In a white, mirrored dance studio on Capilano Road, 13 dancers stand facing the barre in perfect first positions: heels touching, feet turned out to make 180 degrees.

Thirteen pairs of clear eyes look ahead, 13 necks are extended, 13 pairs of knees are pulled up straight. Typical of high-level teenage ballet students, their concentration is formidable.

Except these aren't teenagers; they are pre-ballet students aged four to six, and they are in only their third week of classes at the Vancouver Junior Professional Division.

"We are different from most schools," explains associate director Elizabeth Isabelle in a hushed voice as the girls practise rising to demi-pointe. "Our expectations are very high; we just don't feel the need to teach them 'the easy way,' so we start with the hardest skills first. They can always do more than you think they can do."

Artistic director Kathryn Perrault founded the school in 2005 with a plan to focus on the earliest years of training, which she believes are the most important.

Perrault -- who did her own training in Ontario, the U.S. and Europe and danced professionally in Vancouver and with Colorado Ballet Company and American Ballet -- developed the eight-year curriculum herself.

The school's first class of five girls graduated earlier this year, at age 13. One was accepted to the National Ballet School on a $20,000 scholarship; two went to the Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet; two dancers continue to train at VJPD.

For these students, if they want to further their dance training at the same level after they graduate from the program, they will likely leave the province. It's a young age to be leaving home, but as with all of the arts in British Columbia, dance training and professional companies are under-funded and the few options available to talented dancers are simply too limited.

It's always been this way, but last year, it started getting much, much worse.

Try following this shell game.

In August 2009, arts groups around the province -- from theatre groups and cultural festivals to galleries and dance organizations -- received a memo from Housing and Social Development Minister Rich Coleman advising them that grants previously approved from gaming funds were being cut. Others felt the pain as well: environmental groups, adult sports clubs and alumni associations.

In the memo Coleman said due to "unprecedented global economic challenges" the money would be used instead to fund "core services and priorities" such as programs that provide shelter and food for those in need, community health services, and public safety programs: necessities that had previously been funded by other tax dollars.

After Coleman's memo hit inboxes, groups facing huge cuts went public with their panic. He later returned some of those grants, but only to those organizations on a multi-year contract.

A month later, the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture published a service plan that called for core provincial arts funding -- tax money distributed through the B.C. Arts Council -- to shrink from $19.5 million in 2008-09 to $2.25 million two years later -- a drop of almost 90 per cent.

Supported by the bipartisan standing committee on finance, the arts council asked the Liberal government to restore its funding to 2008-09 levels when they tabled the provincial budget in March.

Instead, just a few days after the world watched Canada's singers, dancers and musicians close the Olympic games, money to the BCAC was cut to $7.9 million for 2009-10. The government also announced the establishment of a $30-million Arts Legacy Fund for the creation of B.C. Spirit Festivals, to be held across the province annually in February for three years ($10-million each year) to mark the anniversary of the Olympics.

It was a one-two punch that left the arts community staggering. Hundreds of arts supporters joined in the online outcry.

"It is hard to understand why," said one. "Maybe the solution is to leave a note on (Finance Minister) Colin Hansen's desk that says, 'Please just put the money back. No questions asked. We'll pretend none of this ever happened.' "

The poster got his wish . . . sort of. In late August, after protests, letters and emails from the arts community and the resignation of BCAC chairwoman Jane Danzo, the provincial government moved $7 million of the Legacy Fund back to the arts council, putting its budget back up to $16 million.

Tracing the funding changes through the past year is a complex task, but here's a statistic we can all understand: At the end of it all, the B.C. government spends $6.54 per capita on funding the arts. The national average is $26.

On the back side of our $20 bill, in miniscule print next to the image of Bill Reid's The Raven and the First Men, is a quote by Canadian poet Gabrielle Roy: "Could we ever know each other in the slightest without the arts?"

"There are so many ways to discuss this subject," says West Vancouver's Judith Marcuse, founder of the International Centre of Art for Social Change, and of Judith Marcuse Projects. "You can talk about the high data, how 80,000 people in this province are employed in the arts. And for every dollar spent by the government, $1.36 is returned to them in taxes.

"But there is also social capital -- what it brings to our society. There is such diversity in our population. We have opportunity for connection through the arts. It brings us together."

And it's not all about high art. The word, she says, encompasses everything from community festivals and pottery classes at the rec centre to opera and theatre -- and dance.

Perrault says that while not every five-year-old who begins to learn her pliés at VJPD will make it as a professional ballet dancer, the positive effects of having that arts background are countless.

"They learn so much more than dancing. They gain musicality and learn about classical composers. They learn about conditioning. They have demonstrated a huge amount of discipline and commitment to something. It carries over to every area of their lives. It helps feed their academic mind and aids in concentration."

Even for adults employed in fields far removed, she says, the arts add balance.

"Many people not employed in these fields still have an outlet that is creative or artistic, that nurtures them. They love the opera or theatre, or they paint."

So why isn't that private interest translating into public dollars?

Perrault wonders if it has to do with our climate.

"We're such a lifestyle-oriented city. I think in some ways the environment works against us." Perhaps on the West Coast, we like to spend more time playing outside than getting cultured inside.

As well, Canadians have a reputation as a practical people. It seems politicians across the country -- even in the country's top office -- have traded on that reputation to explain why funding for the arts is a lesser priority in times of economic hardship. Though it was two years ago, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's designation of arts funding as a niche issue that "ordinary people" don't care about won't soon be forgotten.

It's troubling, though, that even when he made that comment in 2008, B.C.'s spending on the arts was less than half the national average.

What's with this province? We are currently considered a "have" province, and will not be receiving the equalization payments that "have-not" provinces like Quebec and Manitoba get this year, so how is it that they can spend roughly $40 per capita on arts grants, while we spend $6.50?

West Vancouver-Capilano MLA Ralph Sultan, who has lived and worked in several provinces -- including Quebec -- agrees the figure is low in B.C., but doesn't see it as problematic. In fact, he had thought the per-capita amount was even lower.

"I think pretty heavy-handed restraint is the order of the day in Victoria in all directions. So whether it's the arts groups, whether it's the Ministry of Transportation, or whether it's the Ministry of Environment, you will hear the same concerns being expressed."

Sultan feels funding to the arts should not be drawn exclusively from the public purse.

"We could debate the philosophy of whether art funding is principally a government responsibility, I don't think so. . . . There's no question that the arts are terribly important, and should be funded generously from all sources."

What's certainly not true is the idea that "ordinary people" don't care.

"There is such a stereotype that the arts are elitist, and that working-class people in rural areas don't support them," says photographer Bill Horne from his studio in Wells, B.C. "Where we live, that's completely a myth."

Horne is the B.C. vice president of CARFAC BC (Canadian Artists' Representation/le Front des Artistes Canadiens), and the artist behind the Solidarity Series: photographs that illustrate support for the arts in all sectors, with miners, forestry workers and farmers around B.C. holding up signs. In his artist's statement, he says: "I started this series to illustrate our interconnectedness at a time when the B.C. government has made drastic cuts to arts funding, diverted gaming money from non-profits and is trying to pit artists against the neediest of society."

It's a conversation that is beyond the comprehension of the dancers in the studio on Capilano Road. When they are ready to embark on professional careers, perhaps we will have resolved this province's long and troubled history with funding the arts, and we'll be able to enjoy the results of their hard work.

Or perhaps, like so many before them, they'll take their art and go.