A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM Divertissement (Clifford)

About ten years after I made my child-friendly A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM for the student dancers of The Portland Ballet (average age 14) their director Nancy Davis asked me to add a divertissement to the second act, a la Balanchine's version. She had some boys she wanted to get a taste of stage experience, and basically use as many of her students that I could. We already had a huge cast, but most of those were younger students as bugs, and fairies. So...I came up with this short divertissement that takes place at the marriage of Duke Theseus and his Amazon Queen, Hippolyta. The stage was rather small, but the live orchestra was always great. This used a Mendlessohn string symphony as Balanchine did for his Act II divertissement (a different one, of course). The boys were very inexperienced and had zero partnering; so I had to keep everything very simple...but still keep it moving. Even so, if I had an adult professional cast, I wouldn't change too much I think. I was hoping other large schools might want this because it always brought the house down.

[@movingpicutres99]

Genius! Thanks for sharing this wonderful piece.

[@rustytoddler9399]

Thanks for sharing. That was lovely.

[@photographedemode]

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