Hello everyone,

This is Peter Christie giving you a short update on our Education activities going on this past week.
Ballet West II and Ballet West Academy Trainees have hit the road this past week bringing a newly costumed Ballet West for Children.  A huge thank you goes out to David Heuvel, Cindy Farrimond and the Ballet West costume shop for the beautiful costumes.  This year’s production of Ballet and The Nutcracker has begun its first week visiting elementary schools throughout the state of Utah.

Jeff Rogers, Cati Snarr and I are leading groups that are spanning from Vernal to Grouse Creek!  My group on Wednesday drove nearly 400 miles in one day, leaving from Salt Lake City at 5:45 in the morning.  We visited three schools in north-eastern Utah, with Grouse Creek Elementary only having 6 students and 2 teachers! You can see the group performing in the picture below.  What a great school! … and so appreciative of us driving all the way to visit them in their school.  We were treated to one of the students (Heston) performing on the piano for us afterwards, sharing his talent with us as well.  Our group has also hit Morgan, North Summit, Nebo and Tooele Districts.

Artists of Ballet West II and the Ballet West Academy

Cati Snarr has been visiting schools up and down the Wasatch front with great reactions from the schools.  Jeff traveled with his group to Uintah, Duchesne and Daggett Districts as well and has been reporting in with great responses from the students and teachers as well.

In this one week alone, we’ve visited 15 different districts, 40 elementary schools and nearly 18,000 students and teachers … and had a great time along the way.  We’ll be going out again in the second week of January, and the last week of February.  Our goal is to bring our program to 120-125 schools this year!

Paige Adams & Chase O’Connell