When I was teaching at a private dance school, there was a performance every year in May that included all the genres of dance. At that school (Town and Village School of Dance in Paris, KY) the ballet program was a bit separate from the other classes. For example, students in the ballet program were required to attend classes either twice, three times, or four times a week, whereas most other classes only met once weekly. One of my favorite things about teaching there was that I was given full control over my part of the final performance of the year, which usually included about twenty minutes of stage time.
The most memorable ballets we created mini ballets from were Coppelia, The Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella. We pulled wonderful moments from each ballet and made a story the audience could easily follow. The classes blended together without necessarily stopping for applause between each class, and some characters came onstage for parts even outside of their participation in a class dance. This way it flowed better, and at the end of the ballet segment we did a quick set of bows where each group or soloist came out for a bow in a finale with music, which normally only took about two minutes to insert.
Dubbing the music was really fun, as was making sure each student got ample amount of time on stage. Looking for or making appropriate costumes, making earrings to match for all the ballroom dancers, figuring out how to velcro diamond studs on a piece of fabric to a pointe shoe so the dancer wouldn’t have to change her shoes between appearances, and dressing up two fathers to play the parts of the step-sisters were all big highlights. But of course, doing the choreography was the most challenging and rewarding part of all. I tried to keep some of the original, traditional movements where possible, and we had a movie night at my house for all the oldest dancers so they could watch a professional version of the full-length ballet and recognize their roles in it.
Ah, those were the days!
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