The Atlanta Festival Ballet Company is composed of ten professional dancers and student apprentices who have dedicated themselves to the discipline of dance

Dance

Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....

 performance. The Company began as the vision of Co-Artistic Director Gregory Aaron, and made its debut on November 4th, 1989 in a full length performance of Cinderella

Cinderella (Prokofiev)

Cinderella is a ballet, Op. 87, composed by Sergei Prokofiev to a scenario by Nikolai Volkov. It is one of his most popular and melodious compositions, and has inspired a great many choreographers since its inception. The piece was composed between 1940 and 1944. Part way through writing it he...

. In 1994, the Company welcomed Nicolas Pacaña as Co-Artistic Director. Gregory Aaron does the choreography

Choreography

Choreography is the art of designing sequences of movements in which motion, form, or both are specified. Choreography may also refer to the design itself, which is sometimes expressed by means of dance notation. The word choreography literally means "dance-writing" from the Greek words "χορεία" ...

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The Company hosts two major ballet productions a year, including its classic version of The Nutcracker

The Nutcracker

The Nutcracker is a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King". It was given its première at the Mariinsky Theatre in St...

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Atlanta Festival Ballet School

The Atlanta Festival ballet Company also hosts its own school, the Atlanta Festival Ballet School. Many students from the Atlanta Festival school have been accepted to ballet programs with the American Ballet Theatre, Hartford Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Houston Ballet, Sacramento Ballet, and Joffrey Ballet. Students have been recipients of scholarships to Boston Ballet, The School of American Ballet, The Rock School, Southern Methodist University, and many other prestigious classical ballet training schools and companies.

External links

• Atlanta Festival Ballet
• The Atlanta Festival Ballet School