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Judit Trunkos takes a look at a ground-breaking ballet school in Columbia

By Judit Trunkos

Why would you learn Csardas, a Hungarian folk dance at a Columbia ballet school? The Southeastern School of Ballet’s answer: to create professional ballet dancers. This school offers a revolutionary mixture of ballet, pointe, modern, character and Pilates while teaching European regional dances. It also provides students with a nutritionist and a masseuse to protect and support the dancers from injuries and to encourage healthy eating. There are many ballet schools in Columbia, but this school brings a more versatile curriculum to the community while preparing accomplished and educated young dancers.

The founders of the Southeastern School of Ballet, Hillary Krieger and Gabor Toth, are bringing many years of international and national teaching and performing experience to the school. Krieger spent 17 years as classical ballet dancer, learning at Joffrey Ballet School in New York City and later continuing her training at the Greensboro Ballet Company as a professional dancer and a full-time instructor. Finally she joined the Columbia Classical Ballet where she performed and taught for two years before opening her own school.

Gabor Toth adds his international dancing expertise to the school. Toth received his dance training in Hungary from the Hungarian Dance Academy where, among other things, he specialized in the arts of ballet and folk dance. Toth later continued his dancing carrier at the School of Alicia Alonso, in Madrid Spain, and at the Greensboro Ballet Company in Greensboro, S.C.

CCP: Why is your school so different from the others in Columbia?

Krieger: We train professional ballet dancers. By providing a diverse and balanced curriculum for the dancers, our programs are designed to create well-rounded dancers who can potentially become professional dancers.

Toth: Our strict program teaches our students much more than just dancing. We provide education on international cultures, dancer vocabulary as well as consultations with a nutritionist. We not only prepare our dancers for auditions with the top ballet companies, but also teach our students strong work ethic, good self-discipline, proper respect for others and high self-esteem.

CCP: How do you provide cultural diversity?

Toth: My background is in character, folk and regional dances. On top of the ballet classes, I teach regional dances to the students. Living and dancing in Europe for over 10 years, I can add the cultural details to the dance instruction. For instance, when teaching Hungarian or Spanish folk dances, after talking about the given culture, I take the students to the front part of the studio and show them pictures and maps so they can place the learned dance into the world map.

CCP: What is your long-term goal with the school?

Krieger: We would like to develop our school to become one of the best ballet schools. We will need a bigger facility as well but we will never make the classes too big for the dancers to be lost in it. We always want to be able to focus on each individual dancers.

Toth: Also, with time, we would like to develop an international exchange program so we can send our dancers abroad to show them how dancers in other countries train and to allow them to travel abroad.

Zachary Hartley, a 14-year-old student at the school, says he didn’t get enough out of the instruction at other schools and believes the Southeastern School of Ballet is the best chance for him to get into a good school. Leigh Hartley, 16, says having a nutritionist on staff helps her sustain sufficient energy and the masseuse helps her relax her muscles for hard training sessions.

Southeastern School of Ballet opened in 2006, already has over 50 students and is still growing. To learn more, go to SoutheasternSchoolofBallet.com.