ANDERSON — Putting a ballet together is a tough job. It takes more effort to create.
Choreographers and dancers at Anderson Young Ballet Theater are hard at work on their adaptation of “12 Dancing Princesses,'' which will be performed March 2nd and 3rd at Reardon Auditorium.
“We wanted to do something great for our 50th anniversary season,” said artistic director Jennifer Thimet.
“We decided to choreograph a new ballet. This is the third ballet we have choreographed.”
Past film adaptations include “The Little Mermaid'' and “The Legend of Mulan.''
The three artistic directors scoured various fairy tales for the perfect story.
They settled on a classic Brothers Grimm story about 12 princesses and sisters who regularly suffer from broken shoes.
“Every day, their father the king calls a shoemaker to make shoes for each of them,” Timmet explained. “Every night I wake up and it starts all over again.”
The king wonders: What are they doing with these shoes?
Thimet said he then issued an edict offering his daughters in marriage to the man who found the culprit.
The next step is to match the story and dance steps to the music.
Thimet and assistant artistic directors Kathy Sparks-Petraits and Rachel Kuhn took turns adding dance moves to each song, depending on their strengths.
Petretz focused on the ensemble as a whole, while Timmet focused on the soloist. From there, we decided to cast the dancers and give them the choreography.
Casting for the dancers was decided in April 2023, with artistic directors setting up the choreography near the end of January.