Halloween Special Ballet to Not Necessarily Ballet Music Class – The Island
South West Dance Theatre brings Halloween fun to The Island this October…
If you love Halloween and all things gothic and spooky, it’s probably time you took a dive into some of classical ballet’s ghost laden, wicked sorcerer riddled repertoire of horrors. This Halloween South West Dance Theatre are inviting everyone to get close up and personal with these iconic dances.
“There’s a lot of choice when looking for gothic and spooky classical ballets,” says South West Dance Theatre director Anna Davis. “Think of the storyline of Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride and its ballet twin in Les Sylphides, then there’s the evil Rothbart and his Black Swan daughter in Swan Lake – the archetypal goth duo – not to mention the undead spirits of jilted brides dancing their former loves to death in Giselle. It’s fabulously macabre!”
With this in mind, the last Friday before Halloween, South West Dance Theatre will be inviting everyone – whether it’s their first pas de bourree or a nostalgic tip toe back to a former love – to try out snippets of the iconic choreography in these ballets both original classic and Bourne again. There will be the usual class exercises to warm up the body and to help newbies get their arms and legs round some of the steps, all paced for a range of abilities so that you can work with where your brain and body are that day. There will even be a lead to follow for under 16s.
That’s right, while our Friday morning class is usually for age 16+, since it is Halloween and half term we will be welcoming grown ups to bring their under 16s too so that they can also have a go at the ballet exercises, and maybe even devise their own Halloween choreography if that way inclined. There will also be a little break out space at one end of the studio for light spooky arts and crafts pitched at school age and above, in case there are some little people ready for a different sort of diversion before the grown ups are finished.
Fancy dress optional but strongly encouraged!