Castlemaine Ballet Academy has updated a classic Greek myth as part of its annual performance.
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Staged at The Capital this Saturday afternoon, 58 academy students aged between 5 and 18 will perform The Seasons.
Utilising ballet, jazz ballet and contemporary dance, the story centres around Persephone who is abducted to the underworld by Hades.
Persephone’s mother, Demeter (the goddess of harvest), become heartbroken and wanders the land searching for her daughter.
As she does the world falls into perpetual winter until an arrangement is made with Hades that returns Persephone to earth for one half of every year – spring and summer.
Castlemaine Ballet Academy principal Kate Kaleb said the Greek myth is told in two acts with the third act of the show linking the myth to the current effects of climate change.
“When I was teaching in Werribee a few years ago, one student asked me if I could explain climate change. And I thought I can but the science is so complex,” Ms Kaleb said.
“So it was sitting in back of my mind for a while until the Great Barrier Reef was bleached for third time. Then I thought it was urgent to start putting what was happening in the environment into a cultural context.
“The Seasons is an old, turn-of-the-century ballet and then the story goes into climate change in a way that is not frightening for children.”
Ms Kaleb trained as a ballet dancer in Perth before joining an American dance company at age 16. An injury in her early 20s cut her dance career short.
She became a teacher and established the Castlemaine Ballet Academy in 2012 after seeing a lack of Cecchetti-training schools in the area.
“(After my injury) I was working in health policy and it struck me that lack of physical activity was one of biggest health problems in Australia,” she said.
“One of the things I could do was go back to dancing and teach dance. Dance is fun and kids who do dance tend to keep doing it until they're older. They enjoy it their whole life because it’s not competitive, it’s fun.
“But because of my background at a professional level, if I have a student that is really serious about ballet, I am able to prepare them to go on.”
A lack of opportunity as a child also drove Ms Kaleb to establishing her academy.
“I started ballet late because there was no ballet teacher where I grew up in Western Australia. I had to wait until we moved to Perth for ballet lessons,” Ms Kaleb said.
“So that was another motivation in establishing the academy in Castlemaine. I knew there would be kids with talent but didn't have the opportunity.”
Castlemaine Ballet Academy’s performance of The Seasons is at The Capital on Saturday, November 25 from 2pm.
For tickets log on to www.thecapital.com.au/Whats_On