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 Ballet
Scene
Tutus and Tiaras
By Susan Yung
Roxey Ballet’s program for young children boosts awareness for
audiences and dancers
The vivid imaginative power of children is plainly visible
when they dress up as fairies, monsters, or ballerinas. Yet
among these fantasies, the dream of being a ballerina has the
potential to become a reality. Roxey Ballet’s Tutus and Tiaras
program aims to introduce children to storytelling and ballet,
revealing some of the magic behind the curtain. It helps
children to understand that the incredibly graceful dancer
under that beautiful or fanciful costume is a real person. And
it helps the dancers continue their professional development.
At Tutus and Tiaras: An Introduction to Dance Through
Storytelling, young children watch a ballet class, and then
several of Roxey Ballet’s dancers don costumes from a ballet
in the company’s repertory.
They demonstrate basics such as dancing on pointe and how a
lift is done and let the children see up close the pointe
shoes and elaborate costumes. They also engage the children in
a physical activity that the y
can then relate to the ballet—perhaps teaching a step from the
dance, or simply allowing them to move around the space with
the dancers.
Mark Roxey, the Lambertville, NJ, company’s
founder and director, geared the program to children ages 3 to
7. He says, “In order to develop your audiences, one of the
most valuable things you can do is address future audiences.
And that starts with the lovely little children who naturally
love dance, whether they’re boys or girls. When they’re
little, they all love dance.” Tutus and Tiaras harnesses that
enthusiasm and breaks the grand illusion of ballet into
morsels that young minds can comprehend.
The inaugural program last September featured Peter and the
Wolf. Roxey Ballet dancer Evalina Wallis Cain describes
how it began. “We smiled and demonstrated our love of movement
and focused attitudes during class. Next, some of the dancers
[answered] questions about ballet and showed the children how
to stand at the barre for warm-up.” After Beth Olanoff, the
marketing director for Roxey Ballet and the presenter for the
day, read the story of “Peter and the Wolf” and explained what
the children would see, Cain and two other dancers, Aya
Watanabe and Melissa Kanavel, entered the room, costumed as
animals. “We danced excerpts of the ballet and stayed in
character while Beth asked the children about what they had
seen,” says Cain.
One of the key goals of the program, according to Cain, is for
the children to identify with the people behind the masks, and
in the process feel that they might be able to do the same
thing  one
day. “After the performance, the children were asked if we
were animals or people, and they claimed that we were
animals,” she says. “I was excited to have created a
convincing fantasy for them, but we told them our real names
anyway. I think sometimes children imagine dancers as magical
people who aren’t like everyone else. It is exciting for them
to see that we are real, just like them.”
At the program’s first showing, everyone—children and dancers—
had a good time. Cain describes the children as “very
enthusiastic—they were all too eager to pet our fur and
feathers, give us hugs, tap on our pointe shoes, and have
their pictures taken with us.” And she says that the dancers
enjoyed giving them a taste of the studio environment.
Cheryl Flavin, describing her 3-year-old daughter Talia’s
reaction, says, “It was her very first introduction to ballet.
She really enjoyed the program and paid very close
attention—she was v ery
focused on the dancers and liked the different aspects of it.”
An additional six programs are on this season’s schedule,
including Sleeping Beauty, Romeo and Juliet, and
Cinderella. “[Talia] wants to go back; there are some
princess-oriented ones that she wanted to see and she’s been
asking about taking classes,” adds Flavin.
Mark Roxey developed the program from a promotional effort the
company presented last year at a local elementary school. The
casual and interactive atmosphere encourages children (and
parents) to appreciate the movement, music, and costumes from
a personal standpoint. As Cain notes, “Hopefully, the children
and adults who attend Tutus and Tiaras will be in those bigger
audiences as a result of the positive experience they have in
the studio.”
Roxey emphasizes the importance of the program not only for
the children but for the professional development of his
dancers as well. “A big component as professional dancers is
to be role models, to sit with the kids and read a story to
them—and perform excerpts from The
 Nutcracker,
as an example, or Le Corsaire, or Peter and the Wolf
—only classic ballets. And they do some activities with
the kids, which helps them as professionals to connect with
the community in which they live. And that’s one of the most
valuable things a company can do—serve its community first.”
Through Tutus and Tiaras, Roxey recognizes the importance of
integrating parents into their children’s exposure to dance.
The series encourages a basic level of understanding for
adults who might not be familiar with ballet otherwise. Roxey
is focused on attracting fresh viewers with other programs
geared toward young and more mature adults as well, such as
Brown Bag and the Ballet (open rehearsals to which audiences
can bring lunch) and Beer and Ballet (a relaxed forum mixing
dance with drinks). Notes Roxey, “We’ve got to reach out and
spend our valuable time and resources to find [viewers] and
bring them to the art form in ways that are relevant and
accessible for them, not just for us as artists.” He takes the
long view. “Hopefully dance will be around for another 500
years, and somebody’s got to come up with a better idea—it
can’t just be The Nutcracker.
“Unless you’re in New York or one of the larger cities where
there’s a built-in audience—primarily dancers—that come to see
dance, the ballet is losing the connection to the
 community,”
Roxey continues. “It’s losing its voice, its validity—because
of technology and many reasons. It doesn’t have to—but in many
pockets, it is.”
Roxey says that the true value of artists “goes way beyond the
traditional dance class and performance. That’s key for me and
for what I do for my artists.” He wants them to be not only
dancers but advocates for the art form. “If they’re given the
tools to interact and work with people in their community,
they understand how to reach them and relate to them—and if
you don’t do that, your audiences disappear.”
Roxey, who danced with The Joffrey Ballet and Dayton Ballet,
is aware of the hurdles that professional dancers face, be
they injuries, the lack of financial reward, and numerous
other factors. “But if they have these communicative skills,
and they develop them,” says Roxey, “then it’s possible to
think that as an industry, we’ll be able to keep more artists
that have attained tremendous skill and knowledge in the
field. That to me is critical. We lose so many talented
artists, and Tutus and Tiaras helps them to discover that—the
artists too, not only the audience.”
The program can also be a reality check for the dancers, who
relish Tutus and Tiaras for the chance to brush up on roles or
performing them even more convincingly. Cain says, “When you
perform for children, it can be a sobering experience in that
they don’t fake anything. Their emotions and responses are
always genuine.”
Photo captions (from top to bottom):
Tutus and Tiaras helps young children understand that a real
person (here, Aya Watanabe in Graduation Ball) is inside those
fanciful costumes they see onstage. Photo by Deb Gichan
Tutus and Tiaras breaks ballet into morsels that young minds
can grasp, like this scene from Peter and the Wolf, with
Melissa Kanavel as the Duck and Evalina Wallis Cain as the
Bird. Photo by Brenda Paulicelli
The fairy-tale characters in Aurora’s Wedding hold special
appeal for very young children. Photo by Brenda Paulicelli
Tutus and Tiaras attendees get to try some ballet exercises
with Roxey Ballet director Mark Roxey. Photo by Beth Olanoff
Aya Watanabe lets a young Tutus and Tiaras attendee check out
her cat costume from Peter and the Wolf. Photo by Beth Olanoff
The Cat (Juliana Mello) and Puss in Boots (Graham Albachten)
delight young audiences in Aurora’s Wedding. Photo by Brenda
Paulicelli
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