Each year, the students and teachers of The School of Aspen Santa Fe Ballet spend hours portraying their year’s effort of dance through a three day performance. Students have the opportunity to show the community their dance skills.

Ballerinas spend hours a week contributing our effort toward the dances that the teachers of ASFB have put together. Classes continue with their normal routines, but depending on what level the class is in, they could be working on their pieces for up to an hour.

Unlike most pieces piece, there are two solos which aren’t a group effort. Solos go to senior dancers, and this year, there are only two. AHS senior Blair Buchanan has been juggling school and her Jazz solo for weeks now.

“Sometimes it gets really hard, especially with IB exams coming up, but you just have to be as time efficient as you can and be on top of all of your work,” Buchanan said.

Like the solos, the group dances are choreographed by different teachers of ASFB. However, the advanced class had the opportunity to put their own touch on their dance.

“We, as students, choreographed most of it,” fellow dancer and Skier Scribbler editor, Olivia Oksenhorn explained, “all sixteen of us individually choreographed our own phrases,”.

This gives the students the opportunity to not only dance, but learn how to apply their own creative skills toward the activity they love. Oksenhorn also explained how ASFB school director Melanie Doskocil helped format those original sixteen phrases into a bigger, coherent piece.

“It felt really awesome that we were allowed to have our own experience in not only dancing the piece, but actually being a huge part of its creation. It just gives you a great feeling of accomplishment when you perform the piece,” Oksenhorn said.

This dance created by Doskocil and the sixteen students is only one of the many that will be performed May 20-22. In past years, there were only two performance days. However, due to the recent expansion to include over 300 dancers, tickets were selling out too quickly. It isn’t unusual for the tickets to sell out within a matter of a few days or less, but last year, there weren’t enough tickets for family members of the dancers wanting to see the performance.

These three days will showcase the hours of hard work from a devoted team of dancers and is bound to be amazing. You can catch it this month at the District Theater!