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Left, Jesse Garcia, Consuelo Almaguer, Jose Luis Campos and Araceli Almaguer party together one Saturday night, toasting the bride at a wedding reception. 'You spend so much time, you get to know each other pretty well,' said Araceli, 'you want to be…

Listening to '60s music on the stereo, Araceli Almaguer, 17, prepares to go out with friends on a Saturday night. On weekends, the Almaguer household in Santa Ana is a center of activity and a magnet for fellow teenagers from the ballet.

Jose Luis Campos, 14, sometimes has to lie about his ballet dancing to other kids at school. Recently a football player came up to him and started saying to him, 'Ah, you're a ballerina. You wear a tutu.'

Kidding around with his friend, Angelica Almaguer, from St. Joseph's Ballet, Jose Luis Campos laughs easily now, displaying a growing confidence. When he first joined the ballet more than three years ago, he hardly spoke to his teachers or other kids…

Jose Luis Campos lives in a tiny apartment on Minnie Street he shares with his parents and four siblings. At night the living room doubles as a bedroom for several of the children. When he doesn't go to ballet, he baby-sits his younger siblings.

Jose Luis Campos, 14, finds in dance a release from life's pressures -- and a private refuge he keeps from friends. The ballet is an escape from the Minnie Street neighborhood he lives in , notorious for gangs, drug dealing, poverty and crime.

Carlos Martinez, center, dances with others at a performance in Santa Ana. The ballet program aims to help participants gain more control over their direction in life.

During a dress rehearsal for a performance at the Bowers Museum's Kidseum in Santa Ana, Beth Burns tells her students, 'Thee are a lot of people in the world who didn't spend today making the world a better place.' She continues, 'You guys did, but…

Last year during eighth grade, Thelma Macias decided to learn to play the cello. In exchange for cleaning her teacher's house, Ardelle Womack gives her cello lessons. She is now in the school district's honors orchestra.

Thelma Macia's worn point shoes lie unused on her bed. She used them when she danced with St. Joseph's Ballet until she quit three month's ago. 'I want to dance, but I don't miss the pressure I felt.'