Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts and the School of American Ballet to Present THE BEAUTY OF BALLET in March

Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts at Brooklyn College continues its 60th Anniversary Season with The Beauty of Ballet, a free lecture demonstration presented by the School of American Ballet (SAB), on Saturday, March 7, 2015 at 2pm. This event is free, with no tickets or reservations required.

The 45-minute, family-friendly presentation will illustrate how students develop into accomplished classical ballet dancers, alternating examples of advanced classroom training exercises with the performance of excerpts from notable ballets. School of American Ballet faculty member Katrina Killian (a former New York City Ballet soloist) and advanced students from SAB will be featured in this enchanting and informative introduction to the art of classical ballet.

How do ballerinas dance on their toes? How do dancers spin and turn without getting dizzy? How do male dancers jump so high? Those questions and more will be answered during the demonstration, and favorite moments from ballets such as The Sleeping Beauty, The Nutcracker, and Swan Lake will be performed to live music. The Beauty of Ballet is recommended for ages 4 through adult.

The School of American Ballet, the official training academy of the New York City Ballet, was established in 1934 by legendary choreographer George Balanchine and philanthropist Lincoln Kirstein as the first and most essential step in their quest to create an American classical ballet company. Over the past 80 years, the Lincoln Center-based school has enrolled some 17,000 students, with over 2,000 having become professional dancers at New York City Ballet and countless other companies around the U.S. and abroad. Today, SAB is the premier ballet academy in the United States, training more students who go on to become professional dancers than any other school. SAB's former students fill the ranks of the New York City Ballet and over 65 U.S. and a dozen international ballet companies. SAB's faculty is led by Peter Martins, New York City Ballet's Ballet Master in Chief, and includes a number of current and past New York City Ballet principal dancers, many of whom worked directly with Balanchine. New York-area children enrolled at SAB are featured annually in New York City Ballet's beloved production of George Balanchine'sThe Nutcracker at Lincoln Center. The School's advanced students come to train at SAB from around the United States and abroad and represent some of the most promising young talent in the U.S. Students aged 6 to 18 are admitted by audition only. www.sab.org.

The Beauty of Ballet is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City council and Council Members Daniel Garodnick, Ben Kallos, Stephen Levin, and Helen Rosenthal, and by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

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