All School Concert and more

This Saturday, June 12, we will be gathering at the California Ballet Center at 4:40pm to pay tribute to the late Paul Koverman. This is an opportunity for friends and fans of Paul to gather, share their memories, view photos and videos, and listen to some guest speakers reminisce as we bid him farewell. We would like anyone and everyone who is interested in attending to please feel free to come! Paul was very special to many of us, and the more people who share this sentiment, the merrier.

There will also be a potluck gathering at the memorial, so feel free to being something to share! The memorial shouldn’t last much more than two hours.

Celebrating Paul Koverman: A Memorial
Saturday, June 12, 2010 @ 4:30pm
4819 Ronson Court
San Diego, CA 92111

And now for the All School Concert:

This past weekend was California Ballet School’s annual All School Concert. This year’s concert was titled A Century of Dance. The evening shared with us the history of dance, presented through a montage of short pieces that showed off and highlighted the talents and skills of the school’s dancers.

One thing can be said of this yearly school production: this is not a recital. Sure, the children have an opportunity to show what they’ve been working on over the year, but this program is so much more. California Ballet School can pride itself on offering students the chance to not simply be in a recital, but rather a bona fide dance concert. The production values of this yearly event are on par with many professional dance companies’ productions. And the children rise to the challenge of offering dance entertainment to match!

Ranging from an African-flavored dance number to a Michael Jackson tribute, from a piece that paid homage to Charlie Chaplin, to the ballet sequence from An American in Paris, this program had it all! One of the most delightfully surprising moments in the evening was during a section that paid tribute to Bob Fosse. The dancing of the entire piece was fantastic, and true to the Fosse style. That’s to be expected of a school like California Ballet.

What was wonderfully surprising was that ten of the older dancers in the number performed All That Jazz, and actually sang the piece! The girls began taking a musical theatre workshop class a mere handful of months ago, and already they sounded not only strong and clear, but they were on pitch – they sounded great! Who would have expected a ballet school to present a group of fledgling singers who already have performance quality voices? California Ballet is training not just a new generation of ballerinas, but well-rounded dancers that will be capable of performing anything thrown their way.

Often times when one goes to a dance show featuring the very young, the number can turn out to be problematic. Not so in the case of California Ballet’s All School Concert. The youngest of children not only knew their dance steps, but executed them with ease. In many cases, the youngest were accompanied by an older dancer who marshaled them into formation and kept the numbers going smoothly.

One of the most endearing moments of the program was the Father/Daughter dance. Performed to Little Girls from the musical Gigi, a group of little girls we given the opportunity to show off their partnering skills with their real-life fathers! Accompanied by a chorus of “Ahhh” and “How cute!” from the audience, the number was a definite highlight in the program.

We could go on and on in this Blog about each number and how wonderful the dancers were during the nearly three-hour program, but we won’t. It’s enough to say that, as is always the case, California Ballet School is providing youths with a strong dance foundation, and it shows in the quality of performances that were presented this last weekend during A Century of Dance.