A new ballet program will open its doors today, with modest offerings this spring and plans for additional programming in the fall when the Southeast Ballet Conservatory takes its first steps on the dance floor.

Taught by a husband and wife duo, Danny Ryan and Juls Bicki, the conservatory’s spring offerings aim to give young dancers an introduction not just to ballet but to the instructors, who work at the Sitka Fine Arts Camp although the conservatory isn't affiliated with it.

The programs slated to begin today are “us introducing ourselves to the community,” co-director Danny Ryan told the Sentinel. “It's ‘Hey, here we are. We welcome you to join us. See if this is something that you like. Let's see if this is something that we can work together to build.’ We want to make sure that we are reaching everybody, and that everybody knows that they have an opportunity to dance. We look forward to teaching, especially with the younger classes, coordination, musicality, physicality, how all these things come together in a dance environment.”

Beginning today through May 9, Ryan and Bicki will teach intermediate and advanced ballet classes, and another class on ballet’s role in contemporary dance for kids age 10 and older in the dance studio above Odess Theater on the SJ Campus.

Classes for younger students will take place on Saturdays, also starting this week and continuing into May. There’s a pre-ballet offering for those as young as 3 or 4 years old, though that class is now full, along with introductory ballet classes for kids ranging up to age 10. The class for 3- and 4-year-old kids is full, with few spots remaining for 5- to 7-year-olds. Over 20 kids are registered at the moment.

“Everyone is welcome. Every body is welcome,” Ryan said. “And what we want to do is build a nurturing environment that supports everyone who wants to come and learn how to dance. We can offer dance training to make the strongest technical dancer, if that's what you want, and we can offer dance training that makes the best community member in how they engage with their community and how the skills of dance translate into other career paths and other walks of life. We want to serve both those groups of people. We want to serve everybody in the community. And we'd love to have you guys try us out.”

Along with his current job as operations director and dance instructor at the Fine Arts Camp, Ryan also has taught at Sitka Studio of Dance, which has been in business here for many years and has introduced hundreds of Sitka kids to the artform.

Ryan and Juls, who have taught dance here for 11 years, have been looking for a way to move to Sitka from Milwaukee for years, he noted, and now seem to have found a way.

“When I grew up (in Milwaukee), we had a public elementary, middle school and high school for the arts … I've learned from a young age what it's like to have a creative mindset and to explore life through kind of an artistic lens, which I'm deeply thankful for,” Ryan said.

After high school, Ryan worked at UPS while continuing his dance training and, after a couple years of that, turned professional.

For him, dance is an intersection between the arts and exercise.

“The physicality is really a draw. Being physical and being artistic is awesome,” he said. “I played soccer for a long time, and so I'd always been physical. But putting that physicality into an artistic mindset is really great. And the thing that is really exciting to me after my dance career has been working with students. I feel like my path to dance is unique, and I feel like everyone has a unique path... I had very strong teachers who pulled me into it, and people didn't give up on me.”

More information and registration links are available online at finearts.org/ballet though Southeast Ballet Conservatory is not part of the Fine Arts Camp.

Ryan is eager for the chance to keep educating young Sitkans in dance.

“That's really the thing that I love about the dance education piece – being able to engage with students who might not be comfortable with this and might be afraid of this, or might resist it, or have preconceived ideas about it,” he said. “Those are my favorite students, because I was that person, and I want to bring them into this in a nurturing and positive way.”