Press Release from Starship Dance Theater

On May 30, students in Pre-K through 4th grade at Guilford Lakes School watched famous works of art come to life through ballet. Dancers from Starship Dance Theater performed excerpts from their original ballet, Paintings in the Museum, which featured choreography inspired by Edgar Degas's sculpture, The Little 14-Year-Old Dancer, and Pablo Picasso's work, Dove of Peace.

The performance was a creative blend of classical ballet and theater. The school's gymnasium, in which students and staff gathered, was reimagined as a museum. Joyce DiLauro, Starship's creative director, owner, and founder, played the museum's docent. Through her role, DiLauro taught students about Degas and also about etching and printmaking, two techniques which Picasso commonly used in his works. DiLauro also introduced surprise guests, Degas and Claude Monet, played by Aaron Tessler, who bore a striking resemblance to the artists.

The dancers featured in this performance are local middle and high school students Annabelle Emerman, Fiona Ferrucci, Darya Godbout, Sera Godbout, Ella Kapsinow, Lilah Lipschutz, Elizabeth McWain, Norah Nemchek, and Sofia Philbin, who study under the tutelage of DiLauro and of teacher-choreographers Lucia Crete and Marissa Behuniak.

Starship Dance Theater is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit community-based performing arts organization in Guilford which is dedicated to serving the shoreline through dance. Paintings in the Museum complemented what some of the grades at Guilford Lakes School had been studying in Brittany Mansi's art class about Picasso and Monet, and it rounded out a series of cultural arts assemblies provided by the school's PTO.

This performance of Paintings in the Museum was funded through a grant from The Guilford Foundation.