Staff Writer

There are times when Arianna Lawson mystifies her mother, Michelle.

“We are not dancers in this house. I don’t know where it came from,” Michelle Lawson said. Her 16-year-old daughter will dance and study at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy Summer Intensive Program in New York beginning June 28.

If she and her husband, Paul Lawson, are uncertain where their daughter’s talent came from, they know it has been nurtured and honed through hard work. Arianna  has been dancing for almost as long as she has been on her feet, beginning at about age 4.

Arianna had to establish more than her talent to earn a spot in the two-year-old advanced session at the summer program, said Diana Mesion, the program director.

“There has to be a willingness to really want to learn,” Mesion said.

For six weeks, Lawson will study Russian techniques developed in the Bolshoi Ballet and learned from instructors who teach at the academy in Moscow, Mesion said

“These are 235-year-old methods,” she said.

Leslie Gibbons, director of development at Portland School of Ballet where Arianna has studied since 2004, said she will learn a structured technique in what is already a demanding form of dance.

“It is very, very precise and a rigid discipline with no room for free-styling,” Gibbons said.

Michelle Lawson was more succinct.

“There is no goofing off with the Russian style,” she said.

Sample schedules at the summer program website show students begin a day of study with 30 minutes of stretching, before getting instruction in solo, partner and character dancing. The academy classes are held in studios formerly used by the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater and located near Central Park, Lincoln Center and Broadway theaters.

After spending last summer in New York attending the intensive summer program at Joffrey Ballet School, Arianna said she is looking forward to returning to Manhattan and viewing American Ballet Theatre performances.

Arianna also is a part of the CORPS program developed at Portland School of Ballet. CORPS is an acronym for Collaboration, Outreach, Responsibility, Performance and Scholars, Gibbons said.

The program was developed in conjunction with Portland High School to allow ballet students to earn academic credits in physical education, fine arts and health. Students are dismissed from school early for 15 weekly hours of daily instruction, Gibbons said.

All but 90 minutes are spent dancing, and the remainder is set aside for classes in dance history, nutrition, anatomy, injury prevention and career preparation, including how to audition, Gibbons said.

After attending kindergarten, first, fourth and fifth grades full time, Arianna has been home-schooled full or part time since. As she enters her junior year, Arianna may attend Portland High School, her mother said, because it is close to the ballet school and will allow her more of a social life.

While flowing in her praise of Arianna, Gibbons is blunt in her assessment that she can become a professional dancer.

“She has incredible facility and is very flexible. She has very nice feet and really connects with the audience,” Gibbons said.

Gibbons and Paul Lawson said beneath what appears to be an unassuming personality is Arianna the dancer, who combines grace, emotion and athleticism.

“She is a really sweet girl, really nice, but has a real determination,” Gibbons said.

Paul Lawson said watching his daughter dance has exposed a side of her not seen offstage.

“She is not as shy as she appears when she is onstage. She loves to perform,” he said.

The technical demands of ballet are hard – Gibbons told stories of seeing dancers nearly collapse offstage before re-emerging and showing no signs of pain or injury to the audience. Ballet dancers also must convey emotion as they follow technique – something Arianna said has developed through each performance and  by participating in summer programs.

“You can’t just have movements, you have to show emotion through dance with your face and body,” she said.

The program at Portland Ballet helps students prepare for auditions, and Arianna credited instructor Lesley Tunstall with preparing the audition video for the Bolshoi summer program.

But the CORPS program also is designed by Portland School of Ballet Director Eugenia O’Brien to ensure dancers get a strong education in case they don’t develop a professional career. Gibbons compared dance to sports because competition gets stiffer as dancers progress.

Arianna said she has seen competition and camaraderie when she’s attended summer programs.

“It can be intimidating – there is always someone better. So you do your best and work harder,” she said.

If a dance career does not develop, Arianna said she might like to work in cosmetology because of all the years she has been wearing makeup and costumes. But she has set her sights on a dancing career since she was a young girl, she said.

“I love being onstage. I am most comfortable and happiest there,” Arianna said.

Staff writer David Harry can be reached at 282-4337, ext. 219