a lift. "I heard something crack, but got up and did inside and outside fouettes." The foot fracture officially launched her teaching career, which had actually begun in 1966 at the Playhouse School. "I've always loved children and wanted to teach. I enjoy planting the seed of inspiration," says Gedeon, who taught at Pittsburgh's Carnegie Institute and Carlow College Campus School and served as children's ballet mistress for Pittsburgh Opera Theatre.

"I wanted the students to have everything--the best teachers, choreographers and performing experiences," she says. Besides engaging "the best," Gedeon provides well-equipped facilities; study trips to New York City; nutrition, injury and history workshops; and an affiliation with pointe shoe specialist Oshi Nagar.

Her commitment to excellence yields results. Her youngsters are annually chosen to participate in the New York City Ballet's Saratoga Springs summer performances. Gedeon's students have received scholarships to the School of American Ballet, North Carolina School of the Arts, The Joffrey Ballet, The Pennsylvania Ballet's Rock School and the Bolshoi Ballet Academy.

The difference between a professional dancer and an advanced student--"besides a company contract," Gedeon says, laughing--is "maturity of movement in style and in stage presence. Those who perform more frequently also develop strength of character. The turning point usually occurs in high school," she says. "But it's difficult to predict who will make that transition."

Among those who have successfully made the transition are April and Simon Ball (Boston Ballet); Erin Halloran and Kelly Ocharzak (Pittsburgh Ballet Theater); New York City Ballet's Faye Arthurs; San Francisco Ballet's Lindy Mandradjieff and Brooke Moore; Nashville Ballet's Christine Rennie and White Oak Project's Emily Coates.

Notes San Francisco Ballet ballet mistress and former New York City Ballet dancer Elyse Borne, a frequent Pittsburgh Youth Ballet Company repetiteur, "Jean is doing a wonderful job. I've watched the children grow and want to encourage her to make new dancers for us at SFB."

And some students make the transition to teaching as well. "Jean Gedeon is a wonderful teacher," says Gail Sullivan, who now teaches at the Rock School. "I owe much of my career to her. She recommended I audition for School of American Ballet ... and that resulted in a five-year scholarship. I began teaching under her direction. Now, more than a decade later, I rely on my memories of her and PYB in my teaching. I am able to reach students in a way that I treasure that would never have been possible without her."

It was in 1990 that Gedeon augmented her school with Pittsburgh Youth Ballet Company--now a Regional Dance America honors troupe with a $140,000 budget, nonprofit 501c(3) status, a Balanchine and contemporary repertoire and a twelve-engagement season--to supply that essential stage experience. "My [school] students were missing the performing end of their education. Class is important, but performing is what it's all about," says the former Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre soloist, proudly noting that PYBC is one of three companies with performing rights to Jerome Robbins's Circus Polka. "Kids who perform understand the difference between executing a glissade and presenting one with gusto." She imports contemporary choreographers such as Paul Abrahamson, Daryl Gray, Joe Istre and Gennadi Vostrikov to create ballets, and extends a carefully chosen faculty with repetiteurs and guests (including Ib Andersen, Alexander Filipov, Gelsey Kirkland and Suki Schorer) to impart international standards.

Today, in Pittsburgh Youth Ballet School's spacious second-floor studio, Gedeon, wearing loose-fitting slacks and a tunic shirt, teaches company class with an amalgam of demonstrations, gestures and code words, revealing her clear footwork, fluid port de bras and epaulement that radiate with stage presence. The exercises reference Vaganova methodology, and the befuddling directional barre combinations are homage to Jelencic. Following "the infamous pique" exercise, Gedeon tells the students, "I praise you for being smart, but let's just say that was a less-than-stellar performance." She laughs; the students smile.

Humorous self-deprecation and physical exaggerations color her corrections. Stepping toward the barre, she explains, "I love to see a quick soutenu--sharp. Hold it there a second before you turn." She demonstrates the meandering variety with slouching upper body movements. The soutenus immediately improve. Warnings against sickled passes, a pet peeve of Gedeon's, are dispersed with other verbal reminders, "ankles up, arches up" and placement checks, "long back, stomach in, straight supporting leg," that precede each exercise.

Today, companies "want articulate feet, perfect bodies and versatility," Gedeon says. "Students must learn to move well in all dance forms, since nobody wants a plain classical dancer anymore." However, she reflects, "the four D's--discipline, dedication, determination and desire--will never go out of fashion."

Karen Dacko is a contributing dance editor of Pittsburgh Magazine.