A Swellegant evening offers tribute to Broadway legend Chita Rivera

With Broadway legend Chita Rivera set to accept this year's Boston Youth Moves Lifetime Achievement Award, "Swellegance," an evening of celebration through dance, will no doubt draw a crowd to the Sheraton Boston Hotel in the Back Bay this Saturday, March 8.

Add to the celebrity list stage and screen actress Bebe Neuwirth, and, if her schedule permits, Catherine Zeta-Jones - and you've got three generations of female stars who once performed as Velma in the stage and screen versions of "Chicago." Two-time Tony Award winner Rivera created the Broadway role in 1975, followed by Neuwirth's 1996 revival of Velma, which won her a Tony, and finally, Zeta-Jones' Oscar-winning role in the 2002 film version.

Rob Marshall, the film's director and choreographer, will be in attendance as one of the presenters at the eighth annual fundraising gala, which raises money for Boston Youth Moves, a local nonprofit youth-dance organization co-founded in 1990 by Jim Viera and Jeannette Neill, of which Swampscott's Gillian Katz and Marblehead girls Heather Giblin, Kristy Henrich, Jen Murphy, Alexandra Burke and Jessica LeBlanc are members. The organization offers dance education to help encourage young people to explore their limitless potential for artistic expression, including jazz, ballet, modern and tap dance, as well as various ethnic styles of dance.

Instead of hanging at the mall during her spare time, LeBlanc, a 15-year-old sophomore at Marblehead High School, either carpools or hops on the Swampscott train four days each week to pursue her passion for dance at the Jeannette Neill Dance Studio in Boston, home to Boston Youth Moves. This year will mark her third in BYM and in Swellegance.

LeBlanc has been a student at BYM since she was 11. Before that, she danced in Marblehead, instructed by a teacher who was also working at BYM. Her dance class in Marblehead left LeBlanc feeling unfulfilled, she says, and as a result, she was losing her passion for dance. At the suggestion of teacher Beth Wheeler of Marblehead's A Dancer's Dream dance studio, LeBlanc and her mother investigated the 16-year-old BYM program.

Says LeBlanc, "She talked to my mom [and me] and said, 'You know, you would do so well if you went to this studio. Just check it out.'"

Instantly smitten with the BYM program, LeBlanc has since spent much of her free time at the Friend Street, Boston location. In fact, she attends classes each Saturday from 11 a.m. until 6 p.m., with only a one-hour break. Her passion for dance since joining BYM has soared, and she participates in all aspects of performance dance, including ballet, tap, jazz, modern, musical theater and voice ensemble. For the Swellegance performance, she says with pride, "We'll be doing some musical theater, since it's kind of a jazzy piece, and we'll be wearing heels."

A trio of celebrities will present honors to Rivera, but Zeta-Jones could be a no-show, as a scheduling conflict has arisen that will determine her visit to Boston. If all goes well, the stars will align. Scheduling is a common dilemma, and has been the reason why Rivera wasn't honored sooner.

Says Neill, "We've been trying to get Chita for many years, but she's been busy dancing."

Many young girls may not recognize the Broadway diva, but LeBlanc's young age has no bearing on her knowledge of the 75-year-old legend. In fact, she attended Rivera's "Chita Rivera: A Dancer's Life" show a few years earlier.

"I'd heard of Chita, but that's when I got to know about her life," says LeBlanc, who says of Rivera, "I loved her legs."

Rivera's obvious assets have led to her great fame, highlighted by her role as Anita in "West Side Story," but she's also endured great pain when she crushed both her legs in an automobile accident many years ago. But she keeps on dancing.

Says Neill, "If you can spend 70-plus years dancing, the beauty is in how the artist gets so refined. The young dancers [of BYM] are building their awareness of what they can do with their bodies."

While Rivera may no longer be able to do "a lateral tilt or all that up and down on the floor," says Neill, "I tell the students to see how dance refines on someone who is more mature. There are absolutely no boundaries in the way Rivera dances. She's just absolutely spectacular."

When Rivera's not traveling, touring and working, she's very supportive of BYM as a board member, says Neill, which is why she is being honored this year. BYM's Artistic Director Jim Viera has created a performance for BYM students to show reverence and respect for Rivera.

"To be part of that is really thrilling," says Neill.

Neill is proud of the dance training her faculty offers.

"There's no sense in learning something halfway, or not well," she adds.

Many of the dancers at BYM will eventually move on to other professional pursuits, including law and medicine. At this time, LeBlanc says she is planning to go to college and either major or minor in Broadway theater, but this could change over the next year or two.

"They're like little rockets," says Neill. "You never know where they'll shoot off to, but I think probably 90 percent of the students stay connected to dance without necessarily becoming dance professionals. We do have kids that go off and become dance professionals, and that's another gratification for us, but we love to have them come back to us and take classes."

She adds, "I just had a doctor from New York who came back to take classes again. They [BYM alumni] are people who respect and support the arts, which is important in the American culture, which Neill says is lacking support of the arts. Many alumni have become set designers, doctors, arts and entertainment lawyers, and how dance has inspired confidence in how and what young people can achieve is one reason why BYM is so valuable."

For LeBlanc, her network of friends with similar interests has expanded, and her passion for dance has been renewed. Swellegance is an annual event in which she looks forward to performing.

Almost all of the 60-plus students of BYM will perform in the opening of Swellegance, and then there will be separate, smaller groups performing throughout the evening.

Neill says the Level 4 BYM group in the show will offer a sophisticated performance.

"I would put them up against anybody, they're so professional and work so hard," she says.

A sophisticated sense of work ethic is something Neill says visiting choreographers have noticed, but according to LeBlanc, what makes BYM stand out among the others?

"Everything," she emphasizes.