Midland Festival Ballet will be thrilling young ones once again with their annual Festival Fairytale performance.  This year a duck, a cat, a wolf and other creatures will take the stage in Sergei Prokofiev's "Peter and the Wolf" performed at Midland High School Auditorium.

Thanks to the Midland Independent School Distict's Director of Fine Arts - Deb Shaw - public school third graders across the city will be able to enjoy this year's lively offering at a morning and afternoon performance on Friday, February 20th.  The general public performance will be held that same day at 7:30 pm.  Tickets are $12 for adults and $7 for students and seniors.

Midland Festival Ballet celebrates the launch of its newly developed Outreach Program.  The instructors and administrators at MFB have always believed in the power of arts education.  It is, after all, the motivating force behind the organization.  Only recently, however, has MFB had the faculty and resources to begin what will hopefully be a sustained and meaningful effort to spread its enthusiasm beyond the bounds of the school and company.

Together, the instructor and students will trace the trajectory of dance in America.  Students will learn how dance history parallels shifts and trends in the nation at large.  They will also get to have some fun -  learning dances and techniques from vaudeville to funk. 

Casa de Amigos and the Martin Luther King Center are serving as flagship sites for this multifaceted dance outreach program.  As schools face budget cuts and program eliminations, Midland Festival Ballet hopes to take a prominent place in the community by keeping the arts 'alive' for all children.

Midland Festival Ballet has been invited to perform in Sugarland, Texas in the Southwest Conference of Regional Dance America March 19 - 22.  MFB company dancers will proudly represent Midland as they take the stage with their performances.

For four days dancers from all over the region come together and explore every aspect of dance.  From classes in various dance techniques to instruction in nutrition, injury prevention and musicality the festival is an immersion into the beauty and discipline of dance.

For the past eight years Midland Festival Ballet has earned the privilege to perform at the RDA's annual festival fo other companies spanning the southwest region.

It is both a unique experience for the dancers and an honor for the company to be part of the festival.  For those dance lovers who cannot swing a flight to Sugarland the pieces performed at RDA will be restaged as part of MFB's Spring Gala on April 25th and 26th.

Joining the staff at Midland Festival Ballet, Midland's premier dance school and civic company, Contemporary dance instructor and Outreach instructor Lauren Curry has hit the ground running.

Curry began her serious dance training at the Ballet International Academy (formerly Indianapolis Ballet Theater).  She continued her training in the Mount Holyoke College dance department studying with Paul Dennis, Jennifer Weber, and Peter James - to name a few.

Curry has performed with the Seattle based Lingo Dance Theater and studied at the Gus Giordano Dance School in Chicago, the Streb Lab for Action Mechanics (S.L.A.M.) in Brooklyn, and worked as an outreach instructor with Boston Ballet's Citydance Program.

Curry is excited to be in Midland and teaching Contemporary Dance - Thursdays at 7:30 pm and Saturdays at 10:15 am.