Thanks for Recital!

Remember recital? Remember all the costumes, props, lights, rehearsals? Remember the excitement? Believe it or not, the teachers and production team are as excited for recitals as the dancers are; there is no greater measure of a successful year than seeing the Ballet Petite dancers perform at recital! We couldn't be prouder of you all! So congratulations on a fabulous show!

Though recital is the most exciting part of the school year for all involved (teachers, students, audience!), it takes a lot of behind the scenes work. So a big thank you to all the staff that helped make the shows so spectacular, including the teachers, the production team, the managers, the lobby crews, the set-up teams, the clean-up crews.

So what happens backstage at the end of the show, you ask? Well, first we jump and skip and hug for joy, then we jump and skip and hug all of our performers, and finally we clean up and go home to brag to all of our friends and family about Ballet Petite's fantastic dancers!

The lovely teachers leaving after a proud day's work!

Ballet Petite's fantastic Production team!

Lobby crew!

So many flowers!

And we can't forget to thank the Queen of Backstage, Miss Debbie!

CONGRATULATIONS, EVERYONE! CAN'T WAIT FOR NEXT YEAR'S!

HAPPY DANCING

Youth Performing Arts School's SPRING CONCERT

Sunday night's Spring Concert is the culmination of not only Ballet Petite's recital season but also of our dancers' Ballet Petite experience. Our oldest performers across the genres perform their teachers' individual choreography at Spring Concert. Both teachers and students stretch their creativity, stretching their limits beyond the familiar pieces they have worked on in previous levels. Teachers pick their music and their themes; students work with their teachers on choreography and performance. All of this brings an incredibly complex performance on many levels, and the studio is always proud of what everyone accomplishes for this show every year. It is a chance for personality to shine through and for years of training and perseverance to pay off. It is a time for proud teachers to experience the full value of all their students have accomplished. And it is a time, most importantly, for our students to realize for themselves what kind of amazing performers they have become over the years. So let's extend a big thank you to all of our staff who have made all of our shows possible throughout the years; to all of our fabulous, hard-working teachers who have patiently worked with us; and to our brilliant, impressive, showstopping dancers who pulled tears from our eyes with every step.

Sunday, June 9

Spring Concert featured choreography by:
Miss Jennifer
Miss Sarah
Miss Melissa
Miss Kristen
Miss Amanda
Miss Emily
Miss Erin
Miss Lauren
Miss Roxana
Miss Natalie


"Don Quixote: Girlfriends of Kitri" Miss Jennifer
"Lavender Hills" Miss Sarah
"Beam Me Up" Miss Melissa
"Anything You Can Do/ Put on a Happy Face" Miss Kristen
"Concerto No. 4 in F minor, Op. 8, Movement 3: L'Invemo Allegro" Miss Amanda
"In the Upper Room" Miss Emily
"Optimist" Miss Erin
"Nocturne No. 2 in E flat minor" Miss Emily
"Intersections" Miss Lauren
 "Air" Miss Roxana & Miss Jennifer
"In This Shirt" Miss Emily
"Le Corsaire: Le Jardin Anime" Miss Jennifer
"Hallelujah" Miss Erin
"Moonlight Sonata" Miss Jennifer

"Gymnopedie No. 1 'The Enchanted Forest'" Miss Natalie
"Man in the Mirror" Miss Kristen
"Coppelia Waltz: Léo Delibes 'Swanhilda's Friends'" Miss Natalie
"November Rain" Miss Roxana
"Le Corsaire Pas de Trois des Odalisques" Miss Emily
"Life in Technicolor" Miss Kristen
"Ave Maria" Miss Sarah
"Non Je Ne Regrette Rien" Miss Emily
"Giselle Waltz" Miss Jennifer
"Serenade" Miss Emily
"Musical Box/Dance on the Box" Miss Roxana
"I See the Light" Miss Sarah
"Some Nights" Miss Melissa

Summer Camp Games and Manners Sampler

We're going into our third week of summer camps this morning, and with three weeks on our resumes for Summer 2013, we thought we'd share some of the fun things we've been working on so far this summer! 

Teachers, campers, parents all agree: camp weeks are some of the most fun of the year. Camps include fun games and crafts that regular ballet classes don't have. But the real fun in camps come from the creativity of our teachers and from new experience each week and each camp brings. How do you make each new day, week, month of camp a new adventure?

You have to mix it up!

Joint snack time for a treat last week! Three camps all eating and chatting together!

Ballerinas always want to behave like princesses, especially at the table. Dancers always sit with their legs criss-crossed applesauce, and they are very careful to keep their feet away from the food. We remember our pleases and thank-yous and enjoy sharing our Nilla cookies and Goldfish with our new friends!

Playing "Something's Missing!", led by Miss Katie!

"Something's missing, something's missing,

Can you tell, can you tell?"

The game starts with a handful of items in the center of the circle: i.e. a pumpkin, a teddy bear, a CD, a scarf, etc. Then, one or two people leave the circle; meanwhile the remainder of the circle decides on a couple of items to pull and hide. Miss Katie takes those items and hides them behind her. The two people return to the circle and have to guess which items were taken! 

We're looking forward to even more games and dances this summer! Have pictures from your camper's performance in the previous weeks? We'd love to see them!

Youth Performing Arts School's SLEEPING BEAUTY

Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty was first performed in 1890. The ballet bases its story on Charles Perrault's La Belle au Bois Dormant, a fairytale with which many of us are familiar. After years of waiting and hoping, the king and queen have a baby daughter, whom they name Aurora. Aurora is beloved by all. However, at her chirstening ball, the fairy Carabosse places a curse on the baby out of anger and spite. Before Aurora's sixteenth birthday, she will prick her finger on a spindle and die! The Lilac Fairy softens the curse as best she can; Aurora will not die but instead she will fall asleep for one hundred years until her true love finds her. He will give the sleeping beauty a kiss to awaken not only the princess but the entire kingdom and defeat Carabosse forever. The Lilac Fairy promises to guard the princess throughout her life and see her gift through to the end.

Well, the kingdom never forgets Carabosse's words, and everyone does their utmost throughout the princess' first sixteen years to avoid spindles and other potentially sharp objects. But unfortunately, they also manage to overlook the disguised old woman crouched in a corner at Aurora's sixteenth birthday ball. The old woman, who is obviously Carabosse in disguise, hands the princess a bouquet of roses-- and a spindle. The castle falls asleep for one hundred years shortly thereafter.

One hundred years later, the Lilac Fairy plays matchmaker and tells a prince of the sleeping princess and her long lost kingdom. He races off to the castle and awakens the princess with a kiss. Aurora and her kingdom awaken. She and the prince quickly fall in love and are soon living happily ever after and the last hundred years are nothing but a bad dream.

Most children grow up hearing the story of the Sleeping Beauty, but the ballet brings the fairytale to life with magic and grandeur. The music is simple and elegant, perfectly suited to dance and pantomime. It is also definitely recognizable thanks to the Walt Disney Company that used Tchaikovsky's score to compose its movie soundtrack. Ballet Petite's Sleeping Beautyallows the opportunity to perform pieces from an actual and historical ballet production with choreography from excellent teachers. It is also the last time these dancers perform a complete ballet at recital, so it's truly a treat to see the story unfold on stage, dance after dance, class after class, and ballerina after ballerina.

And take a little listen to our lovely narrator:

Sleeping Beauty featured choreography by:
Miss Amanda
Miss Sarah
Miss Emily
Miss Meghan
Miss Natalie
Miss Kristen
Miss Lauren
Miss Erin
Miss Jennifer
Miss Roxana

And narration by Claire Thorn

"Prologue: The Court of King Florestan" Miss Amanda
"Entrée of the Courtiers" Miss Sarah
"Entrée of the Fairies" Miss Emily
"Gifts of Beauty, Grace, and Generosity" Miss Meghan
"The Lilac Fairy's Gift" Miss Natalie
"Carabosse's Curse" Miss Kristen
"The Lilac Fairy Changes the Curse" Miss Lauren
"The Garland Waltz" Miss Erin
"The Rose Adagio" Miss Sarah
"Maidens of the Court" Miss Sarah
"Mysterious Old Woman with the Spindle" Miss Jennifer
"The Kingdom Sleeps for a Hundred Years" Miss Jennifer
"The Vision" Miss Erin
"The Kiss" Miss Amanda
"The Kingdom Prepares for a Wedding" Miss Natalie
"The Courtiers Dance" Miss Natalie
"The Fairies" Miss Natalie
"Puss in Boots, Blue Bird, Red Riding Hood, Cinderella" Miss Kristen
"Apotheoses" Miss Roxana
"Finale" Miss Erin

The Princess and the Pea for July!

With the nonstop motion of the months of May and June, with recital and with the end of the school year, Peter Rabbit burrowed away in our studio's windows for quite a long time. Not that he outstayed his welcome; he's too cute for that. And the soothing smell of chamomile tea and the sound of bunny snores kept us relaxed throughout recital madness and quite content for a long while.

However, it's officially summer throughout the DMV, and with the beginning of summer camps and the beginning of July, we decided it was time for a change. So the Production team got to work to wish us a happy July and bring us our next theme: 

The Princess and the Pea

The beloved fairytale The Princess and the Pea is the story of the prince who searches the world for the perfect bride. But each one he encounters doesn't seem quite royal enough to suit his mother. Perhaps all the princesses are only silly impersonators hoping to get their hands on a crown! So his very proper mother comes up with a rather gauche test: a true princess, she believes, will be so delicate that a single pea in her mattress will cause her a most distressful night's sleep!

The prince despairs; what reasonable girl will ever notice a single pea beneath a mattress? But the queen is convinced, and when a poor princess is trapped in the rain outside the palace one night, the queen prepares the test.

Placing a single uncooked pea beneath a stack of twenty mattresses and twenty quilts, the queen shows the sopping princess to her room.

And behold, the next morning, the princess comes into the breakfast room battered and bruised and thoroughly exhausted.

They all live happily ever after!