Charlotte’s ballet company takes a little bit of culture to the local schools every years, presenting several dances based on a common theme.  This year’s theme is storytelling through dance.  They are presenting an excerpt from their spring show, “La Sylphide”, which tells the tragic story of James, Effie, Gurn and a sylph (fairy).  For the school shows, Charlotte was Madge, a witch.

James (the brunette boy and Charlotte’s friend Michael) is engaged to Effie, but is in love with the sylph.  Gurn (bald guy) is also in love with Effie.  In this scene, James and Effie are preparing to celebrate their engagement as their friends arrive with gifts.  Madge wanders in to warm herself by the fire.  James wants her to leave, but Effie convinces him to let Madge stay.  Effie and her bridesmaids have Madge read their palms. (The first bridesmaid is told she will have a baby and there will be celebrations.  The second bridesmaid is told she will have a baby, but there will be death.  You can figure out what the third bridesmaid is told.)  Madge then reads Effie’s palm and chaos ensues.

Charlotte starts to enter the stage around 2:48, if you want to skip ahead.  Once she leaves, she doesn’t return.

Enjoy.

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Some pictures of Charlotte in costume as Clara.

After the first show.  She is holding the roses we gave her.  Peter fell asleep during the Waltz of the Flowers.

This Charlotte and her Nutcracker Prince, backstage after the last show.  She is holding the flowers given to her onstage.

Here she is as both Clara and Fritz.

And these are the custom dolls I had made to look like her in her costumes.

She’s in the background of this picture from the professional photographer.

She did an appearance at Barnes and Nobles as Clara.  This costume is the one that will be used when her ballet company does the Nutcracker at the end of December (that’s when she is Fritz).  First, the Sugar Plum Fairy danced, then Charlotte. Then Charlotte read the story of the Nutcracker to the children.

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First off – Charlotte moved up another level in ballet, making her an advanced dancer.  Her new leotard color is now blue.  She was excited to get her new leotards and matching skirt.

Her first experience as an advanced dancer was for her summer Broadway workshop. The musical this year was “Mary Poppins”.  Here she is in her Broadway dance class, performing to “Chim Chim Chiree”.  She is wearing white, center left.  I think she looks a little too grown up here!!

This next one is her contemporary dance class performing to “Stay Awake”.

Next was her ballet class, dancing to “Let’s Go Fly a Kite”.  At the beginning of the video is the intermediate ballet class and Charlotte’s class comes in about the :53 mark.  You can skip ahead to it if you’d like, or watch the whole thing to get a feel for the difference between the two levels.  She is in the center row, wearing a pink tutu.

And finally here she is in her advanced tap class.  Tap is a little different, in that an advanced ballet student might be a beginning tapper or even the other way around.  Charlotte was put into the advanced tap class with just a handful of other dancers.  Last year at this time she was in beginning tap.  She moved to intermediate tap midway through the last school year and so she was surprised to find herself in advanced for this workshop.  She said this routine was hard, even for the one girl who was an advanced tapper last summer.  But the teacher pushed them to learn the difficult dance and the result was amazing.  Once again, the video starts off with the intermediate dancers and I would recommend watching the whole thing just to see how much harder the advanced portion was.  If you don’t want to, Charlotte comes in at 1:13. You can stop the video after her group takes a bow.

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