Some Enchanted Evening: Diane Lauridsen and South Bay Ballet
Clara (Daisy Jacobson) is directed by her eccentric godfather, Herr Drosselmeyer, in the second act of “The Nutcracker.” Photo by Michael Khoury Home to South Bay Ballet for the past 13 years, the dance studio on Sartori Avenue in Old Torrance is in a building with a long and storied past. It may have been a bank, says the company’s founder and artistic director Diane Lauridsen; it was probably several different clothing stores; and it was a thrift shop when she purchased it. A building with a past, but it is also where young ballerinas dream big and prepare for their futures. From the ground up Once again, Diane Lauridsen is getting set for the school’s annual production of Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker,” that perennial holiday favorite about a young girl escorted to the Kingdom of Sweets by the Nutcracker Prince, where she becomes a grown-up, full-fledged ballerina. There are three shows this weekend in Marsee Auditorium at El Camino College. Did you begin as a dancer? “I was a professional dancer,” Lauridsen replies, “and then I came back to get married and have a family. I always knew that I would teach; even when I was studying I was an assistant teacher. And I had ideas…
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