The Making of a Ballerina

A wonderful opportunity to step into the studios of the Milwaukee Ballet is coming to the Woman’s Club of Wisconsin!

Alyce Andrews, a Milwaukee Ballet faculty member and former dancer, will narrate the training that a ballet dancer goes through - from the earliest lessons to the preparation for performances and ongoing maintenance. What are the building blocks of this training? How do these exercises connect to performance choreography? What muscles and capacity does each exercise build?

She will tell us about the progression of exercises in class, for beginners to professionals, starting with the plie, moving to tendu, and then on through to the final stretch. Alyce is remarkably well-equipped to speak about this, having deep experience as both a dancer and a faculty member.

Alyce and the MB dancers will show us the critical precision of line: the militantly straight knee, the prescribed turnout, the elegant arch of the foot - called ‘cashew feet’ - and will discuss why this precision is critical. A Milwaukee Ballet pianist will accompany the dancers to show the connection between dancer and piano in the studio.

We will all gain insights into the years of hard, focused work that each dancer invests before even stepping onto the stage.

Alyce danced with the Nashville Ballet for three seasons before joining the Milwaukee Ballet from 1991 to 2002. She studied at the ballet schools of Houston Ballet, Boston Ballet, and Atlanta Ballet, and received scholarships to the San Francisco Ballet School and the National Academy of the Arts. In the summer of 1995, she completed the advanced examination for the Royal Academy of Dance and was one of two dancers in the United States to be awarded the coveted Solo Seal of the Academy. Alyce is currently a full-time faculty member and the manager of one of the MB branch locations.

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