First steps to stage lights

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South Coast residents don’t need theater tickets to Boston or New York to see the kind of dance performances that typify the warmer, lighter-air spring season: ballet.

New Bedford Ballet

The New Bedford Ballet was founded by Shirley Kayne in a small Tarkiln Hill Road studio in 1984. The Youth Ballet is a company of the New Bedford Ballet Foundation, Inc., founded in 1987 as a non-profit organization whose mission is to promote and present classical ballets, grant scholarships, and educate the community in the beauty of this performing art, the company website boasts.

The Ballet, which will be presenting “Swan Lake” on June 13 at the Zeiterion Theatre, is continuing the company’s 33-year tradition of merging academics with the performing arts as well as introducing young learners to the artistry of ballet, said artistic director Rebecca Waskiel-Marchesseault.

Waskiel-Marchesseault’s own story is an example of what ballet training means to the young people who join the group. She said she was one of the dance school’s first students, attending before it became a school dedicated to ballet. She took ballet classes throughout her middle school and high school years and went on to learn how to teach it at the Hartford Ballet School, where she became both a teacher and a dancer.

She moved back to her hometown when she became a part of both the New Bedford and Boston Ballet companies. In 2009, when Kayne retired,

Waskiel-Marchesseault got her former mentor’s job.

“My mom said I was dancing since I was three,” she said. “I’ve always seemed to enjoy dancing. My most perfect moments are at the practice bar. And [Kayne] inspired me even more.”

Taking over Kayne’s position, she said, has given her a chance to give back that inspiration. She said she is proudest of the fact that “New Bedford Ballet has been a welcoming place for all abilities.” The company, for instance, also holds a summer workshop for young aspiring ballet performers that averages 125 students per year and will culminate in an August 7 and 8 grand performance at the Purchase Street theater. In March, the company performed “The Jungle Book” for eight area schools; three or four performances per day over four days.

In keeping with its mission of community outreach, Waskiel-Marchesseault said, the New Bedford company’s Youth Ballet performed this show for over 3,000 South Coast area elementary school children, at the Thomas R. Rodman and Alfred J. Gomes School in New Bedford and the Leroy L. Wood School in Fairhaven and Carlos Pacheco Elementary School in New Bedford.

Besides herself, the school’s success stories have included Pamela Mateus, a former scholarship student at New Bedford Ballet who now teaches its after-school program at the Gomes and Hayden-McFadden schools, and Erin Pettijean Allen, a former student of the New Bedford Ballet who is now a principal dancer for the New Bedford Youth Ballet. The school instructs 170 students per year plus another 36 at the two after-school programs, WaskielMarchesseault said. The students’ ages range from three to adult. Starting in the Pre-Ballet classes (ages 5-7), students may qualify to take part in the Youth Ballet’s mini-Nutcracker performance.

For more information on performances and classes, call the New Bedford Ballet at 508-993-1387 or visit its website at newbedfordballet.org

Spindle City Ballet

In Fall River, the Spindle City Ballet continues 36 years of educating young dancers with its annual Dance Academy performance on June 7 at 2 p.m. at the Bristol Community College Margaret L. Jackson Arts Center auditorium, 777 Elsbree Street, featuring young dancers ages three and up performing all forms of dance, from ballet and pointe to tap, jazz, modern, contemporary, and musical theater. This year’s theme: “The School of Rock.” Tickets will be available for this show as of May 1 at thedance-academy. com.

In the meantime, Artistic Director Lisa Bibeau says that the Spindle City Ballet junior company is visiting local schools, in Fall River, Somerset, and Westport, for its “Dance Me a Story” program, funded by the Fall River Cultural Council. The intent of this program is to show young dancers how to convey a story through movement and dance alone, she explained. The program has visited a dozen schools so far and would welcome invitations to do more, she said. (Interested schools should call the company at 508-677-2130.)

It’s the titular event of the 36-year-old academy with tuition-based programs that start with the First Steps Program for children,introducing dance to the youngest students through creative play and imagery, she said.

The first level of this program, “Tumbling Feet,” focuses on age-appropriate movement concepts and vocabulary for ages 2.5 to 4. The next level is “Petite Feet” for ages 5-6, when students will build on the concepts learned in Tumbling Feet to work in a specific style, memorize simple exercises and sequences, and make a start of musical interpretation.

All the concepts of Petite Feet then prepare the student for when they graduate to the “Steps In Motion” classes in Crystal Level (age 7-12), Jade (age 9-14), Silver (age 11-17), and Onyx (age 13-18), in ballet, jazz, hip hop, contemporary, or tap, where classes are limited to 12 students.

It’s all preparation for the company’s biggest event of the year: the company’s 25th annual performance of “The Nutcracker” from December 19 to 20 at 2 p.m. at the BCC auditorium.

Bibeau says that tickets will be available at spindlecityballet.org as of October 1. She recommends those interested in classes go to spindlecityballet.org, call (508) 536-6073, or email the company at info@spindlecityballet.org.

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