Christina Ghiardi goes full circle from student to teacher at School of American Ballet

Those who can, do. And those who do, teach.

At least Christina Ghiardi does.

The Nevada Ballet Theatre dancer, who’ll begin her third season with NBT this fall, graduated four years ago from New York’s prestigious School of American Ballet, founded in 1934 by legendary choreographer George Balanchine, who went on to found the New York City Ballet.

This summer, however, Ghiardi has returned to SAB, instructing beginning to advanced students on everything from Balanchine technique to dancing en pointe.

“It’s quite surreal to be back in New York,” Ghiardi, 23, admits during a telephone interview from SAB. “It’s like coming full circle — and very quickly a full circle.”

“Everything I’ve learned there,” she adds, “it’s all in my blood, all in my nature. It’s inside of me, like second nature.”

Ghiardi’s return-to-SAB summer is hardly her first teaching experience, however.

Earlier this summer, she worked with students in the summer intensive program at NBT’s Academy.

And, as a student at SAB, Ghiardi was the first of its student teaching fellows, notes Kay Mazzo, who co-chairs the SAB faculty — and spent 20 years as a principal dancer with NYCB, after which Balanchine told her, “ ‘Now you go back to the school and teach.’”

Mazzo and SAB faculty chairman Peter Martins — the former Balanchine dancer who became NYCB’s co-ballet master in chief (along with Jerome Robbins) in 1983, the same year he succeeded Balanchine at SAB — thought it would be interesting to have students teach a couple of classes, to see if they would like it, Mazzo says in a separate telephone interview.

As one of Ghiardi’s teachers, Mazzo knew the young dancer was very musical, she says, and was quick to pick steps up.

In addition, Ghiardi “had a wonderful sense of who she was,” Mazzo adds. “The younger students looked up to her,” even when Ghiardi would “correct them, but in a gentle way.”

Before joining NBT, Ghiardi taught at the Boston Ballet academy. (She joined Boston Ballet’s two-year Boston Ballet II program — designed to bridge the gap between formal training and a professional career — after graduating from SAB.)

Ghiardi planned to teach in Boston this summer — that is, until Mazzo called last fall and asked about bringing her on as a teacher at SAB, recalls Ghiardi. “I was so humbled to even be considered for the opportunity.”

Before she could accept the SAB offer, however, she had to notify Boston Ballet School’s Margaret Tracey, a role model who had hired Ghiardi to teach there this summer “ ‘unless something better comes along.’ ”

When Tracey heard about SAB’s offer, she advised Ghiardi, ” ‘You have to take that opportunity,’ ” Ghiardi notes. ” ‘You can’t turn that down.’ ”

With almost 200 students divided into seven levels, Ghiardi teaches technique, pointe and variation classes — 12 per week — Mondays through Saturdays.

Ghiardi’s experience as a student at SAB means “I’ve been in their shoes,” Ghiardi explains. “I know what they’re going through — all the hard work, the pain, the very intensive training.”

She still has her notebooks from her student days and “it’s really special to be on the other side,” Ghiardi adds. “I’m now the voice that they’re listening to.”

Many of the lessons Ghiardi imparts come through SAB’s heritage, which stretches back to Balanchine and his Russian roots at the Imperial Ballet School, according to Sandra Jennings, a repetiteur for the Balanchine Trust who has worked with Ghiardi while staging NBT versions of such Balanchine ballets as “Serenade” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Ghiardi “works so hard,” Jennings notes. But she’s helpful to everyone and likes to be inclusive. She’ll reach out to others, volunteering, “ ‘Let me help you with your pirouettes.’ She’s naturally empathic.”

Although the Balanchine connection plays a major role in her teaching, Ghiardi also credits NBT artistic director James Canfield’s influence.

“There are aspects of James’ classes I have incorporated — some things he says that clicked in my mind,” Ghiardi says, citing “the ability to learn from different teachers.”

Or, as Canfield observes, “you can say it ’til you’re blue in the face — and then the light bulb goes on when someone else says it.”

He’s not surprised that Ghiardi is now sharing her talents, and her knowledge, at SAB.

“She doesn’t obsess, but she focuses all her energy,” Canfield says. “She’s got the information to pass on. She’s a great example — she leads by example.”

At more than 6 feet tall (at least when en pointe), Ghiardi embodies “the clarity of the line and the physical illusion ballet projects,” Canfield explains. “Everything that a student needs to know, Christina has.”

All of which means Ghiardi has fulfilled the promise Mazzo and Martins saw in her when she was a student at SAB, Mazzo says.

Along with her very musical approach and the speed and attack of her dancing, “she has a good heart,” Mazzo adds. “She has (both) knowledge and personality.”

Halfway through the summer session at SAB, “it’s very rewarding to see how far the students have come,” Ghiardi says. “It’s amazing to see how much of the information they’ve processed.”

And sharing some of the steps she’s danced on The Smith Center stage with her SAB students represents “another kind of full circle moment,” Ghiardi reflects.

Although there’s something special when she’s dancing onstage, when “you become one with the steps and one with the music,” teaching makes a difference in her dancing as well as her students’, according to Ghiardi.

“When you’re a teacher, what you say is gospel,” she notes. “But the corrections that I give (to students) a lot of times, I can give to myself.”

Read more stories from Carol Cling at reviewjournal.com. Contact her at ccling@reviewjournal.com and follow @CarolSClingon Twitter.