By Maddy Braybrooke
Staff Writer
Some people have a general idea about what they want to do when they grow up, but junior Ariana Serrano knows that she wants to become a professional ballerina.
When Ariana was little, she wanted to be an actress. She was told that if she wanted to be more involved in theatre then she was going to have to take dance classes. She began with ballet classes, and although she hated them at first, eventually she started to enjoy it. According to Ariana, in 8th grade, she wanted a school where she could dance more. So she started looking for somewhere new.
“It was not that the dancing was not hard enough at my school,” Serrano said. “It was just that I wanted more of it.”
She switched from Hermosa Valley to Orange County High School of the Arts where she was dancing from 3:00 to 7:00 every night during the week. But according to Serrano, she quickly outgrew there as well.
“I wanted harder training and a higher technique standard,” Serrano said. “I started looking for a Russian teacher because that is the most challenging style in the world. It doesn’t get much harder than that. I wanted to be pushed harder everyday not matter how difficult it was.”
Serrano and her mother came across a ballet studio that offered the training she was looking for. She started attending these classes on the weekends.
“Weekend classes were hard and I was extremely sore, but that was what was amazing about it,” Serrano said. “I could see that I was getting better just by going on the weekends and I thought to myself just imagine how much better you would be if you went more than just on the weekends.”
Halfway through freshman year, Serrano switched to Mira Costa so she could train at the Arabesque Ballet Studio in Los Angeles. According to Serrano, that was difficult because she had to explain to everyone why she switched and learn to balance her time with dancing.
“I knew that if I wasted any time at my old school, then I would just be farther away from my dream of becoming a professional ballerina,” Serrano said.
By the start of sophomore year, Serrano started taking private lessons and changed her high school schedule to independent study. She takes Pre-calculus and French at school and does the rest at home. She meets with her teachers at Costa every week to get her assignments and then completes them on her time so she can balance her schoolwork with her dance schedule.
“I do not miss school, but I still keep a 4.0 and I have to teach myself a lot of things. It is ballet first because that is what I love,” Serrano said. “I have to stay on my schedule and make myself do homework and go to ballet instead of doing other things.”
Serrano goes to private lessons three times a week. She has technique classes every day except for Wednesday.
“The main thing that I want people to understand is that I am defying the odds,” Serrano said.
According to Serrano, ballet is hard because she was not born with extremely long legs or a flexible body. She has to work to make herself capable of everything that ballet requires. She aspires to get into a company straight out of high school and dance for as long as she can.
“I would not exchange it for anything,” Serrano said. “I know that if I work at this now, then for the rest of my life I will be on stage doing what I love.”
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