Ballet School Of Stamford To Celebrate 25th Anniversary

STAMFORD, CT — The Ballet School of Stamford will celebrate their 25th anniversary with "Sleeping Beauty: A Tale of Good and Evil," a new take on a classical ballet at 7 p.m. on Thursday, May 23 at the Palace Theatre in Stamford.

Act 1 will feature favorite variations including the Fairies, Puss-in-Boots and Little Red Riding Hood from the classical ballet set to Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s luxurious music.

Act 2 will transport the audience into the world of Maleficent and her battle with the Lilac Fairy over the fate of Princess Aurora.

Over 80 students ages 9 to 18 will perform in the spring performance, including eight high school seniors, who will be performing with the school before they go off to Brown, Princeton, Sacred Heart, UConn and other colleges and universities.

Company dancers will perform the classical variations and students will dance in Jewels, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Blue Bird and Garland Waltz staged for the performance by faculty members Tara Jarboe, Barry Kerollis, and Caroline Paine.

Guest choreographers Megan Bonneau McCool and Lauren Etter have joined forces to create "In a Kingdom Far, Far Away," a contemporary take on the battle between Maleficent and the Lilac Fairy which will be performed by the company dancers.

McCool’s choreography to Tchaikovsky’s "Elegie" welcomes the audience into the woods where both Aurora and the fanciful creatures and fairies live. Etter uses music from James Newton Howard’s fantastic score for "Maleficent" to introduce the battle of good and evil that is the essence of Sleeping Beauty.

The Ballet School of Stamford will hold a free 10 a.m. performance for over 1,500 Stamford Public School children. Over 24,000 students have attended Ballet School of Stamford free school performances.

The 7 p.m. performance is open to the public and tickets are available at the Palace Theatre box office by phone at 203-325-4466 and website. Tickets prices are $12 to $60.

Benefit tickets including a pre-reception are available and will support the school’s scholarship program that has awarded over $1.4 million in needs-based scholarships to deserving students. Sponsorship opportunities are also available.

The Ballet School of Stamford was founded to provide excellent dance training for all children in the spring of 1998. Currently, students ages 3 to 18 study classical ballet, jazz, musical theatre, contemporary, hip hop and modern dance. The school shares its new studios in the Stamford Town Center with Parsons Dance Company.