Wagga's Allegro Ballet School are turning dance into magic on stage for a live performance of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
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After almost a year of hard work, the students are preparing for their final show coming to Wagga Civic Theatre on December 8.
School Principal and co-artistic director Anne Reardon said the performance will showcase a brand new style of ballet.
"This particular ballet has been performed by the Royal Ballet and the Australian Ballet Company, but it's something really different, a little bit quirky and it is a lot of fun," she said.
"People can recognise a lot of the traditional ballet steps, but it's done in a really interesting way and very different to anything we've done before so we are very excited for it."
With 120 students involved in the performance, Ms Reardon said they placed a big focus on getting ballet out of the classroom and into the community.
"Often we find that people who take up ballet have seen a live show first, and in this country we don't get a lot of ballet companies visiting, so it's up to us to showcase the art," she said.
"We did tours of regional libraries this year where we did a smaller show of Sleeping Beauty, so that way after the show, the children can meet the dancers and see their tutus up close.
"It's great for the general public to see ballet up close, and also great for the students to go out into the community, meet people and share their passion with others."
The Allegro Ballet students will be putting on a show at Wagga Library's Story Time in the Park in the coming weeks too, according to Ms Reardon.
For such a grand-scale performance, Ms Reardon said students got little more than two months to actually practice the choreography.
"At the end of each year we announce the theme for the following year so costumes and props can start thinking about what they need to do, but we only go into rehearsals in October," she said.
"We like to do it like that so they don't get bored with constant rehearsals stretched out, we have different things each term then they all look forward to the big finale."
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Ms Reardon said each character has its own way of moving and own music sense to bring it to life, as well as an added bit of help from a professional.
"We're having a little bit of a collaboration with the School of Arts. Their choreographer is internationally acclaimed and he is coming into our rehearsals next Monday to workshop with our students," she said.
"Joseph Simons' specialty is 'ballet with a twist', which is perfect for Alice so he will sprinkle his magic into our rehearsals."
The school also put on a jazz performance recently at Victory Memorial Gardens, showcasing a series of Christmas songs, as well as preparing for the upcoming tiny tots performance on December 1.
"The tiny tots are aged two to six, it will be a festival of cute and that's been really well supported, it sold out in one day," Ms Reardon said.
"Our end of year ballet is really a celebration of what we've done all year and also a nice reward for the children to show them that all their training leads to something really special."