New York Theater Ballet's Cinderella

A note on this blog: While Mom and Melia started this blog together over five years ago, as of today's post Melia has officially left the blog to pursue other interests including novel writing and younger sister, Aurella has officially taken over. Melia may occassionally guest post. However, unless otherwise noted all "me" posts including the one below are now being written by Aurella.

We were given free tickets to New York Theater Ballet's performance of Cinderella for review purposes. Any and all opinions expressed here are our own based on our experience.

Me - NY Theater Ballet's Cinderella was good. It was the first ballet I've ever seen, and I enjoyed it. I liked how even though there was no talking because it was a a ballet they found a way to still have some funny parts. My favorite characters were Cinderella and the Fairy Godmother. Cinderella was a really good dancer and did a great job. Her ball gown was really beautiful.The stepsisters were funny. They were played by men. In both versions we saw of Cinderella recently the stepsisters were played by men. The stepsisters  in the ballet kept trying to get each other out of the way and kept trying to get what they wanted and keep the other from getting it. They both wanted the prince, and they were each trying to keep the other one away from the prince. Their ball gowns were funny too. They had strange patterns that didn't go together, and they were really bright. The stepsisters dancing wasn't pretty and graceful. Everyone else's was. The show made me want to learn how to do ballet. It was a good show. I would like to go to another ballet.

Mom - We recently attended NY Theater Ballet's performance of Cinderella at Florence Gould Hall in New York City. It was part of their ballet series for children. These are the perfect ballets for children. They are not too long. They are only about an hour each. They are based on familiar stories. Aside from Cinderella which was presented in mid April, they also recently performed The Alice in Wonderland Follies at the 92nd Street Y this past weekend. While we were unable to attend Alice in Wonderland, we did enjoy Cinderella. It was highly entertaining for both parents and kids. It was full of colorful sets and costumes and beautiful dancing. The story was familiar and yet presented in a unique way. For one thing, the stepsisters were played by men. Their hilarious performances provided the comic relief for the show. Another difference was that other fairies accompanied the fairy Godmother. I didn't really see what the purpose of that was except maybe to have more dancers in the show.  Also, the clock which counted down the minutes to midnight was actually a character in the show and was kind of scary looking. However, the story itself was the familiar Cinderella story, and it was enjoyed by all in attendance regardless of age. I would definitely recommend New York Theater Ballet's storybook ballets especially if you have young children. However, if you do attend one of their ballets just be prepared to be bombarded by a ton of related merchandise such as fairy tale wands etc that your children will want you to buy. However, in that sense I suppose it is no worse than the circus, Sesame Live or any other event marketed to children. The next performance of NY Theater Ballet's storybook ballets is not currently listed on their web-site. However, for updates on that as well as for information about other New York Theater Ballet series and events and/or to purchase tickets to one of their ballets checkout their web-site at http://nytb.org/index

And that's our view. Tune in tomorrow for Tips for Tuesday.

Photo credits: All photos by Morah Geist