Orlando Ballet OB News Page 12

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Orlando Ballet hosted its first Come Dance With Us workshop on October 16, 2016. Young children with special needs have been given the great gift of, for most, their first ever ballet class. This unique program has given these children the opportunity to express themselves through the art of dance.

Through this program Orlando Ballet School Director Deirdre Miles Burger, and Artistic Outreach Coordinator Randee Workowski, have worked with company dancers Jessica Assef, Ashley Baszto, and Arcadian Broad to create two workshops for participants from ages three to six years old. Health care professionals from both, Nemours Children’s Hospital and Orlando Health, are an integral part of this process providing the dancers with insight on how to design the workshops around the needs of the participants. At the end of the second workshop the children will get to showcase the choreography they have learned to an original score from Beauty and the Beast. To conclude their experience the participants and their families will get to see their dance instructors at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in the production of Beauty and the Beast.

This inspiring program has given Orlando Ballet a new way to engage with its local friends and partners, Nemours Children’s Hospital and Orlando Health. This idea has become a reality because of this new and exciting partnership proving that coming together as one community can create some of life’s most special moments. Come Dance With Us has brought together Orlando’s professional ballet dancers, health experts and some of the brightest children and given them all the opportunity to step out of their comfort zone and experience dance in a beautiful new way.