The chances were about as good as getting struck by lightning, but a Red Bank Regional senior has made his way to one of the country’s most prestigious performing arts schools.
Anthony Tiedeman, right, has been accepted to Julliard, a highly sought-after school that has less than a five-percent acceptance rate.
After a three-round audition process, the school selected Tiedeman and 25 others from a group of 560 applicants, a release from RBR said.
“I feel this is the perfect school for me and presents the perfect challenge,” the dance major said in the release.
Tiedeman, of Red Bank, has had plenty of practice to get to this point.
A dancer since he was eight, Tiedeman spends 90 minutes a day in dance class at RBR. But that’s only a warm-up. He drives up to Sayreville to one of the state’s top studios, The Dance Stop, to practice another four to five hours after school.
He aspires to be a professional dancer with a traveling troupe, he said, but wouldn’t mind returning to Red Bank to be a guest choreographer at the high school.
“No doubt his teachers and classmates will be following his star,” the release said.