Jan 3, 2011 6 min read

CARLISLE, Pa. (AP) – Julian Duque was taking classes at a small dance studio in Georgia and dreaming of becoming a world-class ballet dancer when one of his teachers, impressed by his potential, made a suggestion.

If you are truly serious about ballet, she said, go to Carlisle. So the 19-year-old, a native of Colombia who moved to the United States at the age of 6, uprooted his life once again.

Leaving his single mother and younger brother, he headed north to train at Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, one of the nation’s best-known schools for classical ballet.

“I looked them up on the website,” Duque said. “I knew right away, I want to go there. I have to go there.”

What started out as a summer program has morphed into a scholarship and a full-year stay at CPYB, which Duque is spending with a host family that has opened both hearts and home to him.

“I couldn’t have asked for anything better,” the young dancer said. “It’s like being with my family. And there’s great food all the time.”

At the nearly 200-year-old stone home of David and Sandy Hukill in Middlesex Twp., Duque occupies the third floor, where he has lots of privacy. “Neither of us wants to climb all those steps,” David Hukill, who is approaching 80, said.

Host families like the Hukills are an important cog in the CPYB machine, providing homes, steady meals and stability for one-fifth of the young dancers who go there to train.

The school’s preprofessional program is so highly regarded 65 CPYB alumni are now dancing professionally that families with the means often move to Carlisle so their sons and daughters can train, often for several years, at a cost of more than $4,000 a year.

But for many, including Duque, family finances don’t permit such a move. Scholarships and host families can be a lifesaver for them. Some host families are reimbursed for room and board for their charges, while others donate their space and time.

Many of the families have hosted multiple students, forming bonds of affection that often last long past the time a dancer leaves CPYB.

“We often hear of host families traveling to New York or Philadelphia or even Seattle to see their former dancers perform,” said Bonnie Schulte, the school’s director of strategic marketing and communications.

Alan Hineline, CEO and resident choreographer at the 55-year-old ballet school, said fully 20 percent of CPYB students are living with host families in homes that dot the Cumberland County landscape. The school, which was founded by Marcia Dale Weary, who still serves as artistic director, currently has dancers from 24 states, plus Sweden and Canada.

Weary has an eye for ballet talent, and a reputation for being a demanding if beloved teacher. The school’s faculty is composed of former professional dancers, who know what it takes to survive in a demanding profession.

“I’m not going to lie, this is a rigorous program,” Hineline said. “We don’t allow anyone under the age of 18 to come here unless they are with their own family or living with a host family. We feel they need that support system.”

Duque, who already has graduated from high school, is older than most host family dancers, but he stayed with the Hukills during CPYB’s summer program and both parties were happy to continue the relationship when he decided to enroll full-time.

“We’ve really bonded,” David Hukill, a semiretired lawyer who is president of CPYB’s board of trustees, said. “We care very, very much about him. You’re familiar with what the schools call in loco parentis’? We are kind of his in loco grandparentis.'”

There’s an easy camaraderie between the young dancer and his elderly hosts, who have been married for 48 years. But Duque still punctuates his sentences with “ma’am” when speaking to Sandy Hukill.

“He’s very polite,” she said with a smile. “And he helps out a lot around the house. It’s been a lot of fun having him here, actually.”

Duque works at a local Gold’s Gym to get some spending money, but finds he doesn’t have that much time to spend it. He’s at CPYB most afternoons and evenings, taking classes or rehearsing for a role in an upcoming production such as this month’s staging of George Balanchine’s “The Nutcracker.”

“Julian has a really peculiar schedule,” David Hukill said. “He works nearly a full-time job at Gold’s and then he’s often at the school until 9 at night. When he leaves here in the morning, he packs two lunches.”

The Hukills set a curfew for Duque, not because they were worried he would get in trouble. “We were afraid he wouldn’t get enough rest,” David Hukill said.

Duque drives himself because he knows he is a latecomer to ballet, with just a year or so of experience in a discipline where students often begin as early as age 2.

“I just fell in love with it,” Duque said of his chosen profession. “I was thinking maybe I would go to college and be an engineer, but I knew I wouldn’t be happy. I can’t imagine anything else where I would get up every morning and say, ‘I love what I’m going to do today.'”

CPYB instructors have been impressed with the tall, muscular youngster’s athleticism and grace, casting him in for small roles in “Nutcracker” and a fall production of “Hansel and Gretel” despite his relative inexperience. Male ballet dancers are in much shorter supply than talented ballerinas, which could make Duque a valuable commodity among professional dance companies.

“When you look at Julian, you see potential for a great young ballet dancer,” said Hineline.

That lines up with Duque’s deceptively simple goal for himself. “I want to be the best male ballet dancer in the world,” Duque, the first dancer in his family, said. “I want to keep training until I am.”

The youngster headed home for the holidays to visit with his mother and brother before returning in the new year to resume training. He’s hoping that one day he will make his family, including an extended family of relatives in Colombia, proud of his achievements in ballet.

In their own quiet way, the Hukills are crucial to Duque’s goals. Their support, often in small things, is vital.

“Left to his own devices, he would eat nothing but pizza,” David Hukill said. “But my wife believes in vegetables.”

The Associated Press

01/01/11 00:03