Snow White, Cobb Energy Center, February 18, 2012

Atlanta Ballet puts on one "family-friendly" show a year, and this is the first one I've been too. I attended it with the reason I took a 3 1/2 year break from blogging: my 3-1/2-year-old daughter. She has been coming to ballet class with Mommy since before she was born and started taking her own class last fall. She loves dancing, and I love sharing it with her. Snow White turned out to be a perfect show for her.

It was interesting seeing this fairy tale ballet just after Twyla Tharp's The Princess and The Goblin. This Snow White was choreographed by  Bruce Wells of the Boston Ballet. It is about 45 minutes long, total, and included a live narrator positioned to the side of the stage. (His mike was set a little loud. Come on people, there are KIDS.) Most of the cast were students at the Atlanta Ballet Center for Dance Education. They did quite a respectable job, including Emily Docherty, who danced the title role. A few roles were danced by members of the Atlanta Ballet, including the enjoyable Evil Queen (Melissa Mitchell) and the forgettable Prince Charming (Benjamin Stone).

It's no surprise this production was more accessible than The Princess and The Goblin; it's aimed at children, after all. Maybe I just expected less, but I enjoyed the dancing Tree Spirits and Forest Creatures more than most parts of Ms. Tharp's work. The movement was both freer and more formal, and the production kept my daughter's interest, in spite of us being almost high enough up in the balcony to require air masks.