VENTURA : Romanian Dancer in Step With U.S.

Clarissa Boeriu began her career in the ballet at the age of 9, training at the National School of Art in Cluj, Romania.

Now, Boeriu is half a world away in Ventura, where she is artistic director of Ballet of Ventura, a newly opened school.

“Clarissa’s reputation is well-known,” said Kathleen Noblin, the school’s executive director. “Parents seek her out as a teacher.”

Boeriu, 39, brings to the school more than 10 years of strict training in ballet, which she plans to incorporate into her classes.

“I want to try and structure it like European schools,” Boeriu said. “The quality of our training will be very high.” The selection process for ballet schools in Europe, according to Boeriu, was much more selective than it is here.

“Only the best went to school,” she said, “and only the top students graduated.”

In 1981, Boeriu was allowed to leave Romania to teach classical ballet technique at a professional dance school in Rome. After a three-year wait, the Romanian government allowed her husband, Stefan, to visit her in Italy. Once he arrived, the two defected, receiving political asylum from the governments of Italy and the United States. It took another year and a half for the Boerius to get their daughter, Cinthya, now 17, out of Romania.

After teaching ballet in Italy, the couple moved to California, where Stefan, who has a doctorate in nuclear physics, found employment near Lompoc as a consultant for the supercomputer at UC Santa Barbara.

The ballerina accepted a position as guest faculty at the American Ballet School in San Diego. After commuting twice a week for two years from Lompoc to San Diego, Boeriu was offered a position at the School of Cleveland Ballet, and as guest company teacher at the Cleveland Ballet. Boeriu spent four months a year for two years in Cleveland, living in a furnished apartment. It was an offer she couldn’t turn down, she said.

“It was difficult,” she said, “but I had to keep up my standards. There was no professional school in the Santa Barbara area, so I chose to make the sacrifice.”

While the Cleveland Ballet wanted Boeriu to return for another season, she chose instead to work with Noblin in Ventura, calling the new school a wonderful opportunity. She makes the commute from Lompoc to Ventura five days a week.

In Romania, you are invited to teach, Boeriu said. If your results with students meet the state’s high standards, they will invite you back.

She sees the support for the arts in her former country as the only good thing to come from Romania. By contrast, she said, support for the arts is very low in America.

“It is very sad,” she said. “I find it hard to understand.”