If Debi Hays has anything to do about it, ballet in the Tacoma area is about to take on a new dimension. After recently opening a new ballet school called Ballet Arts Tacoma located downtown at Urban Grace Church, Hays is ready to shake things up and is looking forward to creating a greater sense of ballet community and culture in Tacoma.

That's right - I said ballet. The last time I had anything to do with ballet I was 4 years old, toughing it out only because my mom promised to buy me a pair of red leg warmers if I attended at least one class.

"I'm here to supplement what other studios are doing with their dancers," Hays says. "But I'm not here to compete."

Hays is not just any new kid on the block - She has the right stuff. She has mad ballet skills. Her career spans 40 years at locations around the globe. At the age of 13, she won the grand prize at the Surrey Arts Festival in British Columbia. At 17, she attended the Royal Ballet School in London on a scholarship. With an impressive training background, she then began a career at the Deutsche Oper Am Rhein in Dusseldorf, Germany, which lasted for 13 years. She has performed in Coppelia, Swan Lake, and more. She has seen ballet greats such as Mikhail Baryshnikov perform and trained in their presences. Pretty much, she has me and my red leg warmers (which I so got) way beat.

In 1986, she began a career in teaching, which is where Tacoma enters into the picture. After four years as ballet director at Elite Dance in Puyallup, she has started her own dance studio in Tacoma called Ballet Arts Tacoma. She is not here to teach beginners; instead, she aims to help dancers with a bit of experience get even more ballet-tastic (my term, not hers). She offers classes for ages 8 through 12 and for 13 and older.

"If students want to go to the next level, that's why I'm here. I have a passion to help dancers grow. I'm going to challenge you technically and choreographically," says Hays. She clearly has a passion for ballet and everything about it. This is a woman who has experienced the best of the ballet world but is far from burning out or losing her appreciation for it. "I teach more than dance; I teach the culture of ballet."

She also seeks to promote a network between the area's ballet studios in an environment where she says she has not felt entirely embraced. "What I feel is that all the schools already here all are separated from each other. There's no networking, and there is a lot of competitiveness. Where I've come from the studios collaborated. I don't get that impression here at all. Everyone stays their own entity. My goal is to bridge the gap. I'd like to get to know everybody." She intends to stay true to not competing as her school grows and will not put on performances or events that will require additional time of the dancers as they already may be committed at other area schools. However, she does hope to open her studio to parents or friends who want to see how their children are learning and growing.

As an extra bonus, in an economy where ballet lessons may not be number one on parents' lists of priorities, Ballet Arts Tacoma offers drop-in classes as well as longer term classes. So if, for instance, you are in it for a pair of leg warmers, you don't have to commit your finances for a year.

Ballet Arts Tacoma will offer classes on Sundays from 2 until 6 p.m. throughout the fall of 2010. The first hour and a half is for ages 8-12; the next hour and a half is for 13 and older, and the remaining hour will depend on what students need or want. Urban Grace Church is located at 902 Market St. in downtown Tacoma and features an awesome Old World feel to its studio space.

Ballet Arts Tacoma

Urabn Grace Church
902 Market St., Tacoma
253.441.9502
balletartstacoma.com