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Community

ABTKids Daily

Week of May 31 - June 4, 2021

"The Kingdom of the Shades" in La Bayadère. Photo: Gene Schiavone.
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Experience the excitement of classical ballet at home with ABTKids Daily!

Welcome to ABTKids Daily, American Ballet Theatre’s home for families and educators to discover digital content for their virtual classrooms.  Join us each day to Meet an ABT Dancer, engage with an ABT Teaching Artist, learn fun facts and enjoy ballet-themed activities from the comfort of your own home.

As America’s National Ballet Company®, ABT is dedicated to preserving and extending the great legacy of classical dancing, through exciting performances and educational programming of the highest quality, presented to the widest possible audience.

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Join us each Monday morning to bring the joy of classical ballet to your family. A weekly curriculum will be posted for your discovery!

ABTKids Daily is generously supported by
Bloomberg Philanthropies

Explore this week’s materials below or view the archive here.


Watch ABTKids at the Top of the Rock!
Presented in partnership with Rockefeller Center
as part of their 2021 Spring Sunday event.

Watch ABTKids 2020: B is for Ballet!
Presented in partnership with Random House Children’s Books, the program is inspired by B Is for Ballet: A Dance Alphabet.

Week of May 31 - June 4, 2021


To Read

To Watch

To Do

Corps de Ballet Week

This week ABTKids Daily celebrates the heart and soul of any ballet company: the corps de ballet!   Corps in French means “body” and ABT’s full-length classical ballets rely heavily on the corps de ballet to make up the body of their ballets. By playing diverse roles, such as, townspeople, swans, or even dancing flowers, the corps de ballet brings the story of the ballet to life at each performance.

Currently, ABT’s corps de ballet is comprised of 55 dancers (33 women and 22 men). Why do you think there are more women than men in a ballet company?

In many classical ballets, such as Swan Lake or La Bayadère, there are acts that prominently feature a large numbers of ballerinas. In La Bayadère, one of the most famous moments is the “Kingdom of the Shades” which features 24 ballerinas in beautiful white tutus dancing in unison! While male corps de ballet dancers are equally important, there just aren’t very many ballets that require such a large number of male dancers.

The corps de ballet is also the place where almost every professional dancer begins their journey. (While many begin as apprentices, the apprentices perform within the corps de ballet).  Traditionally, after years of working in the corps de ballet, some dancers will receive promotions to the rank of Soloist, where they have the opportunity to perform more featured roles, and some will continue and be promoted to Principal Dancer, where they perform the leading roles of the ballet.

While the corps de ballet may not be listed at the top of the program, there are many nights where they steal the show and are the real stars of the performance!

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Meet A Dancer Monday

ABT Corps de Ballet Dancer Rachel Richardson

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Teaching Artist Tuesday

Join one of ABT’s Teaching Artists as they introduce you to ABT and its ballets. Learn a dance, stop and sketch, and don’t forget to have fun!

Up this week: ABT Teaching Artist Wendy Clark.

"The Kingdom of the Shades"

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What’s up Wednesday 

The Corps de Ballet of Swan Lake

Corps de Ballet Word Search

The dancers in the corps de ballet get to perform so many exciting and diverse roles. See if you can find all of these roles in the corps de ballet word search!

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Throwback Thursday

We pull a photo from our archives and share it with a member of the ABT family.  You never know what stories may come from a single snapshot!

Sierra Armstrong in costume as a Wili in Giselle, backstage at the Metropolitan Opera House in 2018. Photo courtesy of Sierra Armstrong.
Sierra Armstrong in costume as a Wili in Giselle, backstage at the Metropolitan Opera House in 2018. Photo courtesy of Sierra Armstrong.

Sierra Armstrong
Corps de Ballet
Joined ABT as Apprentice in 2017

This photo was taken moments before my very first performance as a corps de ballet member with ABT. It was 2018 and we had just finished weeks of rehearsal at our studios downtown in preparation for the highly anticipated Metropolitan Opera House season. We had one day at the theatre before we were to open the season with the ballet Giselle. Though I may look serious or somber in this photo, on the inside my stomach was turning and I was thrilled to perform for the very first time as an official member of ABT.

All of the preparation it took to get to this point, from years of ballet training to putting on the headpiece to become a corpse bride, accumulated into making this very first performance unforgettably special. I will not forget the buzz around the dressing room for kicking off an eight-week marathon of a season, but knowing that we would make it through because it’s what we love to do.

Giselle to this day is one of my most favorite ballets to perform, I love everything about the second act, being a wili, having to embody a spiritual soul and translate that into movement, the romantic era costumes, the profound story of love! A masterpiece, I couldn’t have asked for a better introduction to ABT. And on top of that every day I am surrounded by my colleagues who are ever inspiring and supportive artists. It’s a real treat to be able to do what I love for a living with such special people. It was a wonderful first season as a corps de ballet member with ABT.

View More Photos of Sierra!


Sierra Armstrong in Ethan Stiefel's See the Youth Advance with ABT Studio Company.
Photo: Rosalie O'Connor. 


Sierra Armstrong, Cassandra Trenary, and Hannah Marshall in Gemma Bond’s A Time There Was.
Photo: Rosalie O'Connor. 


Fangqi Li and Sierra Armstrong in Twyla Tharp's Deuce Coupe.
Photo: Rosalie O'Connor. 


Sierra Armstrong in James Whiteside’s City of Women.
Photo: Alex DiMattia. 

Writing Prompt

Write about a memorable “first.”

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Funtime Friday

The Corps de Ballet of "The Kingdom of the Shades"

"The Kingdom of the Shades" Jigsaw Puzzle

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Explore the ABTKids Daily Archive

ABT JKO School Children's Division Online Community Classes

In the Spring of 2020, @ABTSchool launched virtual classes taught by former ABT dancers, ABT JKO School faculty and ABT teaching artists – all certified in the ABT National Training Curriculum.

Recommended for ages 2-4 and 5-8, these classes engage ABT’s youngest students and their families, as well as the global community at large, by exploring musicality, fostering creativity and imagination, and teaching ballet fundamentals.

View the full series on @ABTSchool IGTV or ABT’s YouTube Channel.

@ABTSchool IGTVYouTube

Photo: Richard Corman.
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