En Pointe School of Ballet will be performing “Swan Lake” this coming June. 

“Swan Lake” was created during the same era as similar tragedies like “Romeo and Juliet” and “Giselle.” The choreographer decided to make a ballet where the white swan Odette dives off a cliff and kills herself to release herself and the other swans from the magic spell. The prince dives off after her and they are together in the afterlife. The evil sorcerer Baron Von Rothbart, who can turn into a bird and human, is defeated. There is the good swan Odette and the evil swan Odile who are the main female characters.

En Pointe will have a different version of the show since children make up their cast. Rachael Ellis, owner and founder of En Pointe School of Ballet, wanted to avoiding the end where she takes her own life. Ellis researched the ballet and found the original ending was supposed to be good defeating evil. In En Pointe’s version all of the swans stand up to the evil Baron Von Rothbart while he is in his magical form as a huge bird. The swans help the prince defeat Rothbart. The spell is broken and Odette and all of the maidens return to being human. 

En Pointe School of Ballet has boys and men featured in their “Swan Lake.”  

En Pointe has boys only classes, which is not typical for most ballet schools. The youngest classes are frogs in this ballet and range in age from 4 to 13. Other male parts such as Pa De Deux scenes, throughout the entire ballet are performed by the men and boys that are in the partnering classes. They perform the skills they have learned in partnering classes.  

The show will feature a couple of magic tricks including turning a bouquet of white roses into red. “It is pretty fun to use distraction to pull off magic tricks to surprise the audience,” Ellis said. 

“Swan Lake” will be performed for the third time since En Pointe Ballet was opened in 2010. They have a repertoire of several ballets including “Nutcracker” and every five to six years, they bring back an old ballet in June each year. 

“We have the costumes, sets and props already, it's just a matter of choosing which classes will do what, doing auditions and selecting your principal dancers, who we select out of our students. Our students learn professional choreography, which is an important detail about our studio. We don’t hire professionals to come in and dance Odette and Odile. The self-esteem the students gain is gained through learning all the choreography in rehearsals and working together to pull off the performance and the choreography all together. Part of their training I love is how they learn to work together backstage,” Ellis said. 

For the main roles they always double cast, and have them work together backstage. 

“They serve each other,” Ellis said. “When you serve someone you love each other, you don’t have that competitiveness where they are stressed out wondering if the other one is better than the other dancer. They work with each other to do their absolute best performance and they have to work together. Having them help each other leads to them treating each other differently. It is such a supporting and loving atmosphere backstage. This is one thing that is different at our studio, we really stress to be supportive of each other.” 

One challenge in the rehearsals is all the formations. The swans actually have nine individual pieces they perform, or they are standing on the stage as background to the soloists. Doing “Swan Lake” helps them have more graceful arms and fingers, because they learn how to float their arms, Ellis said. 

Caio Silveira started dancing with En Pointe in their very first boys class when he was 5 years old. Silveira has been with En Pointe for 15 years. His first ballet was En Pointe’s very first production of “Swan Lake” in 2012. He is performing Rothbart as well as other roles in this “Swan Lake” production. 

En Pointe School of Ballet is entering into their 15th year and will continue training dancers in classes, onstage and in their lives. 

“It contributed greatly to who I am today and I will forever be grateful for the influence of ballet in my life,” Ellis said. λ