Oak Park Heads Balletward

They are onto something good:

Denver Russell has the chance of a lifetime. She will star in what’s believed to be Oak Park’s first rendition of the classic ballet “The Nutcracker.”

“It means a lot to me,” the bashful 10-year-old said last week.

Denver is one of 40 girls in the Girls Self-Esteem Program Academy who are practicing their dance moves around the clock and honing their pointe technique by balancing on their toes.

...Girls in the program, ages 4 to 18, practice ballet three times a week and pay between $25 and $50 a month to participate. Most of the girls are black and hail from underprivileged families from across the Sacramento region, said Kandice Kelly, the program’s director.

“I’m of the belief that every girl in the world should take ballet once,” said Kelly, a former ballerina. “It helps with poise. It helps with grace.”

Kelly founded the program five years ago after volunteering at the Fathers Resource Center, a nonprofit for single fathers that she discovered while working as a television news reporter.

“There were a lot of girls who didn’t have mothers. And the little girls started following me on the weekends because I was the only female,” Kelly said.