AUDITION: Saturday, September12

1:00pm-2:30pm–Junior & Senior Company dancers

2:30pm-3:30pm–Int. I, II & III dancers

3:30pm-4:00pm–Pre-Ballet to [...]]]> Northwest Ballet students from Pre-Ballet to Senior Company members, as well as any of our adults/parents who would like to audition to be in this year’s Nutcracker production. Please come to one of these scheduled auditions. Mandatory rehearsals will be on Saturdays.

AUDITION: Saturday, September12

1:00pm-2:30pm–Junior & Senior Company dancers

2:30pm-3:30pm–Int. I, II & III dancers

3:30pm-4:00pm–Pre-Ballet to Ballet

4:00pm-4:30pm–Adults

I really thought we had a nice finish to end the school year with our Year End Graduation and Performance. Fitting about 200 people in Studio A wasn’t exactly easy but we somehow managed. I was very happy that most families could make it to the end which [...]]]> Dear NWB Parents and Dancers;

I really thought we had a nice finish to end the school year with our Year End Graduation and Performance. Fitting about 200 people in Studio A wasn’t exactly easy but we somehow managed. I was very happy that most families could make it to the end which was a little over 2 hours. A few things had to be rushed at the end to be sensitive to the time it took for the dancing to finish. There are a few more things I wanted to get in but figured I could get them in in this email.

First of all, again, thank you for allowing us the great privilege to teach your child/children at our school and for being a part of the Northwest Ballet family which is growing each year. We have an ambitious summer ahead and certainly an ambitious fall. I will concentrate on working to improve our existing classes as well as try to add a few classes that people have shown interest in. And I will be trying to make our Nutcracker and Little Mermaid productions special for our dancers, parents and community audiences. As I mentioned yesterday we have have been trying very hard over the years to create backdrops and costumes that look professional and really add to the beauty of our productions. We will have a good start this summer on three ‘new’ backdrops for The Little Mermaid thanks to generous donations from several parents and grandparents. Generous ‘gifts’ like this really get the ball moving for us and we hope we can raise a few more dollars over the summer so that we can get most of the needed work done.

To the parents with younger students that were in Miye’s class, I want to thank you for the love Miye received from you and your child/children. Miye held it together pretty well Saturday in front of everyone but she shed some tears afterwards knowing that she won’t be around next fall and is missing all of you already. The ‘bond’ between a teacher and student can be very deep, almost like a parent and their child, and I know Miye cared deeply for each of her students and they cared deeply for her as well. From time to time, Miye will no doubt come back to Bellingham to visit and I will let everyone know when she is returning. In the meantime, she has pictures and cards from your children that she is taking with her to remember each one she taught these last few years.

By the way, Mieko and I will be around most of the summer so if you wish to pre-register, pick up DVD’s or ask questions about the summer or fall do not hesitate to call us. Things do ‘change’ sometimes regarding classes, schedules and performances even though we try and let everyone know those things well in advance. For instance if we are not able to do five shows of the Nutcracker at MBT in December, we will at least have three again. We will no doubt be split casting our younger dancers so not to tire them(and parents) out too much, even though we know they love to perform. We have had three straight years of very successful Nutcracker performances and we are also hoping to make a ’splash’(excuse the pun) with our original ballet of The Little Mermaid. Other information that will be on the way soon is about a 20% group discount being offered by Mount Baker Theatre for NWB families who wish to see Dance Theatre of Harlem in January. This is a MUST SEE for our dancers and parents and I hope we can have even more attending that show than we had for Movin’ Out(50+) last January. Myself or Judi will be getting that information to you by next week when MBT will start reserving those tickets.

Hey, let’s have a wonderful summer! If anyone wants to get together with Mieko or myself at anytime between now and September let us know. Mike Farkas,  also wanted to be contacted by anyone that had ideas that can help spread the word to the community about our school and productions while getting some ‘tips’ from him on how to do that. Mike is really enthusiastic about what NWB has done so far and has already done a great job getting us out there on the web and by bringing Chamber members to our performances. Googling, facebook, etc. are great tools that do help attract more attention to what we are doing and trying to become. The more of us that can get involved in various ways will cause more ripples and eventually waves. We are also looking into some advertising on KVOS TV and others that we have not tried yet but are exploring. Courteous emails to the editor of the Bellingham Herald, Margaret Bikman on your experience with Northwest Ballet’s school and it’s productions also are very helpful as they may lead to better coverage…hopefully. Thank you everyone for your love and support!

Sincerely,

John & Mieko

Your email:

In an effort to save postage this month, I am attaching the June newsletter, summer intensive daily schedule and information with this email going to our students that will be in the Senior Company program in the fall. Copies will also be at the studio. It looks like we will be looking at 20-22 students that will be in [...]]]> Hi,

In an effort to save postage this month, I am attaching the June newsletter, summer intensive daily schedule and information with this email going to our students that will be in the Senior Company program in the fall. Copies will also be at the studio. It looks like we will be looking at 20-22 students that will be in our top level. Everyone seemed to have a good year and I am inspired by those who have signed up for all four weeks of the summer intensive or two or three. By September you should be in great shape for our new season! Congratulations to Alex Hyman who will be attending the Walnut Hill 5 week summer intensive out East and Audrey Christiansen who got accepted into the Joffrey program!

The paperwork and tuition deposits were due June 1. We hope to get those in by the end of this week.

I realize that those who are dancing in the summer are very dedicated but also really enjoy dancing. A few dancers expressed ’worry’ about being off from June 20 to July 20(one month) so, for anyone who is interested in a taking a few classes over the break let me know and I can schedule a few.  I am happy to give up some of my break for them. In meeting with the other teachers this week, we have put together what we feel is an awesome schedule and choice for our summer performance, ‘Graduation Ball’ and one other short contemporary peice. Most Senior’s last year were on ‘unlimited’ classes but we would like to see more this year taking Diane Williams’s modern and lyrical classes and attending them consistently. We are so lucky to have such a quality teacher as Diane and she will be working with our dancers with some new choreography for the coming year. Exciting! You can get a glimpse of her work at the June 20 Year End Peformance. Please bring all of your family and friends to that!

I also attached a summer intensive flyer that I hope students and parents can print out and give to potential new students. It would be awesome if we could get our enrollment up in the summer and fall. It will also help if we bring new people to see our summer performance Aug. 14, 7:30pm at WCC.

On a ‘volunteer’ note, we are also looking to get some help working on organizing our storage and costume space over the summer so if any dad’s, or mom’s might be available to help with that let me know. Other volunteer help we could really use include:

Set-up at studio for Year End Performance- contact Judi

Nutcracker and Little Mermaid costume help- contact Beth

Little Mermaid- Backdrop painting and set construction help- contact Chris

Office help- contact – Noelle Wessman or Mieko

Promotional help- contact  Mike or Chris Farkas

Networking with other groups(et Bellingham Skate Club) Irene

Technical Crew(for performance days) - Dave Wright

Work around the studio – John

Once we be having some organizational meetings after June 20th so please get back to us soon if you are interested. I believe we can have an unbelievable year with your support! We are all hear to support you and your child so please reply back and don’t hesitate to ’reply to all’ if you have some good ideas.  Share your inspirations! We had a pretty good year, despite the hard economic times but perhaps even that has brought us together even more as a dance family.

Thanks for your generous support and cooperation!

John & Mieko Bishop

P.S. For those who are making summer plans early and will not be around much this summer, have a wonderful vacation and see you in the fall! Mieko or I will be glad to assist anyone who would like to take advantage of our ‘early bird’ pre-registration and discounted tuition program for 2009-2010. Otherwise perhaps all of us will be together on June 20th at 1pm in Studio A. It should be an uplifting afternoon!

P.S.S. If there is any other information you need from us don’t hesitate to reply back or call me at the office or on my cell. 360-421-4013. John

We are now in the last month of an exciting year for our students. On Saturday June 20th you will have another special opportunity to see our dancers in action. You will be impressed by the skills developed in each class by our ballet, modern, lyrical, jazz and tap students and [...]]]> Dear Parents and Students;

We are now in the last month of an exciting year for our students. On Saturday June 20th you will have another special opportunity to see our dancers in action. You will be impressed by the skills developed in each class by our ballet, modern, lyrical, jazz and tap students and the original choreography created by our faculty. Don’t miss our budding artists who will be the stars of tomorrow. We will also be saying ’sayonara’ to Miye and introducing Celeste Lordan, Amber Johnson and Noelle Wessman who who along with myself will be taking over for Miye’s students in the fall.

This year’s students will also getting their progress reports and certificates to their new level. We do have fall schedules and pre-registration paperwork if parents will not be around on the 20th but would like to come in and place their student in classes beginning September 3 . Good news…everyone passed their current level! We have excellent attendance even from our youngest students.

I would like to thank all of the students and parents and volunteers who helped with ‘Aladdin’. We also want to honor them on the 20th. Beth Sanchez and several mom’s really pulled out all the stops to make some awesome costumes.The DVD’s which have excellent quality thanks to Quinn Martin (Maleena’s and Colby’s dad) and Ren Bishop’s fine editing will be ready to pick up hopefully by the end of this week. Let me know if anyone else wants a copy.

Everyone will also be getting a newsletter very shortly and we should have it online as well. We are experimenting with a new design for the website as well and should have that updated and looking even better shortly. I know all this beautiful weather is just making everyone almost ’giddy’ but I hope all of our students can make their regular classes in June so that everyone can really prepare themselves for one final performance of the season.

Thank you,

John, Mieko and Miye