A Huntington woman named Ella Hay is set to be the lead in a local Ballet on May 31st. It’s not just her talent that makes her special. At 75, Ella is one of the oldest ballerinas in the world. Reporter Clark Davis visited with Ella as she prepared for opening night.
Davis: Ella Hay teaches at The Art Center in Huntington. Her students are as young as 4 and as old as 53. Right now she is preparing her students for their performance of The Colors Of Currier & Ives, in which she plays the lead.
(Sound: instructing students over music)
Davis: Ella’s love of Dancing started at an early age she says.
Hay: I’ve always loved to dance, from the time I was, we’ve always danced at home. My brothers and sisters liked to dance and we’d roll back the rug and dance till two o’clock in the morning, but I never had any formal training till I was about 37. And for some reason I always liked ballet, I can’t tell you why. My first child was born and I entered her into ballet school and I use to watch all the classes and work with her.
Davis: But she never got involved until taking her three daughters to ballet lessons when they were little girls. From there through the encouragement of her daughter’s teachers she decided to get involved herself. As a mother of three she could not travel far to train, so she took advantage of local programs that would bring in Ballet instructors
Hay: When you start when you’re older you can’t go to schools and train. It was always hard for me to get to a teachers training school that’s intense. I have taken every workshop, Marshall has been wonderful, Marshall University has brought in several programs in the past. They did a four year program where they would bring these professional companies in for three weeks at a time. And one year it was dancers from the North Carolina school of the arts. I took classes from them from 8 in the morning to four in the afternoon for three weeks and I learned quite a bit from them.
Davis: All the training she did led her to teaching the craft. She teaches a group of close to 40 students 5 days a week. She says she learns from her student’s everyday.
Hay: You learn how to deal with people, in our school or any local school you don’t get the perfect body which makes it difficult, but makes it interesting. So you have to learn to work with what you have, people have a different way of learning, a different way of moving. And this is what makes it interesting, is trying to get that body into the place you want it, and to get out of it what you want.
Davis: Some of her students have gone to professional careers in ballet, but that’s never been her goal.
Hay: They’ve gone to different professions, I think that’s the reward. No matter what they go into it’s the pleasure of working with these people, and I work with the best. These kids are all great.
Davis: Hay doesn’t think of herself as someone who inspires others. Her students like 16-year-old Sarah Hayes of Huntington feel much differently.
Hayes: She is amazing, she is the most wonderful person ever. And she’s just so inspiring. She’s an incredible teacher and dancer, and she’s taught me so much more than just ballet, she’s amazing.
Davis: Eighteen year old Candace Imperi of Huntington has trained under Hay since she was four, says that when Ella’s name comes up around town, people know that she is one of the best Ballet instructors in the area.
Imperi: Around here as soon as you say Ella Hay, everyone knows that is a very positive thing and they assume that you’re very good and that you’ve been trained to the very best that you can be trained.
Davis: Hay says she plans on continuing to teach as long as she can.
Hay: As long as I can walk I guess and that is as long as I have the health and god wills I’ll be here.
(Sound: instructing students over music)