As a child, my elementary school had a visitor with puppets who acted out the story for us after teaching us about the instruments in the symphony. It’s a lovely memory! There is one thing they did differently, though: they used some music from Peer Gynt (which is a wholly different story) to fill out…

The Frenchman Charles Perrault documented many famous Fairy Tales, and plenty of ballets that used his inspiration for their stories. Somehow, though, his name comes up most for Sleeping Beauty. I feel this is worth mentioning because when you see a ballet company perform Sleeping Beauty you can see it performed with one of two…

Swan Lake is a beloved ballet. Dancers have long been inspired by the the graceful “S” shaped birds that glide through the air and water alike. And the music for the ballet (by Peter Tchaikovsky) is STRONG: it’s romantic, it’s dramatic, it’s sad and it’s glorious. And that’s part of what makes the ballet so…

This modern ballet is a simple story about appreciating what you have. It’s timely for Thanksgiving and it lets us go to a country we haven’t yet seen in our ballet voyages: China! Please enjoy these tiny extras for homeschool, fun and deepening our studies into ballet culture! Science: Senses The Song of the Nightingale…

Giselle is a girl with “weak constitution” (meaning she gets sick very easily) who lives in the Rhineland. The Rhineland is a very green part of Germany. You can see Germany in red on the world map here: Science: The Rhineland This a map of The Rhineland. Do you see the thick blue line on…

Don Quixote is a very special, very old and very BIG book. As you might guess, big books are full of stories–often more than one–and this ballet is based on only the first few chapters of this big, old, magical novel written by Miguel Cervantes. This is my favorite ballet. When I was young, my…

You have heard this music before: whether it accompanied Buggs Bunny, Chico Marx or Knight Rider, Leo Delibe’s ballet score is more familiar than you expect–and yet the ballet is barely known. If more people knew about Sylvia, more people would love it, so with that, let me send you some cute activities and access…

The Firebird Suite was written by Igor Stravinsky for the Ballet Russes and the collaborations between those artists were historically valuable and inspired to folklore. Children find Firebird entrancing and I presume they have for a very long time. Your dancer might remember that the young farmer, Ivan, from The Little Humpbacked Horse, found a…

This month, we go to Ancient Egypt with the ballet, The Pharaohs Daughter! It’s a rarely performed, but highly revered, ballet with music by Cesare Pugni. The story resembles The Nutcracker Suite, in that it revolves around a dream. But here, the dream belongs to a man: English Lord John Bull. He goes to Egypt…

This month’s ballet is Graduation Ball! Set in Vienna in the mid 1800’s (for heightened nostalgia), it’s the story of a finishing school dance to which a class of cadets has been invited. This will be our dancers’ first exposure to Johann Strauss! Our STEAM activity suggestions are playful and associative and I hope you…

This magic fable gives us a chance to look at the build of a ballet production, the harvest of a farm, how to make our toys fly and how to paint a puppet!!! Science: Plowing Earth The Little Humpbacked Horse begins at Ivan’s family farm, where we see farm equipment, typically a scythe or a…

Hello, Moms & Dads! Below find easy EXPERIMENTS, tiny LESSONS and STEAM inspired ACTIVITIES for your dancers at home! PEER GYNT is born in NORWAY, takes a SHIP through FYORDS, and makes MONEY abroad. So, using something like a STEAM format, I’ve laid out these activities to support our learning in ballet! This month’s ballet…

I’m so happy to see my dancers online! I wanted to provide some at home learning for you, all inspired by our ballet of the month: Legend of Love! The story takes place in ancient Azerbaijan! Azerbaijan is not often represented in western culture and that gives us a special opportunity to learn with this…