Fame: Remember their Names

When the Perpich Center for Arts Education opened in Golden Valley in 1989, it was known as "the Fame school," after the bittersweet 1980 movie about an arts high school in New York City. You may recall the song lyric: "I'm gonna live forever ... baby, remember my name."

Big dreams, big drama.

Today, there are arts magnet schools and charter schools with an arts focus, but PCAE remains Minnesota's only tuition-free public high school with an academic curriculum plus coursework in dance, literary arts, media arts, music, theater and visual arts. It's one of only a few such high schools nationwide, said board chair Susan Mackert.

"Art is problem-solving," Mackert said, explaining the school's appeal to its 300 students, all juniors and seniors. "We have students who've gone on to be doctors, lawyers and engineers," she said. "They almost apologize, but we say, 'No, that's great.'"

Even with ACT and SAT test scores at the school consistently above the national average, the perception lives on of hallways filled with starstruck divas, fueled by the recent remake of "Fame." The students, however, seem realistic about their chances for stardom, said dance instructor Mary Harding.

"This isn't 'American Idol,' in that these kids are not going to get signed to contracts," she said. "But if they get in the chorus of a Broadway show, that's a huge success. We don't have any 'stars' -- yet, anyway. But if they can earn a living doing their art, or do their art as part of their lives, then we've done our job."

We spent a day with four students -- all 17, all seniors -- to see how Hollywood plays out in Golden Valley.

Davente Gilreath hadn't heard of PCAE before idly picking up a brochure in high school that described its dance program. An athlete, he was always in motion, even on the sidelines of the soccer field or baseball diamond, his slim shoulders doing a subtle shimmy at the memory. Unlikely as it sounded, he wanted this.

Only later, after getting accepted and taking the first ballet lesson of his life, did his mother divulge that, long ago, she had been a dancer. "She'd just never mentioned it before," he said.

In dance class, Davente seemed at ease and on task. His eyes rarely left the guest instructor, 2006 alumnus SaraAnne Fahey, fresh off performing in Los Angeles as a backup dancer for singer Rihanna. Fahey was teaching the samba, the dance equivalent of a hot stove to more classically trained students. Davente's moves were more committed, his strides longer, his turns tighter, his hips unlocking beneath the condor wingspread of his arms.

Davente, of Brooklyn Park, has little contact with anyone from his old school. "You know in the first month whether you're meant to be here or not," he said, describing the struggle to practice while hitting the same academic bar as at any other public high school. Still, he said, "this is the only place I've been where they encourage me to express myself."

His goals are to attend college and major in dance and journalism. When he's 25, he envisions a life of going to dance auditions and writing for a dance magazine. By the time Davente is 30, "and the body starts to wear out," he'd like to move into choreography, eventually opening his own dance studio.

For now, the senior is the star of this year's brochure, caught in a stylish dance move, a condor perched on a ledge.

Laryssa Schoeck applied to Perpich because she'd had enough of being a big fish in the small pond of Walker, Minn. She's also the only one of the four students to utter the "B" word.

"The ultimate goal would be Broadway," said the young actor, who then immediately sounded not so young: "But dreams change. My idea of success might change. All I know is that I want to make acting my career."

That decision opens doors, but also closes them. When she goes home, old friends ask, "So, how is arts school?" "They think I think I'm better than them, and that's not why I came here," she said. "It's just that in a small town, people don't think they can dream big."

"OK, show me the magic!" director Tory Peterson shouted to the group rehearsing a play about life as a ninth-grader. Everyone crisscrossed the stage as if passing classes, trading off dialogue. Laryssa has the scene's opening and closing lines. She's an energetic presence, yet remains part of the ensemble.

Attending an arts high school helps her hone her craft, but also her professionalism, such as learning the fine points of preparing music for an accompanist: putting it in a folder with a nonglare cover, and making copies so there are no page turns. "Before, I was like, 'Here.' It's just things I would never have known before."

Her biggest hurdle is managing her time. When in rehearsal, she can be busy until 10 p.m., but her chemistry lab assignment and French paper are still due.

After graduation, she hopes to head for the East Coast, ideally Boston, "where there's a great theater community." She intends to get a B.A. in musical theater, although she doesn't want to be known only as a musical theater actor. "All I know," she says again, "is that I want to make acting my career."

Kirstie Kimball cringes at the poems she submitted when applying for the literary arts track. "You grow so much as soon as you get here," she said.

Kirstie aims for a life not on a stage, but on a page. Her intentions are clear: attend a Buddhist university in Colorado, get a double major in creative writing and peace and conflict studies, and be a creative-writing professor. "And hopefully change the world," she added, working for women's rights around the globe. "Peace studies is a degree with a lot of activism."

She faced skepticism about Perpich from people who said she should be a lawyer. "People wanted me to give up my dream and be practical, telling me, 'You really won't want this.' But the longer I'm here, I know that it's exactly what I want."

In class, Kirstie practically vibrated as she read aloud a monologue, the product of a half-hour's writing in the voice of an unfamiliar character. Hers, of a relapsed girl at a rehab clinic, is a Niagara of words and images, of vulgarities tumbling over moments of dark comedy. It's long. It's exhausting. It works.

What doesn't always work is how the world views young writers. She knows how they -- she -- often are misunderstood or, worse, patronized. "It's like, 'Oh, you're a teen writer,''' she said. "It's frustrating to be misrepresented. But I love reading other people's poetry. I think other people's creativity is infectious."

Because she's from Grove City, Minn., Kirstie lives in the dorm, which has its own challenges. "We're like siblings. We get in fights sometimes, then get over it. Everything that's been hard here is so rewarding afterward," she said. "It's such a wonderful, difficult gift to be here. This is a safe place to fall on your face."

Charlotte (Charlie) Herrmann wants to be a doctor "or something in the medical field," and expects to find herself at 25 in medical school, and in debt -- but also singing. Of that, she's certain, whether it's in a community choir, semiprofessional ensemble or to herself.

Growing up in New Prague, "not a lot of people knew I loved to sing," she said, having been known more as an athlete and brainiac. "And I love to sing. I just wanted to come here and," she paused, searching the ceiling, "and float. Do it."

On an empty stage, Charlie worked with three classmates preparing KT Tunstall's "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" for an upcoming concert. "But I said no, no, no, no-no-no," she murmured, ferreting chords from her guitar. Barely breathing, her voice still was as sharp and silvery as a new moon.

The taskmaster of the group, she asked the others to figure out the harmonies on the "woo-hoo" part while she went to find a shicka-shicka egg shaker. When she returned to find little progress, she said little, but pulled a chair into their center and began sorting out the chords. It's a leadership role she probably couldn't have imagined when she was auditioning for admittance, only 15 and petrified.

Back then, one challenge was to compose a song based on five words: "corner," "awake," "conundrum," "intersperse" and "window," then sing it without accompaniment.

Now that pales with figuring out how to maintain a balance between medicine and music. She's among many Perpich students whose career goals have nothing to do with arts or performance.

"My main reason for coming here was to learn more about something I really want to do, but how to balance it with doing something medical -- that's what I worry about," she said, then exhaled. "But it's all an adventure."

Kim Ode • 612-673-7185