BIDDEFORD — Emily Belanger started ballet dancing when she was 3. Now 17, the Biddeford native is still at it.

Belanger’s latest role is as “one of the pirates’ ladies” in the Maine State Ballet’s production of Le Corsaire. The popular ballet tells the tale of a pirate trying to rescue the woman he loves after she’s been kidnapped.

“It’s a really fun ballet,” Belanger said on Thursday. “We’ve never done anything like this.”

Belanger, a Biddeford High School senior, is one of about 50 dancers in Le Corsaire, who range in age from middle school students to professional dancers in their 20s and 30s, she said. Performances of the three-act ballet, which dates back to the mid-1800s, started in March, and there are seven more slated for this month.

Performing with the Maine State Ballet is nothing new for Belanger, who began taking classes with the Falmouth-based performing arts institute more than a decade ago.

It was a few years before that, though, when her mother, a former dancer, first signed her up for ballet classes. Then, when she was in first grade, seeing the Maine State Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker is what sealed her fate as a student there.

“I told my mom I wanted to dance on my toes like the big girls that I saw on stage, so she switched me to Maine State Ballet because no place locally pushes for point so much,” said Belanger. “By the age of 9 I was dancing on point.”

Today, Belanger boasts 11 appearances in The Nutcracker ”“ the show that started it all ”“ and it’s still her favorite.

“I just love the story and it’s one of the first ballets I ever saw,” she said, adding that it’s “just amazing” to perform at Merrill Auditorium in Portland, which is where the Maine State Ballet’s production of the Nutcracker is performed each year.

Despite her résumé already reading much like a professional dancer’s, dancing is not where Belanger sees herself going. Instead, she wants to become a teacher, she said, which is why next fall she’ll be going to Stonehill College in Massachusetts to study elementary education as well as Catholic studies.

But that’s not to say Belanger will be giving up on her passion for ballet. She already plans on joining the college’s ballet dance company, and hopes to one day return to the Maine State Ballet.

“I’m hoping to end up back in Maine, and if I do, I’ll take classes at Maine State Ballet,” she said.

When asked what her favorite part of performing is, she answered quickly and with a smile. “I think it’s hearing the applause,” she said. “You almost forget that you’re there when you’re dancing, so at the end when you hear the audience clapping … you know they appreciate what you just did for them.”

Belanger will be performing in Le Corsaire at the Maine State Ballet Theater in Falmouth at 7 p.m. tonight, as well as on Saturday, April 4, at 2 and 7 p.m.; on Friday, April 10, at 7 p.m.; on Saturday, April 11, at 2 and 7 p.m.; and on Sunday, April 12, at 2 p.m.

Ticket prices range from $19-25 and can be purchased online at www.mainestateballet.org or by calling 781-3587.

— Staff Writer Angelo J. Verzoni can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 329 or [email protected].