In 2020, Catskill Ballet Theatre was preparing to take you on an adventure with Alice and a cast of magical, mythical characters in our original rendition of Lewis Caroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Under the new artistic direction of Melissa Bierstock, this would have been our first spring ballet in a decade. Rehearsals were in full swing; costumes, props, and music had been refurbished, and the dancers were turning the corner on the midway point in the production process.
However, 2020 had a different rabbit hole in store for all of us. When the performance was cancelled in Mid-March due to the pandemic, we were deeply involved in rehearsals with our talented guest artist, Camila Schaeffer Rodrigues, who had been commuting from NYC to learn the part of Alice. One of the scenes going through renovation was “The Flower Garden”, which had been reset to include Ms. Rodrigues interacting with the elegant, but not-so-friendly flowers of Wonderland. In an effort to preserve the choreographic changes that would not make it to the stage, we converted the studio to a performance space, and through the generosity of our friends and volunteers, was able to produce this short filming of “The Flower Garden.”
Featured here are six of our corps des ballet dancers who returned to the studio for the first time in four months on the day of the filming, along with Camila Schaeffer Rodrigues, a native of Brazil who has been performing throughout the United States and Canada since arriving in New York in 2013 to attend the Joffrey Ballet School. Please enjoy this short performance of The Flower Garden from Catskill Ballet Theatre with music by Rebekah Harkness, original choreography by Diana Banks and Anne Hebard with adaptations by Melissa Bierstock.