Ballet Bellevue Programs
In providing dance art in multiple venues, Ballet Bellevue brings its craft to a wide variety of audiences. It plays a visible and vocal role in the cultural explosion of Bellevue through its diverse community of artists and collaboration with groups such as Ukranian Folk Dance (Barvinok), Hip Hop/Salsa (TBM) and Turkish Folk dance (T.A.C.A.) Ballet Bellevue is currently working on expanding its performances to reflect the diverse cultures found in Bellevue.
Ballet Bellevue strives to set realistic goals while raising funds to sustain its exciting ambitions. These ambitions include paying artists appropriately for their work, providing local audiences with performances of high artistic quality and act on Ballet Bellevue's core value of arts education for all.
Three performances from Ballet Bellevue's recent season The Nutcracker, The Little Match Girl, and Velvet Romance highlight its mission and goals.
The classic Nutcracker ballet was performed with Ballet Bellevue Orchestra at the Sammamish Performing Arts Center with four performances over two days. This well attended performance provided local eastside audiences with a wonderful holiday experience of this classical ballet complete with a live orchestra.
Ballet Bellevue presented the twenty fifth anniversary performance of The Little Match Girl this past March at the Sammamish Performing Arts Center. Family audiences were treated to a classical ballet interpretation of this tale by Hans Christian Andersen. This production introduced Ballet Bellevue's Student Performance Division, Ballet Petit. Ballet Petit provides classical ballet performing opportunities for students of Ballet Bellevue School, a separate non-profit.
Velvet Romance offered audiences a chance to experience contemporary works by a diverse group of local artists. The performance included multiple pieces staged in collaboration with multiple choreographers, costume designers, and guest dancers. Some of the pieces featured original music scores by local artists. In Velvet Romance the audiences was treated to these local artists exploring their innovative talents.
Recent Successes and Current Challenges
The Nutcracker performance is one of Ballet Bellevue's recent successes. AS mentioned previously, this well attended performance provided local eastside audiences with a wonderful holiday experience of this classical ballet complete with a live orchestra. The quality of experience a live orchestra brings is integral to Ballet Bellevue's goal of achieving high quality performances.
Although expanding the use of a live orchestra to more performances is on the list of current needs, the organizations current primary challenge is finding a suitable local venue for professional ballet performances. Portable equipment such as a portable sprung floor would provide Ballet Bellevue with the flexibility to safely conduct performances in a variety of eastside venues. The confidence and increased professionalism of the dancers with a quality floor under their feet transfers directly to the audience. Ballet Bellevue will feel the benefits of increased safety of its core dancers, of increased ability to attract quality guest dancers, and spread the value of the quality floor by renting it to smaller dance companies.
It will allow Ballet Bellevue to continue to confidently fulfill its mission in bringing high quality artistic shows to more venues and audiences throughout the region.