Marple Newtown's Recent Grad Leaps to Professional Ballet Contract

If the conventional wisdom of the moment is to be trusted, to truly master any discipline, whether it be piano, paddle ball, or podiatry, you need to spend 10,000 hours practicing it.

Esmiana Jani is at 7,200.

And Jani, 18, a ballet prodigy who's trained at for the last decade, is apparently a quick learner too. The grad has accepted a dance position with the Washington Ballet that begins in September.

The Albania-born Jani's ascension to the professional ranks marks the realization of a nearly life-long dream. She's been in ballet slippers for as long as she can remember.

"I was walking around the park one day, as a child, and strangers stopped my mom and asked her if I was a dancer," explained Jani, taking a stab at her own story of origin. "This is because I never put my heels down, I always walked on my tiptoes. So my mom got the idea that I should dance."

And she did. The then 5-year-old began taking lessons in Greece, where her family was living, and continued until they decamped for America a few years later and landed in Marple Newtown.

Though she was always a precocious natural talent, it was in Media that her desire caught up with her ability. She found her passion for the art.

"I think one of my first performances here at the academy [was the moment I decided that ballet was what I wanted to do]. That feeling of being on stage, it just took my breath away," she said.

She was nine, and according to Academy of International Ballet co-owner Josie Singer, she's taken away many other breaths since.

"She has a very charismatic appearance onstage. She's the one your eye is drawn too. She also exudes an elegance, which is necessary in classical ballet," said Singer, before adding that the most powerful component of her allure is intangible. You just have to watch her to understand.

"During shows, I'm the person who either sits in the audience or stands outside and asks people how they enjoyed the performance when we're finished. And they always say, 'My eye was drawn to whatever character Esmiana [Jani] was playing.'"

Her excellence came not without sacrifice though: Jani said it isn't strange to see her friends go off to college while she prepares to begin a career as a professional dancer—ballet consumed her life to the point that she simply doesn't have many.

"I was always so into ballet I would never hang out with friends. I had friends in school, but I would never hang out with any of them," she said. "I couldn't even go to my own graduation or my own senior prom. I put ballet first no matter what."

There were times when she felt overwhelmed by these demands and even considered walking away, but she never carried through with it. In ballet, discipline is paramount.

"There were points where I just wanted to quit because I was tired of not having a social life. It was a strict schedule for me from day one. School, ballet, home. School, ballet, home. It got to the point where I couldn't handle it, but I had to snap myself out of it," Jani said. "I had to do what was best for me. Go with it. Suck it up. Do your job. Don't complain. Fun will come."

Jani says that after her career winds down, which happens sooner rather than later for even the best ballerinas, she hopes to stay close to the sport and possibly open her own studio. In the near term though, her focus is singular.

"Since day one, basically, I wanted to please my family and my teachers. My own goal is to do everything right. If I have flaws, I want to find them and fix them."

She admits that no one can be perfect. But she's going to give it a shot.