With 'Sleeping Beauty,' Hampton Ballet Theatre School Experiences Both Firsts And Lasts

When the young dancers of Hampton Ballet Theatre School (HBTS), under the direction of founder and director Sara Jo Strickland, take the stage this weekend to present their spring ballet, it will mark a lot of firsts for the company — as well as a few lasts.

Among the firsts is the production itself, with HBTS debuting its brand new version of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s ballet “Sleeping Beauty.” Another first? The HBTS dancers will perform the ballet on the stage of Bridgehampton School’s recently opened theater, which is as new to them as it is to the wider community. The newly completed auditorium was constructed in the space formerly known as “The Beehive,” the school’s fabled (but undersized) gymnasium, as part of a $29 million expansion project that also included the building of a new state-of-the-art regulation-size gym elsewhere on school grounds.

Finally, this will also be the first spring ballet that HBTS has been able to perform since 2019. That’s because of COVID-19, which took hold in March 2020 and waylaid that year’s spring show, just as the dancers were preparing for the performance.

“We started in January 2020 preparing for ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and then we got shut down,” said Strickland, referring not only to HBTS, but also to Guild Hall in East Hampton, where the spring ballet was slated to be performed. “I closed for a week to learn Zoom, but we couldn’t do the ballet.

“This January, it was still kind of up in the air, but my friend Kate [McManus], who does costuming, said ‘Let’s do it,’” Strickland added. “We had done a lot in terms of costuming — more than we thought we did.”

It wasn’t just a matter of having the required costumes on hand in order for this new HBTS offering to make it to the stage. Because “Sleeping Beauty” is also a difficult ballet, it was vital that Strickland have the dancers she needed to pull off the choreography, especially given that this is the first time HBTS has presented it.

“It’s a big ballet,” Strickland said. “It is also a strong group — which is why we’re doing ‘Sleeping Beauty.’ There are nine of them who can do pretty much whatever, and I needed the strongest dancers to do this.”

Leading the troupe are HBTS Pro Student Level 8 advanced dancers Corrina Castillo, Lauren Halsey, Marrina Jacka, Anna Kastrati and Sedona Silvera, who are all high school seniors and, with “Sleeping Beauty,” will be dancing their final HBTS performance this weekend, as well as HBTS apprentice Holiday Bovio, who is a one-year post high school graduate. Joining them on stage will be rising seniors Lua Li, Uma Nolan, Molly Radice and Sadie Radice who will be featured in the roles of the Fairies.

For Corrina, an East Hampton High School senior who shares the starring role of Aurora (aka Sleeping Beauty) with Holiday, and Sedona, a soon-to-be Southampton High School graduate who portrays the Lilac Fairy in a role shared with Marrina, these are bittersweet days. With the excitement of high school graduation and plans for college underway, also at hand is the end of their dancing days with HBTS, which began when they were both just 3 years old, making them the most senior of the senior dance students currently in the company.

In the fall, Corrina will be heading off to the College of Charleston in South Carolina while Sedona will attend New York University. Though neither expects to major in dance at this point, both are grateful for the friends and skills they have acquired during their long tenure with HBTS.

“I have a family in ballet. We all go to different schools, and we wouldn’t know each other anywhere else,” Sedona said. “I also think ballet has taken discipline.”

“Discipline is the biggest thing,” Corrina agreed. “When I talk to other people who dance but don’t do ballet, it’s a lot less strict. Ballet is so specific — there is a right and a wrong way.”

“It’s an attention to detail,” Sedona added.

Now that they are the senior-most dancers at HBTS, Corrina and Sedona have been sharing their skills with the company’s youngest dance students.

“I teach two classes on Saturdays,” Sedona said. “They’re so sweet. I remember when we were in that class.”

Corrina, who rehearses right after school on Thursdays, notes that there is a class of little dancers in the studio right before she begins and she loves to see their faces light up when she arrives.

“The little girls were sitting there in awe, their jaws dropped when I came in,” Corrina said. “That makes me so happy. We had practice tutus on and one little girl was scared to talk to me, and Miss Sara brought her up to meet me.”

Though they will soon be performing “Sleeping Beauty” for the first time themselves, both girls had an opportunity to witness a live performance of the ballet in summer 2019 when HBTS took a field trip into Manhattan to see the American Ballet Theatre’s production of it.

“On the bus ride home, we made a cast list of who at HBTS would dance which part,” Corrina said.

Of course, at the time neither Corrina nor Sedona, who had both just finished their freshman year of high school, envisioned themselves in the principal roles. But then again, neither of them could have predicted that a global pandemic would soon send “Sleeping Beauty” into a coma where it would remain for two full years. And in January, when the production finally awoke, it was Corrina and Sedona who had become the dancers cast in the ballet’s starring roles.

“It’s easily the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Corrina confessed of her role in this ballet. “I really wanted to be Aurora. I didn’t realize how much dancing there was until I started. The full first act I’m on stage pretty much the whole time.”

“There are six fairies. I’m the Lilac Fairy — the lead fairy,” Sedona added. “She offers the gift of wisdom and tells the story. There is a of lot pantomime, and I find it hard to do.”

“The prologue took forever to learn,” Corrina said. “There are a lot of little things going on.”

Strickland will attest to that being true — not just on stage, but off stage as well. With the company’s usual stage, Guild Hall’s John Drew Theater, closed for a substantial year-long renovation, Strickland has had to resort to other spaces for presenting ballet. In December, HBTS performed the annual “Nutcracker” show at the Avram Theater on the Stony Brook Southampton campus. But when she learned that the theater was not available for the spring ballet, she began to explore other options and found the perfect new space at Bridgehampton School, conveniently located just minutes from the HBTS studio on Butter Lane.

“It’ll be perfect. It’s a cute little theater with a stage the same size as Guild Hall’s and a nice little seating area,” Strickland said. “It can hold 250 people, which is less than Guild Hall, but the spring show is a smaller audience than ‘Nutcracker.’

“It’s really nice. I’m excited. It’s this cozy, intimate theater and the school is beautiful. It’s an old building and the proscenium of the stage has all this wood,” she added. “They put in sound and lighting booths, the seats are retractable, like bleachers, so they’re like comfortable and fold up into the wall.

“It has great sight lines, comfortable seats, and it’s a nice little gem.”

And come Friday evening, more than 60 HBTS dancers ages 4 to 18 — plus four male guest performers who will partner with the dancers in featured roles — will appear on the Bridgehampton School stage for the first time to present their inaugural performance of “Sleeping Beauty.”

For Strickland, watching her senior dancers perform for the last time with HBTS will bring her both joy and sorrow.

“I can’t believe they’re graduating, it’s insane,” she said. “I don’t focus on it, I’m going to get very upset. They’re amazing dancers too. When these five leave, it will be a whole new crop coming up. Even this ballet, though it’s difficult dancing, they catch on so fast and can do all the things required to do in this ballet.”

The Hampton Ballet Theatre School premieres its new production of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s “Sleeping Beauty,” on Friday, April 29, at 7 p.m. at the Bridgehampton School theater. Additional shows are on Saturday, April 30, at 1 and 7 p.m. and Sunday, May 1, at 2 p.m. The ballet is choreographed by Sara Jo Strickland. Costumes are by Yuka Silvera, Kate McManus and Sara Jo Strickland and lighting design is by Sebastian Paczynski. Guest dance artists are James Monroe Števko, Nick Peregrino and Justin Estelle. Resident guest artists include Rose Kelly and Vincenzo James Harty. Advance tickets are $20 to $35 ($25 to $40 on performance day). To reserve, call 888-933-4287 or email info@hamptonballettheatreschool.com. Bridgehampton School is at 2685 Montauk Highway, Bridgehampton. For information, visit hamptonballettheatreschool.com.