Ballet Without Fear
By Jennifer Rienert

Think ballet and recitals don't mix? Put the emphasis on storytelling and captivate your audience.

You've just closed the books on your 2006 recital and survived competition rehearsals and nationals. You're finished with summer camps and intensives and you've worked out fall schedules, staffing, and student placement. Maybe you even took a family vacation. But bam! It's time to start planning for next year's performance.

Figuring out themes to make your show interesting is always important. Trying to incorporate various dance disciplines into those themes is another, sometimes more difficult, chore. Jazz, lyrical, and tap routines are obvious choices because they are upbeat and entertaining to general audiences. But all too often ballet numbers in recitals are slow and repetitive or danced by students who aren't up to the challenge. So how do you incorporate ballet into the show without leaving your audience snoring?

Here at New Hampshire School of Ballet our emphasis has always been on ballet and pointe, so the ratio of ballet classes to all other disciplines is about 2:1. Over the past 40 years we've learned how to produce fun, entertaining shows that are about 50 percent ballet. The worst mistake you can make is to present a performance of random dances and songs. This does not connect your audience in any way to your production and they quickly become bored or distracted. What has worked for us is utilizing a familiar story line to make a cohesive production. Then it doesn't matter which disciplines are in it because the audience is enjoying a new interpretation of something they know.

This year one of our performances was based on a children's favorite, Alice in Wonderland. It began like the Disney movie with Alice (dancing a pointe solo), who then fell asleep and plunged into the rabbit hole. We continued to tell the story by using songs from the soundtrack to keep the audience connected, but expanded it to include other songs and styles. When there's not enough music in a soundtrack to accompany all the dances, select some classical pieces that work with your theme.

Here's a sampling of numbers from the show: "The White Rabbit" was a ballet solo set to the song "I'm Late" from the movie Rabbit Friends was danced by a ballet class of 5-year-olds to music from Coppélia that suggested cute little rabbits; and "Cheshire Cat" was a jazz solo to change things up a little for the audience. In "Kitten Friends" a ballet class of 7-year-olds danced to a selection from Giselle; "Caterpillar/Butterfly" was another ballet solo set to classical music; and "Butterfly Friends," to music from Swan Lake, featured a ballet class of 8 to 9-year-olds. To mix it up for the audience we threw in a group of painters tapping to the original soundtrack music of "Painting the Roses Red,"; followed by a ballet class of 9-year-olds in red tutus who portrayed the roses.

This format works well for the younger children. As the ballet students get older and expect to perform more serious pieces, we put on a separate part of the show that is more mature in nature. We place the children's themes before intermission and the more advanced musicals after, giving the little ones and their parents the opportunity either to go home after their show or stay to watch the older students. If you have enough older, more experienced students they can perform their ballet and pointe routines in a "mini"; production of a full-length ballet, like The Sleeping Beauty or Coppélia. This gives them experience with classical ballet but features only the most popular and familiar pieces of the story in a 30-minute show. This exclusively ballet production can offer deserving bunheads a chance to dance the classical roles they've always dreamed of.

If you'd like to integrate other genres like lyrical and jazz with the ballet you can alternate years, featuring a classical ballet one year and a mature musical like Phantom of the Opera, Carousel, or Les Misérables the next. In either case, ballet can play a huge part in all your choices and is audience friendly as long as a story is told. Audiences enjoy this change from the children's themes to more mature ones. If you limit the production to a reasonable time frame and use only the most advanced dancers, it will eventually become the part of the recital that the students will strive to be in. We have presented this more professional part of the recital as a privilege over the years, and students and parents are thrilled when they advance to a level of ballet that allows them to perform in it.

Remember to keep all dances at a reasonable length, about 2 1/2 to 2 3/4 minutes. Always keep the show moving, either by connecting the dances musically or by having one group enter as another exits during applause. Backdrops, props, and proper lighting help tell the story effectively and enhance the professionalism of your show. Because ballet takes many years to master, it's important not to over-choreograph the routines. Keep them clean and beautiful; let your students' artistry, not tricks, be the star.

Ballet can be a wonderfully emotional, humorous, beautiful, and expressive way to tell a story, so don't be afraid to fill your performances with it. Stay creative in storytelling, music choices, and costuming and your audiences will be right where you want them -- in their seats!

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