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History of
Saint Joseph Ballet
“A visionary institution that provides free dance classes to low-income, mostly Hispanic children in Santa Ana. The school now has 400 students and an array of programs to give children a boost. In the early years, Beth Burns, founder and leader of the award-winning Saint Joseph Ballet, was a one-woman show, teaching and raising funds to keep programs free to families. The school has grown from a church basement to a $3.8[sic] million home on Main Street.”
The Orange County Register, April 2004
In 1983, Beth Burns created a summer pilot program for low-income youth to gain self-esteem, self-discipline and a sense of accomplishment through dance.
Then a Sister of Saint Joseph of Orange, Beth wanted to see if young people could find artistic expression as a creative alternative to the drugs, teen pregnancy and delinquency endemic to barrios in Santa Ana, California. The mission remains constant: through arts, academics and family services, youth and their families emerge from cyclical poverty to build healthy and responsible lives.
With an Ahmanson Foundation seed grant of $4000, Beth posted notices at the barrio markets, along with college friend Nageeba Colarossi, who helped for nearly a year. In that summer of 1983, 30 kids came to Saint Joseph Elementary School in Santa Ana’s east-side barrio to dance for six weeks. With 200 attending a concluding recital at the Police Annex, the experiment seemed a success.
Before many gleaned the potential of the arts to engage low-income youth, Beth saw with clarity and determination, an opportunity.
It took time to find available space gratis for dance classes year-round. The Episcopal Messiah Church in downtown Santa Ana, under the leadership of Pastor Brad Karelius, took a risk and offered its basement choir room.
The first auditions for the year-round program were held in January 1984, when students such as Melissa Young joined Saint Joseph Ballet. Twenty years later, a leading dancer with Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Melissa performed with other alumni at Saint Joseph Ballet’s Annual Concert, June 1 – 5, 2005, and honored Beth in her final year as Artistic Director of Saint Joseph Ballet.
For many years, Beth taught all the classes and struggled for funding. Some highlights from the early years:
After just a year of service, Saint Joseph Ballet was chosen as one of six quality arts-for-youth organizations in the nation. For this honor, Saint Joseph Ballet competed with 75 organizations in California alone. This Dayton Hudson Foundation initiative awarded SJB a two-year $87,000 grant, creating the DanceFree Weeks outreach program - workshops in elementary and junior high schools - that continue to serve 2,500 youth annually.
In 1988, Saint Joseph Ballet received its first California Arts Council Award, with the highest possible ranking for artistic and administration excellence, to the still under staffed, under funded Saint Joseph Ballet.
A New Beginning
As the fragile work continued to struggle, Joni and G.T. (Buck) Smith (then President of Chapman College) volunteered to form a new Board of Directors, timely for Saint Joseph Ballet’s new independent 501(c)3 non-profit-organization status. Before 1989, it operated under the non-profit umbrella of the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Orange. In its first six years of thread-bare funding, SJB was able to grow because in lieu of a salary, the Sisters received a token stipend for Beth’s work.
Joni Smith saw new possibilities. She invited philanthropic leaders from Orange County to serve on the new Board of Directors, including Pat Yoder, Judy Threshie, Tricia Nichols, Elizabeth Stahr, Marge and the late Larry Sutton, Stan and the late Carol Chapman, Olga and Fernando Niebla, Betsy and Sandy Sanders, among others.
These leaders embraced a new fiscal philosophy. While Saint Joseph Ballet had balanced its budgets, its precarious position begged attention. The Board instituted a new ‘forward funding’ policy for operating funds to be raised eight months in advance of the fiscal year. This fiscal leadership provided for higher standards for planning and management. This prudent financial management – and forward funding – are in force today, and continue to earn the confidence of donors.
In 1989, Alan Fainbarg, Irving Chase and the Fiesta Market Place Partners in downtown Santa Ana donated 4,000 square feet rent-free, so Saint Joseph Ballet could have its first wood floors, and mirrors large enough for kids to see their arms overhead. The Daniel and Florence Guggenheim Foundation, the late Betty Hutton Williams, Larry Sutton and the City of Santa Ana, led by then Mayor Dan Young, among others, funded the $60,000 tenant improvements at the 4th Street and Spurgeon second-story-over-retail space. Over 10 years, this donated space enabled the work to grow to serve 300 youth annually.
In 1991, Saint Joseph Ballet performed for the first time in the Segerstrom Hall at the Orange County Performing Arts Center with the Pacific Symphony for a Mervyn’s Young People’s Concert.
Creative Collaborations
That same year, Saint Joseph Ballet created a Young Artists Competition for Orange and Los Angeles Counties. Three advisory panels, headed by the late Charles Champlin for Story, Herb Alpert for Music, and Frank Romero for Visual Art, selected youth who would receive $1,000 awards and have their work produced with Saint Joseph Ballet students dancing at Santa Ana College.
Community leader Julia Argyros, a member of the visual arts panel, held Saint Joseph Ballet's first Backstage reception that year – a tradition that Board Chairs Socorro and Ernesto Vasquez have continued and grown through to the present.
In 1993, the James Irvine Foundation funded the first independent impact study of the mission and programs. Ongoing, independent and self-evaluation is a hallmark for Saint Joseph Ballet, see Proven Results.
Also in 1993, Saint Joseph Ballet performed its 10th Anniversary Concert at the Irvine Barclay Theatre on the campus of UC Irvine, California. Thanks to President Doug Rankin, SJB continues its annual performances there.
In 1997, encouraged by Board Member Ginnie Hunsaker, Saint Joseph Ballet transformed its informal homework assistance into a full-fledged tutoring program, and increased its resources and counseling referrals to help more students’ parents. Yet space limitations precluded the further growth of these programs.
New Promise
In 1998, again with the leadership of Rich and Ginnie Hunsaker, the Board of Directors began a capital campaign for a permanent home with room for expanded programs and more students. Led by Capital Campaign Chairs and current Board Members Joan and Don Beall, Saint Joseph Ballet raised over $6 million in 18 months for a first class facility ($4.2 million) and seed endowment (1.8 million) This included a prestigious Kresge Foundation challenge grant of $600,000.
Also in 1998, Saint Joseph Ballet created its College and Advanced Training Scholarship Program to motivate students to go college, by guaranteeing each a college scholarship. To qualify, youth just need to participate in Saint Joseph Ballet all four years of high school and maintain a GPA of at least 2.5. SJB’s college scholarships are substantial – up to $2,000 a year – for four years.
In its first six years, the College and Advanced Training Scholarship Program enabled 94 percent of Saint Joseph Ballet’s graduates to go to college., in contrast with the national average of 36 percent of Latino youth pursuing higher education.
Advanced training scholarships are granted to pre-professional students accepted into certificate programs at Cornish College of the Arts, The Ailey School, North Carolina School of the Arts, or the Joffrey Ballet, among others. Since 1998, six SJB graduates have received Advanced Training Scholarship Awards. Four continue to dance professionally, while one is still in college.
In August 1999 Saint Joseph Ballet moved into its new 21,500 square foot home in Santa Ana’s Museum District. With three large dance studios – Beall, Kennedy and Segerstrom – the Hunsaker Community Center, Betty L. Hutton Education Center and the St. Joseph Health System Volunteer Center, its architecture by McLarand, Vasquez and Partners, is widely admired.
In October 1999, Eliot Feld brought his New York City Ballet Tech for a week-long residency sponsored by the Irvine Barclay Theatre, again with Barclay President Doug Rankin’s leadership. This began a new tradition enabling youth to work intensely alongside professional performing artists.
In 2001 Beth invited choreographer and improvisational artist Melanie Rios to choreograph two new works for over a hundred students. Succeeding creatively in that challenge, Melanie has collaborated with Saint Joseph Ballet ever since.
New Vision
In 2004 Founder Beth Burns announced her retirement effective in June 2005. The Board of Directors announced Melanie Rios Glaser as her successor. Beth remains involved as a member of the Board of Directors.
Saint Joseph Ballet is now in the final year of its 2002-2005 Strategic Plan, the main goals of which are:
1. Build staff and infrastructure to sustain expanded programs and enrollment. Steffani achieved this stabilization, building on significant groundwork by preceding Managing Directors Gail Bongcaras and Sara Kuljis.
2. Deepen the impact of the mission, values and programs within the lives of 400 enrolled youth and their families, especially through academic and family services. With 200 youth in tutoring, computer access programs, increased family service seminars and counseling – and with all 2004 graduates enrolled in college, this goal is already surpassed.
3. Strengthen dance programs. In addition to a 2003 Limón Dance Company Residency, commissions for choreographers Mark Haim and Sean Curran, training focused on achievement standards, current strategic plans for dance will be fulfilled in June 2005 with the installation of a new $350,000 Studio Theatre in the combined Kennedy and Segerstrom Studios. With this new 4000 s.f. Studio Theatre, even the youngest students will get to perform every year.
Saint Joseph Ballet, founded 23 years ago by a Catholic nun, has grown tenacious roots, based on its creative vision, results-driven mission and broad range of services. Saint Joseph Ballet continues to energize the young and old, poor and wealthy, immigrant and indigenous communities to come together, to grow and yes, even dance.
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