Celebration of Dance 2008
Celebration of Dance, a recital performance at the Scherr Forum Theater in the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza, held on June 14, 2008 at 2:30pm, was the first annual recital performance for Ballet Arts in a while. After expanding our facilities and dance class offerings, we felt the need to offer a performance showcasing the different dance styles that we teach and give the students in those classes a chance to integrate their dance knowledge with on-stage performance.
In putting the recital program together our goal was to keep the overall performance to under an hour and a half. Ten of our dance teachers participated in this program, choreographing the various numbers and coaching the students. The gamut of art dance forms was represented. Helena Pokorny Jones, Anzhela Martynava, Melisa Sutherland, Lauren Smith and Linda Lewis presented ballet performances for various ages. Some performances were more classically oriented ballet and some more modern. But each of the instructors brought dedication, talent and their unique perspective to the challenge of presenting their students. Ben Wolff choreographed the Hip Hop numbers and his students looked like they were having a good time. The audience was having a good time too. It's contagious. Anzhela Martynava presented a character dance, The Snake, demonstrating that acrobatic skill can be used for more than winning trophies. In her choreographic hands, athletic ability serves art - and serves it well. Pamela Lappen presented a Modern Dance selection titled La Sac D'or Manquant (The Missing Gold Purse). Danielle Towne choreographed two Jazz selections, showing us an avant garde approach to dance. Victoria Moore gave us several Tap numbers and Jazz numbers spanning a wide range of class ages and styles from Button Up Your Overcoat for the little tappers to a Chorus Line selection, One, closing out the performance. And Catrina Quintanilla, a recent addition to our faculty, presented two Musical Theater pieces with dialogue, singing and dancing.
The photo slide show accessed in the right column has two or three photos from each of the 28 show selections. Ann Mathias was kind enough to take the pictures for this performance. However, all credit for overexposing, cropping without regard to content, and photo selection are the property of Ballet Arts.
Video Clips
The video clips are displayed in a "flash" multimedia embedded viewer so you have to have "flash" installed on your computer. It is free and plays on almost all computers. The controls below the video image are play/pause on the left, the progress bar in the middle, the full screen control on the right of the progress bar, and the volume control on the right. Below the controls is the playlist with the scroll bar to the right. Run the scrollbar up or down and when you find the selection you want click on the title with your mouse. The title should play. On the far right of the title in the playlist is a control to let you download the clip if you wish.