Practicing 20 or more hours a week, Bailey Sweet’s love of ballet has kept her on her toes. And as the Old Rochester Regional senior class president graduates, she is thinking as much about her cap and gown as her pointe shoes.

Sweet, a Marion resident, is staring in the title role of New Bedford Ballet’s production of “Peter Pan” on June 11.

Now 17, the daughter of Shawn and Wayne Sweet began working on her pliés when she was about three years old.

“My mom danced when I was younger. She though it would be fun, because she has two girls, to enroll us in ballet,” said Sweet.

Both she and her younger sister, Ari, stuck with ballet.

“I used to go to ballet for the social aspect,” admitted Sweet.

As classes got harder, however, she began to love the challenge and beauty of ballet.

“It’s all about inner strength and getting better,” she said. “It’s a self-motivational type of art.”

While she’s tried T-ball, soccer and hip-hop, nothing compared to the gracefulness of ballet, said Sweet.

The discipline of the dance also helped her to focus on schoolwork and to communicate.

“It’s calmed me down a lot. I used to be a jumping jelly bean,” Sweet said. Adding, “Sometimes I’m not good at talking at all. Ballet helps you express yourself without talking.”

Ballet has kept Sweet from participating in other extracurricular activities, but that was a choice she made to keep improving. With an average of 20 hours of practice a week at New Bedford Ballet and more gearing up for a show, “trying to balance is tough sometimes,” she said.

The sacrifice has paid off. Earlier this year Sweet played a lead role as Gerda in the “Snow Queen.” Two weeks after the show closed, practice began for “Peter Pan,” which has more acting and choreography, than previous shows.

“I have to try harder to make sure I’m believable this time around,” she said.

But Sweet is excited to play the part of the playful, never-gonna-grow-up Peter.

Once “Peter Pan” is over, Sweet will have a little more time to focus on her next steps.

In the fall she will matriculate to UMass Dartmouth where she plans to major in psychology, with the goal of eventually working with the deaf and blind.

Sweet won’t give up dance though.

“I want to keep up with ballet,” she said. “I just love ballet. It’s so graceful.”

The ballet will perform “Peter Pan” at the Zeiterion Theatre on Saturday, June 11 at 2 and 8 p.m.

Reserved seating tickets are $22, and general admission prices are $17 for adults, $10 for seniors and students and $8 for children 12 years and younger. Special group rates are available for nonprofit organizations.

To learn more about the New Bedford Ballet, including child and adult classes and community programs, visit www.newbedfordballet.org. To purchase tickets, contact New Bedford Ballet at 508-993-1387.