New Bedford Youth Ballet
The New Bedford Youth Ballet is a company of intermediate and advanced dancers, ages 11 to 18 years, who are interested in developing their performance skills by participating in extracurricular dance programs. The youth ballet brings the beauty of live ballet to area hospitals, schools and nursing facilities; performs lecture/demonstrations in elementary schools throughout the region; and has performed with the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra and at New Bedford's First Night.
Each Fall open auditions for the Youth Ballet are held at New Bedford Ballet. The dancers selected for the company take ballet classes four to five days per week and often spend one or two days each week rehearsing.
The typical Youth Ballet yearly calendar is as follows:
October
- Open auditions for the Youth Ballet
- Casting for the Nutcracker (abbreviated version)
- Rehearsals for the Nutcracker begin
November
- Rehearsals for the Nutcracker
December
- Children from “Kids On The Move” elementary after school dance program are invited to attend the Nutcracker dress rehearsal.
- Ten performances of the Nutcracker occur during two consecutive weekends. Two classes of young students from the New Bedford Ballet have the opportunity to participate in these performances, playing the roles of the Mice and Chinese Tea dolls. All students at New Bedford Ballet receive complementary tickets for the performance and are invited to meet the cast members following the Sunday performances.
- Nutcracker performances at St. Luke’s Hospital and Hasbro Children’s Hospital
- Portions of the Nutcracker are performed as part of AHA (some years)
- Portions of the Nutcracker are performed with the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra at the Zeiterion Theater (some years)
January
- First Night performances of the Nutcracker (some years)
- Casting for Spring Children’s Ballet
- Rehearsals for the Children’s Ballet begin
- Auditions for summer programs in other cities and states
February
- Casting for the June, full length ballet performance. This ballet includes all students at New Bedford Ballet; members of the Youth Ballet frequently mentor younger students in this performance.
- Rehearsals for the Children’s Ballet and full length ballet
March
- Performances for eight area schools; three or four performances per day over four days
- Performances for senior citizens; Council on Aging
- Performance as part of the Week of the Young Child
- Two performances at a fundraiser for the Taylor Leigh Alves Fund
April
- Performance at Children’s Hospital Boston
- Rehearsals for full length ballet
May
- Rehearsals for full length ballet
June
- Full length ballet (includes all students from the school of the New Bedford Ballet)
July
- Summer ballet program for Youth Ballet: 3 to 5 hours of class per day, including a choreography workshop, instructed by James Brown, and a performance workshop, instructed by Erin Petitjean.
- Some students attend summer dance programs in other cities and states.
August
- Summer performance which includes original pieces choreographed by students as part of the choreography workshop, variations from classical ballets, and other short ballets rehearsed during the summer program.
September
- New Bedford Ballet school year begins
