NASHVILLE, TN (WSMV) -
A summer dance program is helping young ballerinas make it look easy on stage with Nashville's Centennial Youth Ballet.
Little girls often dream of becoming a ballerina. The graceful moves, beautiful costumes and the chance to perform on stage are all appealing.
But the one thing often not in those ballet brochures is the great difficulty and even the pain. The easy way is never the path taken in the world of ballet.
The 13 year olds at Kathy Callaghan's summer camp embrace that concept every day.
Nothing there is playtime. It is intense, disciplined work that leads to the public performance of a 150-year-old French opera.
"You put in a lot of hard hours in. It's very difficult, physically, then you have to make it look like it's so easy," Callaghan said.
"I can't help but smile when I do a move or when we, as a group, do a move together. I have to smile," said dancer Sai Clayton.
Clayton's passion for dance comes with a caveat to her classmates - don't criticize what you can't understand.
"(They say), oh what do you do? Do you just turn around and do spins?' All the football players say, 'you guys wear tights.' We don't. Football players wear tights, you know. If ballet was easy, they'd call it football. Ballet is so much more than people think," Clayton said.
That tough talk is part of a ballerina's pride. And they walk the talk, bandaging up and tightening their shoes in preparation for the daily workout.
"Accepting the pain is also a good thing, actually, because your feet hurt but you accept it and move on. And that makes you stronger as a dancer," Clayton said.
The Centennial Youth Ballet is a program offered by the Metro parks department, but a large part of its funding comes through a volunteer group called Friends of Metro Dance. The dance they do is help raise money to help keep programs like this alive.
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