Bellingham dancer trains in the Big Apple - and admires the city's sights

ZOE FRALEY

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As one of six children, Ariel Smith has grown used to constant companionship. But her busy Bellingham family was nothing compared to the non-stop, hectic streets of New York City.

"It felt great," she says of her time in the city. "I was really nervous at first because I always thought of New York as a big, crazy place, and it turned out the same as I expected."

Smith found herself in New York City for two months this summer, after successfully auditioning for the Joffrey Ballet School earlier in the year in Seattle. The 16-year-old dances with John Bishop at the Northwest Ballet in Bellingham and has been involved in the world of dance since she was 4 years old.

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"I didn't really start getting serious about it until I was 12," she says. "It's just always stuck with me and grown on me, and I've grown to love it. It's a big part of my life."

Smith and her parents went to New York the first week of June and spent a week checking out the city and getting her settled into her dorm. After that, the real work began.

On most mornings, Smith woke up at 6 to take the half-hour subway ride to school, stretched for an hour and then trained from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., followed by two hours of rehearsal and another subway ride home. Her busy schedule didn't leave much time for gallivanting in the city.

"All through the week we were training," she says. "When I got to do my sightseeing was on the weekends."

Despite her hectic schedule and her homesickness, she did manage to have a good time. The ballet school's dorm was right down the street from Central Park and the Museum of Natural History. She had a blast watching "Rent" and "Monty Python's Spamalot," and felt the rush of the crowd in Times Square. And, of course, she also headed to the top of the Empire State Building.

"The view was amazing," she says.

Though she was in a dorm full of students and a city full of people, she found herself missing her family. Even in her busy schedule, she found the time for occasional homesickness.

"It was so hard. I've never really been away from my family for longer than a week," she says. "I was really upset because I wanted to come home after class and tell them how my day went and be with them. I'm really family oriented. It was sad because I got to see all these cool things in New York, and I didn't have my family to see them with."

Now that she's finished her classes and performed in the school recital, Smith is glad to be back with her family in Bellingham, where life is a little bit calmer and greener.

"It's not the constant going, going, going," she says of Bellingham. "There's a lot of stimulation in (New York). Sometimes you wonder if it's good for you to have that much stimulation every day."

For now, Smith will keep dancing and homeschooling in Bellingham, but she's certainly not averse to going back to the city that never sleeps.

"In the future when I've had more training I'd like to go over there and see if I can get into a company. It'd be nice to go back," she says. "There were some really cool teachers and choreographers there. It's a lot different from what you can get in Bellingham."

Before the heads back to the Big Apple though, Smith would like to try to be an apprentice in Seattle's Pacific Northwest Ballet. That would be the best of both worlds, with the opportunities of city life within reach and her family within driving distance.

"It's closer to home and I'd get to come home on weekends," she says. "That would be nice."

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POSTED: Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2008

Bellingham dancer trains in the Big Apple - and admires the city's sights

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