Suzanne Farrell Ballet puts its interns in motion

By Lisa Traiger
Friday, November 12, 2010

In their ill-fitting blue suits, resumes in hand, interns are a ubiquitous part of the Washington landscape. But one intern, 17-year-old high school senior Beila Ungar, sports an entirely different uniform: pink tights and pointe shoes. Hired as one of five young interns by Suzanne Farrell Ballet, Ungar is quickly getting a taste of life as a pro.

Under the tutelage of one of America's greatest ballerinas, Ungar has her sights set on a ballet career. Next week, she joins the 22 company members at the Kennedy Center in a supporting role in George Balanchine's evocative tale of doomed romance, "La Sonnambula."

Farrell danced "The Sleepwalker" role in that ballet when she was all of 17 and still balancing high school assignments with her work as a soloist in the New York City Ballet. Now, after an illustrious 28-year career, much spent working intimately with Balanchine, she is intent on passing on the 20th-century master's works to a new generation. She offers an intensive summer ballet course, monthly master classes for advanced ballet students in the region and, now, the intern program, which allows pre-professional dancers to get a taste of the rehearsal and performing experience.

Ungar leaves Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School early every day to train at Maryland Youth Ballet in Silver Spring. She dances about 18 hours a week and has found the added weekend rehearsals with Farrell instructive.

"It's really interesting to see how all the professionals work, see their daily schedules and their lives, and how they deal with the long days of classes and rehearsal," Ungar says. "Seeing the [professionals] in class and watching them dance and interpret movement is really cool. Sometimes I try to take little things I notice . . . maybe if I like how someone holds their head or an arm in a certain step, I'll try that. . . . It's still all me, but I try to adapt what I see from other people in my own dancing."

That's exactly what Farrell expects. "This kind of experience in invaluable. Each time we're together [the interns] are a little more adventuresome. At first they stood in the back of the class, but I walk around and help them, correct them. I want them not to be afraid to try something, not to be afraid to make a mistake."

Farrell pushes them outside of their comfort zone, something she did throughout her own career. "Ballet is an art," she says, "where you do learn from one person passing it on, from their very personal stories, from being in the room and dancing together."