Cinderella: A child’s delight with a musical montage that brings joy to all hearts.

Cinderella

This lighthearted version of Cinderella is a  delightful evening  of classical ballet  for young people. Les Petits Ballets has included  two very proficient professional dancers.  Prince Charming (Evgeni Dokoukine,) whose leaps and acting talent brought much excitement to his performance as the Prince. The ball room in the palace that fateful night when little Cinderella appears in her dazzling blue magic robe (Haruka Kyoguch) with the stars twinkling on the top of her head, gave the prince the chance to show his acting talents as he tries to avoid the  terrible two sisters who  were so cruel to Cinderella. But the Prince and Mlle Kyoguch also a professional dancer kept the tension high and the pas de deux breathtaking as they whirled around the floor together dancing the night away in the prince’s palace.  Also excellent was the step mother (Jasmine van Schouwen ) who  brought strong acting  as well as very good dancing to her character role as the pushy mother.

 

The choreography of the corps de ballet  gave the younger dancers of the Les Petit Ballets  a chance to perform in public and the older ones had an even better chance to perform as individuals in the final scenes where the prince is out scouring the countryside looking for the girl whose feet will fit into that tiny glass slipper. Never has so much pushing and shoving and squeezing been so funny! .

Most interesting however was the way Mlle Joanna Hughes constructed a montage of  music, bringing together bits of Prokofiev, of Stravinski of Rossini and other composers to change the musical background and bring in different styles and rhythms for the corps de ballet. The music was a challenge and the shifts in dancing were very useful for the young bodies trying to master all the works of these great choreographers. Aside from that, the variety of musical scores was delightful to hear.

As an evening of Ballet education that was pleasing and even exciting,with  Prince Charming showed us his amazing leaps, this show was a great success. Even most of the little ones were not fussing about in the audience. They had their eyes glued to the stage and that was the greatest tribute one could pay to Les Petits Ballets.

At the Centrepoint theatre, plays on December 3 at 1.00 and 7.pm. 2016

Cinderella : Haruka Kyoguch

Prince : Evgeni Doukoukine

Step Mother : Jasmine van Schouwen

Step sisters: Bryanne Dawson, Janika Salvatierra,

Fairy Godmother: Brooke Collier

With children, Villagers, Maidens, Village ladies, Gypsies, Stars, Mice, Palace Guests,