The boys and girls sat in small circles on the dance floor, awaiting their turn to try on ballet slippers. Their names and shoe sizes were jotted down on paper.

Some could barely hold in their joy. They would soon trade their socks for ballet slippers, pink for girls and black for boys.

"Can we dance with them next week?" said 6-year-old Nai Alvarez.

She didn't want to take off her pair, with the dainty pink straps and the tiny bows. The first-grader at Metropolitan Ministries School wants to be a ballet teacher when she grows up.