When 13-year-old Gabrielle Verissimo talks about her neighborhood of Gardenia Azul, in Rio de Janeiro, her wide-eyed face, already stretched tight by hair pulled into a sleek bun, grows still more taut. In Gardenia Azul, drug gangs battle paramilitaries for control and most people can only aspire to jobs as maids or construction workers.

But ask Verissimo about the ballet classes she takes at home, and for two precious weeks here at Miami City Ballet, and the tension disappears into an enormous smile. ``It gives me tremendous pleasure,'' she says. ``I want to be a great dancer.''

Verissimo is one of 35 aspiring young Brazilian dancers studying at Miami City Ballet School's annual summer program. They were brought here by Alice Arja, a former ballerina who has devoted herself to offering desperately needed escape and hope to young people from some of Rio de Janeiro's poorest neighborhoods.

At The Alice Arja School of Dance, in a converted factory in the sprawling district of Jacarepagua in Rio de Janeiro, 126 of the 415 students are on scholarship. ``I went to all the elementary schools'' in the poor areas of Jacarepagua, says Arja, 49, a tiny, alert woman. ``And I said, `Who wants to dance?' And they all raised their hands.''

For the children, dancing can mean defying their family or their community's expectations. ``My mother used to discourage me,'' Verissimo says, ``because she used to say ballet is only for rich people. But Alice has supported my dream.''

In the poor neighborhood where 16-year-old Rodrigo Martins lives, ``people don't think about their future much. They don't know what they want in life. In [Arja's] school I not only learned about ballet, I learned to live.''

Martins is learning even more, thanks to the relationship Arja has formed with Miami City Ballet. Fifteen of her students are on scholarship this summer. All are getting training and experience not possible in their home country.

On this steamy July day, they are making the most of their opportunity. Alexandre Ferreira, 18, Renan Cerdeiro, 17, and Andrei Chagas, 15, fly through solos in a repertory class, their long, fine-muscled legs slicing the air in glorious geometry. Two teenage girls twist joyfully at the front of a jazz class.

A younger group, ages 8 to 12, sits in the hall, watching intently, awaiting their turn in the studio.

``It's a dream come true to be here,'' says Joyce Costa, 13. ``In Brazil we don't have many opportunities for ballet. Here we can see the opportunities are endless.''

``In Brazil, most people don't think ballet can give you a future,'' says Cerdeiro, who will apprentice with MCB this fall. ``People ask me. `What are you going to do?' And I say, `I'm going to be a ballet dancer.' And they say, `Oh, someday you'll grow up.'''

Arja launched her school in 1989, after 14 years dancing with the Teatro Principal do Rio, Brazil's official ballet troupe. She had also worked as an elementary school teacher, and fervently believed in dance's power to cultivate children from neighborhoods traumatized by poverty and drugs.

``Dance requires discipline, responsibility, attention, everything necessary to create a citizen,'' she says.

Arja visited the poor neighborhoods around Jacarepagua, including Gardenia Azul and City of God, the violent slum made famous in the 2002 film of the same name (one student from City of God is among the scholarship recipients at MCB, and 12 from that neighborhood are at Arja's Rio school). ``I'd ask the children, `Do you have a papa?' `No, my papa is in jail.' Do you have a mama? No. Those were my preferred students.''

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