The Connection

Four mornings a week, at least a dozen ballet students can be found hard at work perfecting their pirouettes, strengthening their cores with arabesques and practicing their legwork on the bar at the Classical Ballet Theatre in Herndon. Here’s the catch: they’re adult, working women. Ballet isn’t only for little girls in pink tutus.

The ballerinas make up a diverse group. They range in age from mid-40s to mid-60s. Some have decades of dance experience while others began dancing in their late 40s. One student is a minister, while another is a healthcare administrator. The single similarity between the members of the class is their love for and dedication to ballet, said Marisa DiLauro of Reston, adding that it brings them together.

“This is my creative outlet,” said Natalie Hall of Fairfax. “I’m desperate to learn and work … I feel like I’m flying when I dance,” she said. Hall, like many of the other students, did not dance as a child, but instead began dancing in her early 30s, she said. “I just fell into it. It makes me incredibly happy.”

“We all fell in love with ballet,” said Robbin Smith of Great Falls, who danced as a young woman, then picked it back up in her mid-20s.

“Ballet is my passion,” said Maureen Berk of Great Falls. Having danced when she was little, it was her young daughter who brought Berk back into the ballet world. “Through deaths, tough times, anything, ballet helps,” she said.

“It’s about finding something you love with people you love, and this is it.”

— Maureen Berk of Great Falls

THE CLASSES are taught by Alisher Saburov, a graduate of the Bolshoi Ballet Academy in Moscow, former Principal Soloist of the Moscow Festival Ballet and Kremlin Palace Ballet Theatre and Artistic Director at the Classical Ballet Theatre of Northern Virginia. He has been teaching for 12 years, back and forth with dancing, he said.

Saburov’s classes are intense, his students said. Beginning with a series of legwork exercises on the ballet bar, they are sweating five minutes in. “To the fourth, and twist, twist, twist, twist, twist,” he explained before letting his dancers repeat his movements.

“We dance a different combination of moves every time, and we have to be focused,” Smith said. “You can’t make a grocery list while in class.”

After about 45 minutes and a break to stretch, the ballerinas moved to the center of the room. “Let’s dance!” Saburov said, coaching the ballerinas to fly across the floor time and time again.

SABUROV is the reason many of the students enjoy dancing so much, Berk said. “Alisher emanates joy when he teaches,” she said. “He is the best ballet teacher in the world,” Hall added. “He never gives a bad class, and we all absolutely adore him,” she said.

Attending up to four classes a week, the women don their leg warmers diligently. “You hate yourself if you’re not consistent in coming to class,” Smith said. With hectic lives to balance, some students’ schedules revolve around ballet during the week, Berk said. “I get up at 5 a.m. to go to work, come to ballet class, then go back to work,” Hall said. “It’s that important to me.”

And with the work comes the play — through their love for ballet, the women have become a great group of friends, Berk said, mentioning how they plan monthly lunches and occasional trips to Wolf Trap to see ballet performances.

“We’re best friends, really social and really fun,” Hall said, adding that the group is incredibly supportive and accepting. “It’s about finding something you love with people you love, and this is it,” Berk said.