Recital 2009
Quack Quack , a dance number for some of our smallest dancers, experienced an unexpected bit of improvisation when one of our Ducks realized that the yellow spot on the floor she was to end up at was .. MISSING. Not content with standing precisely where the yellow disk should have been, she instead dashed off stage, looked at the instructor and announced "Miss Melisa, my Nest is missing". Well, with thirty numbers in the program I guess we can expect something unexpected will happen. (And I'll bet some in the audience actually thought this was choreographed.)
In putting the recital program together our goal was to keep the overall performance to under two hours. Ten of our dance teachers and two advanced students participated in this program, choreographing the various numbers and coaching the students. In addition, Hayley Blauuw, Rachel Kealy and Bianca Tartaglia assisted our youngest dancers on stage. The gamut of art dance forms was represented. Helena Pokorny Jones, Zina Arten, Melisa Sutherland, 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. Pamela Lappen presented a Modern Dance selection titled Ping An Shui (Peaceful waters). Danielle Towne choreographed two Jazz selections, showing us an avant garde approach to dance. Victoria Moore gave us several Tap numbers spanning a wide range of class ages and styles from Sisters for the little tappers to Cabaret for advanced tap students. Catrina Auer presented three Musical Theater pieces with singing and dancing one from The Wiz and two from Peter Pan.
The photo slide show accessed in the right column has one to three photos from most of the show selections. Unfortunately, the camera's battery ran low near the end and we missed a couple of dance numbers. Kathy Koenig was kind enough to take the pictures for this performance. Deena Kernan took some backstage photos and we share those with you in a separate gallery. However, all credit for over-exposing, cropping without regard to content, and photo selection are the property of Ballet Arts.