Fridays: Beginning Ballet [Ages 3-5]

Dance is an effective tool to engage young children, both boys and girls, while helping them to understand and control their body’s movements. These classes will launch your child’s coordination skills through stretch/warm-up, basic ballet technique and vocabulary. We achieve these skills with fun dance games to work on stretching the legs, doing various jumps, changing levels, and improvising. No bun or tutu required. A strong foundation in dance can lead to success in a wide variety of athletic endeavors. 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.