Marc Valdez Weblog: Sacramento Ballet "Family Fun"

Left: "Western Hoe Down". Stefan Calka and Brik Middlekauff.

Delightful time with the Sacramento Ballet folks!

Chrisopher Nachtrab hosted, along with Alex Stewart. Both were fun hosts, and perfectly-suited to the task.

The last time I recall seeing Alex Stewart was as 'Benjamin' in DMTC's "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat", in January, 2006. It's amazing - he's all grown up now!

And he brought his brother, Tim, along, as well as some musical theater people too. Tim Stewart sang 'Shoeless Joe From Hannibal, Mo' as several baseball players danced, including the wondrous Cory Betts, and the unexpected Sean Patrick Nill. The point of the dance was that dancing isn't just about ballet; it extends to musical theater too, and many other places too.

Left: Cats love to give autographs (Isha Lloyd and Rex Wheeler).

Left: Mice come out at Christmas!

Left: Meet a Ballerina!

Left: Alexandra Cunningham as "Alice in Wonderland"

There were several kid-pleasing dances at this event, but the dance that seemed to be the kids' hands-down favorite was arguably the most-sophisticated too. Alexandra Cunningham danced Nolan T'Sani's "Ballet du Murphy" ('Murphy' as in Murphy's Law - whatever can go wrong will go wrong) as the sincere, near-sighted black swan in a judgmental corps de ballet adhering to exacting ballet style. Similar to "An Evening With Olaf" that I blogged about last week, children just love seeing adults placed in situations that children have to deal with all the time: trying to excel and please their superiors in a world biased against them. T'Sani's work must also convey to children what ballet style consists of, and it was clear from the way even the youngest the kids "got it" than T'Sani completely succeeded!