Since our first show (in Golden Gate Park) the trainee’s have done shows almost once a week. We performed a show for the major donors at the Napa Valley Opera House, a few shows at private schools in Marin County and San Francisco and most recently went to perform in Sacramento with another ballet school.

Its always interesting to see the reaction of high school students to their introduction to ballet. There is always a sort of awkward mood in the audience when the first guy in tights takes the stage but usually by the end of the piece they are all calm and hopefully have enjoyed the ballet. A lot of younger students have never really been introduced to the arts like ballet students have and sometimes I forget about this just because I have been around dance since I was 10 and live in a dorm of 24 other ballet dancers. It’s not that these people are ignorant (although some are) they just have not been introduced to the art of ballet. I think its important to show the variety of ballet to younger generations to show that its not the stereotype anymore of little girls in tutu’s. The Trainee program’s rep is so great because it is so broad and shows so many levels of ballet. We are doing “classical” ballet like Grand Pas Classique and Helgi Tomasson’s Menuetto , more “Neo-Classical” like Tomasson’s Handel: A Celebration and some very new and beautiful ballet’s done by Neumeier and Parrish Maynard.

Our Next Shows are 3 performances in the end of the month with the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra’s Family Concert series in Berkley, San Mateo and San Francisco. We are performing 3 of Helgi’s ballets, Handel: A Celebration, 7 for Eight and Menuetto. I am dancing the male solo in Handel for two of the shows and I am really excited to be performing to a live orchestra for the first time. I hope that it will be exciting so wish me luck!
Here are a few photo’s from the past couple of weeks

The VERY small but very nice Napa Valley Opera House

Kristina Lind and Stephen Jacobson in Helgi Tomasson’s 7 for Eight

Kristina Lind and Stephen Jacobson in Helgi Tomasson’s 7 for Eight

Jordan Hammond , Steven Morse and Myles Thatcher in Helgi Tomasson’s Menuetto

Jordan Hammond and Myles Thatcher in rehearsal for Helgi Tomasson’s Menuetto

Stephen Jacobson, Dylan Ward and Harrison James Wynn rehearsing John Neumeier’s Yondering

Mattia Cambiaghi, Jordon Hammond and Myles Thatcher in Neumeier’s Yondering

Mattia Cambiaghi, Jordon Hammond and Myles Thatcher in Neumeier’s Yondering

Jordan Hammond and Koto Ishihara rehearsing

Steven Morse and Koto Ishihara in rehearsal

Kimberly Braylock and Harrison James Wynn in Edgar Zendejas’ Crumbling