Stapleton Ballet presents Spring Concert 2012
The Stapleton Ballet Youth Company, featuring over eighty dancers ages 8 to 18, will present "Repertory Works & Coppelia" on Saturday March 31 and Sunday April 1st at The Playhouse in San Anselmo. Performance times are 1:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. each day.
The show will consist of Repertory Works performed by the advanced level Company dancers. Guest choreographers Jetta Martin, Wilhelmina Frankfurt, and Cynthia Anne Stanley have set four different pieces, using eighteen company dancers. These exciting pieces range from the traditional to the contemporary, showcasing the talents of Stapleton Ballet's advanced dancers.
The show will also feature Coppelia, a fanciful three-act story ballet with a duration of under one hour, making it perfect for young audiences. This condensed version of the classic, light-hearted ballet tells the enchanting story of Doctor Coppelius, who has created a life-size dancing doll, named Coppelia. When the local boy, Franz, falls in love with the doll, his betrothed Swanhilda resorts to trickery to teach him a lesson!
Repertory Works
"Inlet"
Choreographed by Cynthia Anne Stanley in Fall 2011 for the Martha Graham Schools winter concert. The piece was created as part of the Graham Company and Schools "Inner Landscape" presentation, a season that features Graham works and other featured choreographers' pieces focused on more psychological concepts. The music is Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" mixed with sound recordings from Gay Head Beach.
"Americana"
Dance Educator /Former George Balanchine© dancer, Wilhelmina Frankfurt is thrilled to be working with the Stapleton dancers as an educational study. The dancers will present a workshop of two Americana pieces. This Workshop is an opportunity for the dancers to experience the style of the great 20th Century Master of Dance.
"Firefly/Dragonfly"
First premiered in 2009, Jetta Martin's "Firefly/Dragonfly" is an exploration of movements found in the natural world and translated into dance. Inspired by the frenetic and driving nature of the music (Maxwell's Demon by Richard Einhorn and excerpts from Le Fil by Yann Tiersen ), her first working image was a dragonfly in flight. Jetta used rapid movements of the feet to mimic the movement of a dragonfly's wings. She went on to use other natural images that appealed to her including orbiting planets, the cascading of a waterfall, and the flickering of fireflies in the summertime.
Tickets: $20 General , $14 Student/Senior
On sale via Brown Paper Tickets
Seating is limited, early purchase strongly recommended
Choreographer Bios:
Wilhelmina Frankfurt is a former ballerina with The New York City Ballet Company under the direction of George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins and later Peter Martins. She has been teaching, choreographing and directing dance and theater for over 25 years. She has been the Artist In Residence at numerous colleges, universities and schools, both public and private Currently; she is a Dance Educator and a faculty member of Talent Unlimited High School for the Performing Arts NYC in the Advanced Ballet and Musical Theater Departments. Ms. Frankfurt created a dance curriculum, which is approved by the ©The George Balanchine Trust, NYSED and The New York City Department of Education. She teaches Master Classes, lectures and stages Balanchine works. She feels fortunate to have been able to study and work with the great Masters of Dance of the 20th Century. She feels that it is her responsibility to pass on the great gifts that were bestowed upon her.
Jetta Martin, a Bay Area performer, educator, choreographer, and writer, began training with Grace Doty at Berkeley City Ballet. After graduating from Harvard University cum laude, Jetta went on to perform professionally with Ronn Guidi's Oakland Ballet, the Mark Foehringer Dance Project, Push Dance Company, and the Natasha Carlitz Dance Ensemble, among others. Jetta's performance credits are numerous including the Joyce Soho, ODC, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, and the Egyptian Modern Dance Festival in Cairo. Her choreography has been featured on both coasts and has been commissioned by the Black Choreographer's Festival, Dance Mission Theater, the Museum of the African Diaspora, and the Stapleton School of Ballet. Jetta is thrilled to be working with the talented students at Stapleton. They have inspired her and breathed new life into one of her favorite works.
Cynthia Anne Stanley born and raised in Marin County California and is a Stapleton School Alum. She received her BFA in Dance Performance at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas and was awarded "The Student of Excellence" award from the Dance Department upon graduation. After arriving in New York, Cynthia began teaching at the Martha Graham School, including outreach programs in New York City public schools. She has choreographed and danced for Stapleton School of Performing Arts, Off Spring Dance Company, Contemporary Ballet Dallas, choreographer Zenobia Taylor, Red Wall Dance Theatre, Talent Unlimited High School as well as choreographed for The Martha Graham Ensemble and School with a featured work presented in the Graham Company's Gala in 2011. She has a collaborative dance theatre group, Bardos Ballet Theatre, which premiered in September '09 at Dance New Amsterdam.