Children’s Series

Introducing Todays Children to Yesterday’s Ballets

Most people’s first introduction to ballet is The Nutcracker; but for over 450 years, the art form has evolved from the courts of renaissance Italy to the ballrooms of Versailles through a core repertoire of performances all companies today depend on.

La Sylphide, Giselle, Don Quixote, Coppélia, Swan Lake, La Bayadère, The Nutcracker, and Cinderella together all build the internal skeletal structure of a ballet’s company’s fanbase and their annual operating budget.

Story Ballets (or ‘warhorses’ as they’re known to industry insiders, for their foolproof ability to delivery an audience in even the slimmest of economies) carry gravitas and with merit, but to a ceaselessly thinning generation.

Story Ballets Through Time

Today’s generation has a new groove. It’s not just that their body image is healthier and costume sizes are getting larger. It’s not just that diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging are changing the colors of tights, tutus and ballet slippers to new nudes and neutrals beyond “European Pink”. Now, ballet performances are filled by dancers and audience members who have a modern appetite for what exactly makes a compelling story.

Ferrara recognized this change as opportunity.

To help ballet companies introduce the art form to children at early ages (thereby increasing their likelihood of making lifelong ballet fans) Ferrara created a new children’s book series. Each book in the series is based off a classical story ballet, but each with a twist. She closely studied the evolution of Disney, and took note of what was desired of Disney Princesses in the past versus what qualities today make them powerful at the box office. Each book in her series varies at different reading levels and varies in abstract storytelling devices; but each challenge the child’s mind to reconnect with 200 year-old protagonists and see them as relevant, recognizable heroines of today.