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Published on 10/06/1999 All articles from this issue

Hours of hard work, sacrifice pay off for ballet dancer McNulty

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By Wendy Marinaccio

Special to the Town Crier

Los Altan Erin McNulty, an apprentice with the San Francisco Ballet, leaves this week to perform in Europe. She just returned to Los Altos after the company performed at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

The 18-year-old ballerina began a year-long apprenticeship with the San Francisco Ballet this July. Erin had trained and performed with the company's attached ballet school since junior high, but she now has a contract, a salary, and a good chance of being accepted into the company when her apprenticeship is over.

Erin's roles in Washington, D.C., included Peasant and Wili, "a very bad fairy," in the company's production of Giselle. After the tour, Erin prepared for the European tour, which includes London, Italy, and Orange County.

Erin said she hopes to eventually become a soloist with the company, but "being in the San Francisco Ballet is enough. It's a feeling of accomplishment, something you work so hard for," she said.

She said her workdays are long, and much of the time her rehearsals are spent "in the back learning things everybody else already knows." But "I'd dance with the San Francisco Ballet without being paid," she said.

Mother Vivian McNulty said that when Erin began attending the San Francisco Ballet School in seventh grade, "that's the first time I realized this could be a possibility for her, to become a ballet dancer. It was certainly something she dreamed about, and she knew it was a long uphill climb."

Now that Erin is an apprentice, the company buys her expensive pointe shoes - she goes through six or seven pairs of the $60 pink satin shoes each month. "Sometimes I felt I was working only to buy pointe shoes," Vivian joked.

Erin attended Blach and Mountain View High School, and only recently moved to San Francisco because of the harrowing commute. She took a reduced class load in junior high and high school so she could make it to the city six days a week in time for noontime rehearsals, which often lasted until 7 or 8 p.m.

Erin began independent study during her junior year. "It became a choice, do we let her continue school or pursue ballet?" Vivian said. "If they want you, it has to become your first priority."

Erin will finish her senior year of high school this year through a special program at Independence High School in San Francisco.

Erin said the tradeoffs have been worth it. "I'm not sorry about the things I've given up," she said. "I'm happy with what I'm doing. You can't do everything. But I find other ways that kind of replenish that - dancing and performing."