Nutcracker Ballet Winter Dance Camp

Students will learn through reading, music and dance all about the world renowned Nutcracker Ballet. This class is for ALL levels of dance experience! 

Class 1: Introduction:
Students will read, "The Nutcracker" by Susan Jeffers. We will discuss the book and then listen to a classical music excerpt from the Nutcracker. We will discuss the music and learn about the composer who wrote the music for The Nutcracker Ballet.
We will then have a 20 minute classical ballet technique class and student will learn traditional ballet terms, positions and exercises. 
Students will then watch an excerpt from the Nutcracker Ballet and we will discuss what we see. Students will learn about the main character of the ballet, Clara. We will learn part of Clara's dance from the ballet. Students will then have a creative movement experience where they create their own movement. They will also learn ballet choreography for the ballet piece, "March Of The Toys". 

Class 2:
We will begin class with a 20 minute traditional ballet class as we did for class 1, adding to our previous knowledge and learning new terms and movements!
Students will learn about classical ballet attire such as point shoes, leotard, tutu and tights. Students will watch an excerpt from the magical "Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy". We will discuss the costuming and stage lighting etc. 
Students will learn simplified choreography from the ballet piece, "Dance of the Sugarplum Fairy". 
They will create their own Ballerina Snowflake ornament to hang on their Christmas tree! 

Class 3:
We will begin class with a 20 minute traditional ballet class as we did for class 1 and 2, adding to our previous knowledge and learning new terms and movements!
Students will explore the difference between two ballet pieces in the Nutcracker Ballet. We will have a creative movement exercise where we create our own movement using the music from the two differing ballet pieces. 
Students will have a creative movement exercise involving dancing like a flower. They will create their own movement. We will then explore the ballet piece from the Nutcracker, "Waltz of the Flowers". We will discuss the 3/4 waltz music rhythm used in the dance. Students will learn to waltz and learn choreography from this piece. If we have time we will review all the choreography we have learned and perform them!