The Marin Ballet is preparing to celebrate its 50th Anniversary with performances by current students and a collaborative performance, with professional alumni, of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
The performance will be held on April 13, and the first half will be a choreographed student performance interspersed with alumni dances by professionals, including Jessica Wagner and John Lam. The second half of the performance will be the collaborative performance of the play. The dances featured in the performance have been passed down through the generations of Marin Ballet dancers. Marin Ballet dancing instructors, as well as the alumni, have performed these dances in past performances throughout the years.
“It’s really cool when we’re taught by the alumni because it brings back the whole tradition,” said sophomore Daphne Nhuch, who will be performing neoclassical and romantic style dances in the upcoming performance.
The dancers started auditioning for their parts in January, and have been rehearsing ever since, three days a week, for three hours a day and five or more hours on weekends. In addition, they still go to their regular three hour dance classes.
Most roles have an understudy who attend dance class from 10:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. on the weekends and even longer than the other dancers.
Nhuch and sophomore Monica Frangoul said that working with the professional alumni is a learning experience for all the current ballet students in more ways than one.
“When we are on stage, it’s inspiring just to be next to [the professional dancers] and work with them—it’s an honor basically,” said Frangoul, who, like Nhuch, is a neoclassical and romantic style dancer, and is also an understudy for a part in the play.
Junior Lizzie Pozonyakov said she wants the audience to feel the results of her hard work.
“I want the audience to know that ballet isn’t just tutus,” she said. “I want them to know that we work really hard for it, and at presenting who we are to the audience.”
The performance will be held at 7:30 p.m. at the College of Marin theater. Tickets for the performance are available now on the Marin Ballet website for $25.
