Fridays: Ballet [Ages 6-7]

As your child gets older, their bodies grow and their coordination improves. In these classes, your child will continue to work on coordination and control of their body’s movements through stretching and basic ballet technique. We will focus more on vocabulary and variations to the basics of ballet. Through fun games, prompts, and ballet music, your child will enhance their foundation in dance. A demonstration for families and friends will be held during the last class of the winter session. In partnership with Princeton Dance and Theater.

About the Teaching Artist
Elyse Mertz was born and raised in New Jersey where she studied classical ballet, modern, and jazz at Princeton Dance and Theater where she participated in ABT® National Training Curriculum Exams and in numerous Princeton Youth Ballet productions. Elyse graduated from Rutgers University, Mason Gross School of the Arts in 2017 with a B.F.A. in Dance. In her years at Mason Gross, Elyse performed in works by Randy James, Megan Frederick, Paul Ocampo, Kyle Abraham, Joe Goode and various student works. Elyse attended the Bates Dance Festival in 2015 to further her dance training. In 2016 she performed at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in the National Conference of the American College Dance Association. The piece, a cønversation on drowning, by classmate Javier Padilla, was selected to be performed at Jacob’s Pillow in the summer of 2016. Elyse took the ABT® National Training Curriculum Preprimary – Level 3 teacher training in 2018, instructed by the curriculum’s authors, Franco De Vita and Raymond Lukens. She has also completed her 200-hour Vinyasa Yoga Teacher Training in the summer of 2016, instructed by Blair Ritchie and Taryn Vander-Hoop and made possible by the generosity of Mason Gross and the OM Factory, NYC.