Whether through mornings spent reading the work of Robert Penn Warren, Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare and C.S. Lewis, or evenings teaching ballet to a room full of children and adults, storytelling has always been a part of Laura Beth Berry’s life.
“We love stories,” Berry told The Dispatch on Monday. “We go to the movies. We read books. … We love athletes. … We also love art because there’s a way that visual art or performance art can speak to you at an emotional level without words, and ballet combines all (of these). … It is a powerful medium for getting a message across.”
For the past 13 years, Berry has taught at Ballet Columbus, housed inside Covenant Presbyterian Church on Lehmberg Road. While she loved dancing as a child, her journey back to the barre after a decades-long hiatus was anything but expected.
She began taking ballet lessons at age 7 at Our Lady of the Gulf in Bay St. Louis. Her first recital, she recalled, was “The Wizard of Oz,” where she was one of about a dozen Dorothys.
“I remember my sister who had this long red hair was the lion,” she said, laughing. “… I was in the class that was Dorothy, and we were all Dorothy, which seemed strange to me in my little 7-year-old mind. … But now that I have to come up with ballet recital themes and dances myself, I understand.”
The daughter of a Methodist minister, Berry moved frequently growing up, but in every town, her mother made sure ballet was a constant. She danced through high school before hitting a crossroads: stick with dance or pursue academics?
“I decided I probably had a little bit better chance of succeeding (using) my brain,” she said.
She went on to study English literature at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee, and later worked alongside her husband in the furniture business for more than 15 years in Columbus, a career that eventually gave way to traveling sales.
Years passed before ballet reentered her life in 2012, when she enrolled her daughter in classes at Ballet Columbus and joined an adult class, taught by Anne Wilson. When Wilson died just weeks before the spring recital, Berry and a group of other advanced students stepped in to see the production through. She never looked back.
“I don’t remember being nervous,” she said. “… It just seemed like the right thing to do, and it has been. … Working with children is just its own reward. They just are so fun and loving, and of course, you become a rockstar when you work with kids. … I keep all the little drawings that they make for me … and I told my husband, when I die … you just line my casket with all my little love notes from my children.”
Each recital is personal
Ballet Columbus dancers perform year-round, from a weeklong summer camp where students help create an original production, to Christmas performances at nursing homes, culminating in a spring recital.
Each recital carries a Christian theme or message, Berry said. One of her favorites was based on “A gift-bear for the King,” a children’s book written by Carl Memling. The story follows a bear who is delivering himself as a birthday gift to a king but repeatedly stops to help people along the way, first a school in need of a teacher, then a circus lacking an acrobat and an innkeeper with no dishwasher, delaying his arrival and landing him in jail.
“He sings his sad little theme song in jail, and … the birds hear him, and … they spread the message,” Berry said. “So the word gets out … and they all come to the king and plead his case. … It made a great ballet. … We had the circus and the kids did a tap dance to the ABC (song) for the school. … And the kids, of course, were so cute.”
Another memorable production focused on the body of Christ, with dancers studying joints and pairing each with scripture.
“Then at the end of the year, our recital was about how we are fearfully, wonderfully made to be the body of Christ, and so we’ve got all these body parts that work together just like the body of Christ has all these people that work together to do good things,” she said. “That was kind of a fun one.”
For Berry, each recital is personal.
“They’re like my children,” she said. “I start thinking about them a year in advance and it really does take about nine months to bring them into the world.”
That same sense of care extends to her students.
“You don’t just have them for a year,” she said. “… Sometimes it’s 10. You get to see them be adults, and some of mine are now married and have children.”
The greatest reward, she said, comes from hearing how dance has helped shape her students beyond the studio, helping them grow their confidence or become better students.
Two of those students are Laurel and Adelyn Nicholson, who have danced with Berry for about six years.
“Laura Beth pours into these kids,” the girls’ mother, Lindsey Nicholson, told The Dispatch. “Confidence – she is giving that to them. She’s fostering an environment where that just (comes out) of what they’re doing. She creates a safe space for the girls and … it makes them want to do a great job.”
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Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 47 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
