Marco Aguilera stands alone in a spotlight at the center of the dance studio. “If I wasn’t in ballet, I’m sure I would be right now in a gang,” says Marco’s recorded voice. The studio goes dark for a moment and the spotlight reappears on Maurisio Alconedo, only 13. “Most of them don’t live more than 21 years,” he says quietly on the tape. “Only the ones that quit live more. Like my cousin was only 19, and they shot him.” For Marco, and more than 300 other youngsters, the studio spotlight marks the intersection of two worlds: the impoverished, often violent Orange County neighborhoods in which they live and the safe harbor of the Saint Joseph Ballet, where they retreat for a few hours almost every day.

In the donated studio above Santa Ana’s Fiesta Marketplace, they feel both safe and free. Here they lower the carefully constructed barriers that help them survive on the street and channel their feelings of fear and anger, love and hope into the music and movement of dance. For 12 years, these children have been coming to the ballet, learning to dance and to cope--long before any should have to--with poverty, gangs, drugs, domestic violence, divorce, and street crime.

Since 1984, when the ballet was founded by Burns, a former Catholic nun blessed with infectious enthusiasm, it has provided dance training to 1,485 children in year-round classes. More than 25,000 other Orange County children have participated in the ballet’s special workshops and community outreach programs, which offer a week of free dance classes to entice youngsters to join.

Los Angeles Times Staff Photography: Gail Fisher

Los Angeles Times Staff Writer: Rebecca Trounson