From ABT to UNC

Laurie Yeames gracefully paces around the Franklin Street ballet studio, giving corrections to her college students who are warming up at the barre.

It’s early, 8:30 a.m. Tuesday at the Ballet School of Chapel Hill. The sun has just started to stream through the studio windows.

A few yawns escape the dancers clad in leotards and sweats, but they attentively listen to Yeames’ reminders to articulate their feet and center their torsos. When a dancer makes an improvement, she smiles and offers animated praise.

Far from New York City, where she spent much of her life training and dancing, Yeames, 49, said she didn’t know what to expect when she started teaching intermediate and advanced ballet to UNC students.

But now it’s something she said she looks forward to every day.

“What I love about UNC is I’m dealing with people that are there because they want to be there,” she said.

Yeames understands her students’ passion — she began dancing at the Maryland Youth Ballet after a doctor recommended it because she had flat feet.

At 13, she auditioned for American Ballet Theatre and was given a full scholarship to train at the school. Watching the company members through the studio windows was overwhelming but inspiring, she said.

Yeames left the theatre to dance with the Princess Grace Academy of Classical Dance in Monaco before finishing her training in New York at the School of American Ballet. She later danced in Chicago and Los Angeles.

During her travels, she noticed a dichotomy in the ballet world.

“You’re basically not paid a lot, and you’re sort of struggling to meet your day-to-day expenses,” she said. “But you’re doing what you actually love, and you actually travel in these very elite circles because the patrons of the ballet happen to be very wealthy.”

In her early 20s, Yeames began teaching full time on Long Island.

As a ballet teacher at a Broadway-focused studio, Yeames taught many students aspiring to be in the entertainment business, including a 9-year-old Natalie Portman.

“She had the cutest little face and this tiny little body,” she said.

Yeames taught Portman for a year before moving to Alaska. Portman, who was nominated Tuesday for a Best Actress Oscar for the ballet film “Black Swan,” continued to dance at the New York studio and still stays in touch with the studio’s director.

“Her love of dance started from there, and she’s always maintained that connection with them and that studio,” Yeames said.

Although Yeames sometimes wishes she had performed longer, she said she is happy in Chapel Hill, where she has lived with her husband and two children for six years. At the ballet school, Yeames teaches middle school to college-age students.

Senior Becca Rand, who has taken two years of the advanced class, said she likes that Yeames gets to know each student.

With Yeames’ guidance, Rand and two other seniors co-founded Carolina Dance Initiative, which offers student-led dance classes on campus.

Co-founder Tiffany Dysart, who plans to continue dancing after college, said she has appreciated Yeames’ encouragement.

“She’s pushed me and expected more of me, which is good because sometimes you don’t expect the most out of yourself,” she said.

Yeames said she takes the responsibility of teaching dance very seriously.

“I know how I felt about my teachers and the influence they had on me,” she said. “It’s really deep for me. You get a lot of love back.”

“It sounds weird, but you feel it. It’s very palpable how much love comes back.”

Contact the City Editor at city@dailytarheel.com.