The Rockbridge Ballet enchanted the Lenfest Center audiences with performances of Sleeping Beauty on Nov. 19 and 20. Jessica Pyatt Martin, the artistic director of Sleeping Beauty and owner of The Rockbridge Ballet Studio, described the difficult process of casting parts for the ballet.

“Casting is always difficult, because we usually have such strong dancers, and for soloists there are limited parts,” said Martin. “A lot of times we teach all of the variations, or the solos, and we let them audition them. We look at each of the dancers doing the various ones, and then our entire faculty gets together and casts. For something like Princess Aurora, who does the pas de deux, a lot of times, that is based not only on your dance ability, but your size.”

Senior, Kaelan McCabe and Maeve Dick danced the lead role of Princess Aurora and McCabe shared her experiences on stage Saturday, Nov. 19.

“I always get nervous right before the show. Waiting for the curtain to open is the absolute worst, but once I am on stage and dancing I usually get into the character and just have fun,” said McCabe. “The hardest dance to learn was definitely the pas de deux because of the tricky moves in it. Also, it was the longest dance, so by the end, it was harder to push through the fatigue and stretch all the way through my feet, engage my core etc.”

Martin explained the uniqueness of this year’s Sleeping Beauty in comparison to other ballets in the past.

“The cool thing about Sleeping Beauty is this is by far the most soloists we’ve ever had, with all the fairies having solos, and then you have cats and the wolf and riding hood in the second part of the show. With it being double cast, it’s absolutely the most soloists we’ve ever had,” said Martin. “It’s also the first time that all of our soloists have been able to wear the professional platter tutus, so it’s very exciting for them. The costumes are gorgeous. It just helps them feel more confident and elegant when they’re in one of those beautiful professional tutus. ”

Since the ballet students had never performed Sleeping Beauty before, Martin wanted to try something new.

“They hadn’t done Sleeping Beauty before, so with our season as a whole, we try to do something new and something we’ve done before,” said Martin.

Martin described  Sleeping Beauty as being fully ‘classical ballet,’ making the choreography challenging.

“Sleeping Beauty is so traditional. It’s one of the most popular. It’s one of the foundations of classical ballet, so all of those variations, or solos, have been done for years and years and years, so it was very challenging movement that they had to execute with a lot of technique and grace and performance quality,” said Martin.

Sophomore Marion Pearson has been dancing for 13 years and  felt very comfortable with her role as the evil fairy, Carabosse, despite the difficult choreography.

“For me, the moves weren’t very hard to pick up on, but from there I needed to work on really committing to my character in showing my wickedness in every move,” said Pearson.

Although Pearson has been committed to dance for 13 years, practicing roughly 11 hours a week, she felt a little anxious about her major role in the ballet.

“I think this year I was a little more nervous beforehand because this is the most significant role I’ve ever had in the ballet, so it’s slightly more pressure, but overall I wasn’t too worried because I’ve been working so long at my role and know it by heart,” said Pearson.