Michael Ray Smith Blog

 Smith trains at the internationally renown Kirov

WASHINGTON, D.C.--Dance can be a dash, a pause, a sentence or nearly a month. That’s the experience of Taylor RaeAnne Smith because of the generosity of The Howard Fund and others.

Taylor worked from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the studios of the Kirov Academy of Ballet in Washington for nearly four weeks in July and loved it all.

      “My highlight was the culminating performance that included the choreography we learned in our ballet, contemporary, flamenco, and character classes,” said Taylor, 16, daughter of Michael and Barbara Smith of Lillington. Taylor and her family are members of Memorial Baptist Church in Buies Creek. “I am very grateful to my sponsors including Mr. and Mrs. Barry Howard, Mr. Bobby Womble of Cape Fear Insurance,  Dr. Charles Youngblade and my parents, of course.”

  Founded in 1990, The Kirov Academy of Ballet of Washington, D.C. is a ballet school that serves students in grades 7 through 12 and offers a high school diploma in addition to its dance instruction. The Academy trains students in the Vaganova method, considered very demanding. The entire faculty is former Soviet dancers and teachers. During the summer experience, the male students at the Academy lived in Washington, D.C., Taylor and other young women lived at fraternity houses at University of Maryland’s frat row. All the students ate their meals at the Kirov.

Taylor met students from around the world and made special friends with two Japanese students and a Chinese dancer.  She discovered bubble tea, a popular Asian treat and picked up some Japanese phrases.  She will continue to stay in touch using e-mail and letters with her new friends.

   Taylor spent nearly three hours a day studying with Madame Ludmila Morkovina, who graduated from the Vaganova Ballet Academy in 1953 and became a member of the Maly Theater of Opera and Ballet. She has taught at the Vaganova Ballet Academy, the Ballet Nacional de Panama, and the Ballet Sopianae in Pecs, Hungary. From 1970 to 1980, she coached and rehearsed company members of the Maly Theater. During 1989 and 1990, Morkovina taught at the Conservatory of Istanbul, Turkey.

  “The classes were immensely challenging, but at the end of the day, I felt as though I really accomplished something,” said Taylor Smith, adding that the faculty isn’t shy about shouting instructions over and over again.

            “Kirov is unique in that the school retains its Russian-style Vaganova training—even to the point of curtsying to your teachers outside of class,” she noted.

            The academy only accepts 100 from more than 1,000 applicants each year for the summer program, and the students spend the summer session doing what’s called an “intensive,” as in “intensive training.”

            Taylor and her classmates studied nutrition, stretching, mime, music appreciation, Flamenco, contemporary dance and other topics.

   While Taylor could have relaxed at the fraternity house on the weekends, she choose to visit family in Alexandria. Her Aunt MaryAnn and Uncle Stewart McKeown treated her like visiting royalty in her home near the fashionable King Street section. They ate ice cream at Rita’s, shopped at Tyson’s Corner Mall, and visited some of the nearby attractions not far from the U.S. Pentagon.

            “I’d say that this experience changed my life and I am very grateful,” Taylor said. “I think God is revealing His will and I am learning to trust Him when it works out like I think it should and when it doesn’t.”

 Taylor went on to say that many others including her family, grandparents and friends helped her at Kirov. Taylor is a rising junior at Harnett Central High School and hopes to one day dance professionally.