As she sits at the front of the ballet studio at Southland Ballet Academy in Fountain Valley, Salwa Rizkalla watches a dancer so closely you can almost see her think before she speaks.
“Point your toes harder when you step out,” Rizkalla says as the dancer practices her pique turns. It’s a small correction, hardly noticeable to the untrained eye. But as Rizkalla’s students have been taught, it’s the little things that separate the good from the great.
And great, not good, is Southland Ballet’s goal — perhaps at a level that’s unexpected.
This ballet class is in Fountain Valley, not a ballet Mecca like Paris or Moscow or New York. This ballet studio used to be a 7-Eleven, not a theater. And this ballet teacher, Rizkalla…
Well, OK, she’s big league. Her reputation, in fact, is a big reason why Southland plays an outsized role in the dance world. Her students land scholarships and awards that sometimes vault them into the uppermost rungs of ballet. She’s connected to directors and instructors from the world’s leading companies.
And, this week, Rizkalla has managed to bring the most famous ballerina of this generation — Misty Copeland — to Orange County. Copeland will perform Friday (Aug. 18) in Costa Mesa as part of a local dance community fundraiser, “Gala of the Stars.”
Standards count
In some ways, Southland’s connection to Copeland isn’t a stretch.
Copeland, 34, famously started her career in a place not unlike Southland. She didn’t study ballet until age 13, and took her first class at a Boys and Girls Club in San Pedro. She eventually pushed through tough circumstances to achieve international success. Today, she’s a role model for young dancers, appealing to many who don’t come from wealth.
Copeland’s journey is one Rizkalla appreciates and relates to her own diligence in building a world-class ballet school in Orange County.
It’s something others in the ballet world can understand, too.
“I can’t name five schools like this,” said Jean-Yves Esquerre, artistic director of the Dutch National Ballet Academy, the leading ballet school in the Netherlands.
Esquerre doesn’t teach for private schools, but he recently taught a class during Southland Ballet Academy’s International Summer Intensive. He made the exception, he says, because of Rizkalla.
“By teaching here, you don’t feel like you’re betraying what you do,” Esquerre said. “Salwa has the same standards.”
Standards, he added, aren’t a luxury. In the dance world, form is about survival.
“Nowadays there are (fewer dance) jobs, and more dancers, than ever,” he said. “The equation is the opposite of 30 years ago, so the structure of the teaching is so crucial.”
The program Rizkalla directs at Southland has sent students to study and perform at the San Francisco Ballet, The Royal Ballet School, the American Ballet Theatre and several other internationally known academies. Southland’s pre-professional dancers routinely achieve top awards at competitions such as the Youth America Grand Prix.
Larissa Saveliev, founder and director of the Grand Prix, arguably the most prestigious youth ballet competition and scholarship program, said Rizkalla provides the tools that aspiring dancers need to take the next step in their careers. Some will join ballet companies, others will audition for university dance programs. Many, eventually, will become teachers.
“My goal through (Youth America Grand Prix) is to find the talent… This is a place I know I can always find the talent,” said Saveliev. “I have been coming here for more than 20 years because I like to go. The students are well-trained, number one, but they are also educated as human beings, not just dancers.
“They all carry the same passion that Salwa has,” said Saveliev.
Small start, big finish
Rizkalla, 69, started dancing in her native country, Egypt.
By 10, she was enrolled in the new Russian ballet school in Cairo. She grew as a dancer and spent several years performing lead roles with the Egyptian ballet company. But in 1973, Egypt and Israel went to war, and the broadening conflict eventually sapped Egypt’s financing for the arts.
“We were very well treated before the wars, so it was hard for us. Many dancers left,” said Rizkalla who left Cairo in the mid-’70s and started teaching in Alexandria.
“It was really, really, really sad. But when you are faced with reality, you cannot do anything. You go away or you accept what is happening.”
In 1979, she and her husband, Sabri Rizkalla, moved to the United States. Four years later, she opened her initial Southland dance studio in Fountain Valley, teaching in a converted 7-Eleven off Garfield Avenue and Bushard Street.
“I was the receptionist, the ballet teacher, everything,” said Rizkalla.
“I did not ever think it would be more than that.”
Many of those early students quit. The classes were too advanced for American dancers who weren’t brought up in the Russian tradition.
But, over time, Rizkalla adjusted her approach and her students stayed.
Today, Southland has 600 students and nine studios across two locations in Fountain Valley and Irvine. Rizkalla also directs the nonprofit professional ballet company Festival Ballet Theatre, which she founded in 1988. The company produces two evening-length ballets per year in addition to an annual performance of “The Nutcracker.”
Festival Ballet Theatre regularly welcomes guest artists to perform leading roles – Isabella Boylston, Maria Kochetkova, Julie Kent, Gillian Murphy, to name a few. They come because, like her students, they appreciate Rizkalla’s knowledge and grit.
Dancers also say Rizkalla doesn’t play favorites.
“Even though it was clear I wasn’t going to pursue ballet as a career, Salwa was such an important mentor in my life because she cared so much about me and everyone,” said Ruth Benton, 31, of Huntington Beach. Benton studied with Rizkalla for 13 years before dropping ballet to pursue at business degree at USC.
Marcelo Gomes is a principal dancer with American Ballet Theatre, but he’s also performed as a guest artist with the Fountain Valley company for ten years, recently taking on the role of Basilio in Festival Ballet Theatre’s production of “Don Quixote.”
“Salwa… takes her productions very seriously,” said Gomes, who studied in his native Brazil. “You can tell Salwa is demanding.”
The performance that will feature Copeland this week, in Costa Mesa, will raise money for Festival Ballet Theatre and celebrate the end of Southland’s summer program. Copeland will dance “Romeo and Juliet” with Alexandre Hammoudi, also of American Ballet Theatre. The cast will include other notable artists from The Royal Ballet, San Francisco Ballet and New York City Ballet.
Imagine a pick-up baseball game that put the best high-school players in Los Angeles on a field with, say, Mike Trout and Clayton Kershaw.
Rizkalla, and others, see value in bringing young protégés to the world stage by placing them in contact with current stars in the ballet world.
“When the students see the best, that becomes the standard,” said Christopher Powney, director of England’s Royal Ballet School.
For the students, sharing a stage with the best dancers in the world is an experience that will last, regardless of what happens in their dance careers.
“Any exposure to that is inspiration,” said Powney. “That’s what Salwa can offer.”
‘Gala of the Stars’
When: 6 p.m. Friday, Aug. 18
Where: Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa
Tickets: $65-$95
Info: festivalballet.org
