Eighth-grader Nastassia Frazier Bryant is already dreaming about her future. An “A” student with her eye on the ninth-grade honors program, Bryant is also an accomplished dancer and pianist who hopes her love of the arts will carry her through college and into a career.
“I love to create things that cause emotion and have beauty,” said Bryant. “The arts allow me to express myself through composing at the piano or in choreographing a dance. I would love to become a choreographer starting with small dance companies and working my way up to celebrities and back-up dancers.”
Bryant has been dancing since she was 3 years old and is currently a Vaganova trained ballerina. “Vaganova was developed in Russia and is a very rigorous, disciplined method that encourages the dancer’s entire body to flow gracefully with the dance,” said Bryant, who also takes modern, tap and jazz lessons. “I enjoy every bit of it. Each type of dance allows me to express myself differently by adjusting my mind and body to the different styles.”
In addition to her local instruction under the Allegro Dance Company’s choreographer Georgie Hall, Bryant also spends two days a week in Atlanta’s Rotaru International Dance School learning from Pavel Rotaru, a world-famous Romanian ballet dancer. Pavel has encouraged Bryant to improve in areas of memorization, stamina, choreography and ability. According to Bryant, Rotaru International Ballet is preparing her for great opportunity.
On May 21, she will perform in “Markitenka” at Paces Academy in Atlanta with the Rotaru ballet troupe. Bryant will be an accompanying ballet dancer in the classical Russian ballet, which features two lovers, Hans and Kathy, escaping to get married because the town mayor wants Kathy for himself. The ballet was first performed in London in 1844 and choreographed by Saint Leon, said Bryant.
Dance was not the only art form Bryant explored at an early age. She has taken piano lessons since the age of 5, and has been playing classical piano music under the Suzuki method since age 7. Her instructor, Atlanta singer and jazz performer Tony Winston, has taken her to level six of the 10-level Suzuki program, which encourages pianists to read and memorize pieces. Bryant’s goal is to graduate from level 10 and continue to compose her own pieces, something that she particularly enjoys.
According to Bryant, the most demanding pieces she has learned have been classical songs by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Franz Joseph Haydn and Johann Sebastian Bach. In January 2005, she performed “Sonata No. 48” by Haydn, and she is currently learning Mozart’s “Sonata K545.”
Disciplining herself to practice is Bryant’s biggest challenge. “It is hard enough in and of itself to study and keep my grades at an ‘A’ average, dance five days a week and also have time to practice piano,” she said.
But Bryant finds the time, and she has found that her study of dance and music complement each other well. “Both involve understanding the rhythms and tones of music; both enhance my ability to recognize characteristics of songs when I first hear them,” she said. “Understanding music helps me to dance, and dance helps me understand how to put tones in my music, bringing out the emotion from the piano.”
In school, Bryant enjoys her English class with Ken Wempe, eighth-grade English and research teacher, where she has learned to love literature and writing. “Mr. Wempe is awesome. He explains things in ways the students can easily understand. I will definitely remember his classes for the rest of my life,” she said.
Although Bryant dreams of dancing professionally, she is putting her education first. “On what level I may dance in college, I do not yet know,” she said. “I want to get a good education before becoming a professional dancer.”
*Written by Eric Molletta, PR intern from Shorter College
