Cuban couple opens ballet school in Wheaton

Young suburban dancers who are serious about learning classical ballet - or who just want to try their hand at the fine art - need look no further than Wheaton, where a new ballet school has opened.

Owners Guillermo Leyva and Vilma Machin are encouraging new students to stop by their business, Alma Dance School, which began operations this fall at 246 E. Geneva Road.

"There are many (dance) schools (in the area), but no one really focuses on training serious ballet," Machin said. "We thought it was a good opportunity for us to have a school here and bring our Cuban heritage here and our strong training."

A ribbon cutting for the school will be held at 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 3. Information and pricing for classes, which are open to boys and girls ages 2 to 19, is available online at almadanceschool.com.

The couple said ballet is beneficial for students who are pursuing other styles of dance, and they have seen it improve the self-esteem and discipline for young people.

"You always find kids that are more interested in really pursuing a career as dancers, other ones just like it, but they want to do something else with their life," Machin said. "Either way, we invest time in every kid and we teach them everything we know."

That includes the characters of many classical ballets, such as "Swan Lake" and "Sleeping Beauty," along with the techniques that make up Cuban classical ballet, which Leyva said is a combination of the best ballet styles from around the world.

In Cuba, the couple went through vigorous ballet programs that included academics in the morning and dance lessons from the early afternoon to late evening.

They said thousands of children audition each year for the chance to attend ballet school - starting around age 9 - but only a few make the final cut.

Leyva was part of a class of 25 girls and 15 boys at a ballet school in Camaguey, Cuba.

"Classical ballet is very hard. Not everybody could make it to the end," he said. "At the end of the eighth year, there were only five girls and me. In Cuba, the school is free, so they want to work with the kids that know they want to be dancers. If you're not interested or you don't want to work harder, they kick you out."

After graduating in 1981, Leyva joined a dance company in Camaguey and performed throughout Europe, Asia and Latin America for more than a decade.

In 1992, he joined a dance company in Monterrey, Mexico. Three years later he moved to Chicago to serve as the principal dancer of the Joffrey Ballet, and later for Lexington Ballet and the Ballet Theatre of Chicago. His last performance as a principal dancer was in 2011.

"He was always like the perfect body of dancer, perfect flexibility, feet, turns," Machin said.

But Machin has her share of outstanding accomplishments, too.

She graduated in 2001 from the prestigious National School of Ballet in Havana, Cuba, and took part in 14 international tours with the Cuban National Ballet Company.

In 2007, the economic situation in Cuba got so bad that Machin decided she needed to move.

"We were both born in very poor families," she said. "The only option for them to have a better life, it was us living in a different country. It's hard because you get the training, you get the career in Cuba, but then you don't get the comfortable living - not even comfortable - the basic living needs you need to live."

Machin taught dance classes in Miami and later moved to Chicago, where she met Leyva while performing in his now shuttered dance company, Alma, which the school is named after.

She hopes her love of teaching and Leyva's desire to continue working with company professionals can merge one day if the school grows.

"We're really trying to reopen the company at some point and our goal is to feed the company with our best students from the school," she said. "It's a challenge, but we're really thinking that it could be something good for the school to have the company. It's something for the students to look up to."