As SGA president, Lauryn Masciana is always on her toes. But outside of school, the senior stays on pointe – as a dancer at the Academy of Dance Arts in Tinton Falls.

Masciana began dancing at age three. Ballet was her favorite style until recently, when she began to enjoy contemporary, too.

But, Masicana said, “Ballet is the long-term goal.”  

Masciana plans on pursuing dance in college and as a career at a professional ballet company. Last year, Masciana attended the summer program at Boston Ballet, which she said helped her to improve tremendously.  

“Boston provided the reaffirmation I needed to devote myself even more to becoming a better dancer,” Masciana said. This summer, Masciana continued to work on her craft by attending an intensive at American Ballet Theater in New York City.  

But Masciana doesn’t spend just her summers improving technique. During the school year, she said she spends 20 hours in the studio each week.  

“It’s sometimes hard to find time for schoolwork and SGA,” Masciana said. “But being that I want to pursue dance as a career, it’s not realistic to be skipping my lessons for schoolwork.”

Despite her responsibilities as a student and SGA president, Masciana said she’s able to dance without feeling stressed or worried about schoolwork.  

“It’s really freeing. When I dance, I’m just focused on the art itself,” Masciana said.

In the future, Masciana said her dream role would be Kitri in “Don Quixote,” a part for a principal dancer, the top tier performer in a professional dance company.

“This role is sassy but still extremely elegant, and takes an incredible amount of talent to perform,” she said.

Her passion for the art is so strong that she sees herself dancing for the rest of her life, or as long as her body will allow her to continue, she said. Dance exerts a lot of physical stress on the body, but Masciana said that in a perfect world she’ll “be dancing as long as possible.”