End of Week One – Quarantine 2020

Our upper level parents were part of a meeting last weekend during which we discussed the postponement of our spring ballet, COPPELIA. Other items were discussed as well, such as how that change would affect SPRING CONCERT for the rest of the students. While these are still tentative plans, I wanted to give you all an update. As of today, March 20th, the first day/s of spring!!, we have made these date changes on our website landing page, and we will make updates or changes in the future, as necessary: www.kingsportballet.org

We will continue to inform all of you, our families, as soon as we know anything different from what is outlined below:

1. Coppelia, our company spring ballet, has been postponed from April 16-19 to May 29-31, still at Northeast State. Tickets are for sale through our website. If you purchased tickets to the April event, we will switch them to May, or provide a refund (this is an exception to our rule, of course)

2. Spring Concert for Dance Movement was scheduled for May 17th* at KB in studio A, which we will transform into a mini theater. This should remain the same until/unless further notice is required.

3. Spring Concert Showcase for the rest of the school – Prep I and up – was scheduled for May 21 at Northeast State. This is now moved to Saturday, May 16th, also in studio A at KB. With the financial losses we will likely incur as a result of the COVID-19 quarantine and unavoidable schedule changes, it is prudent for us to continue to lower our expenses in whatever way possible. Avoiding additional theater costs will help a little toward this end.  We are planning to continue classes through May 23rd, regardless of the spring concert’s earlier dates, but again, stay tuned.

4. Our yearly fundraiser Ballet and Bubbly is scheduled for May 9th. We are hoping to postpone this to June, or re-design the event into an online fundraiser, however, this is dependent on several things, one of which is the donation of the venue, Agota Springs. We are waiting to hear back from the generous owner. If we can make the postponement we will let you know asap. We depend on everything being donated for this event, including manpower from our friends and families, as the proceeds help us meet budget each year. Making budget includes having the ability to provide scholarships to many of our students, who without financial assistance, would not be able to study ballet with us, or anywhere else.

5. Spring Break – As you know, next week is Spring Break! Boy, this year’s spring break will sure have a different spin to it, won’t it?? We will be taking walking trips around our neighborhoods instead of the world, our country, our state..! I encourage you to stay positive and active!! Think of it as a break from the “rat race” and learn a new skill, take up a new hobby, clean out your storage room, re-decorate a room – or your whole house!, read a book you’ve always wanted to read – maybe War and Peace, Guns Germs and Steel, The Little Prince… make craft projects with the kids (maybe with surplus toilet paper…?) – My oldest daughter, Adriana, one spring break years ago when she was about 11, made herself a tutu out of tissue paper. She Scotch-taped it onto herself piece by piece. It was very cool! But we had to cut it off of her – hahaha. I’ll see if I can find the picture we took!). After Spring Break is over, what then? We will of course have to wait and see!!

6. April Tuition – It is our hope that by some miracle, we will be able to resume classes in April. We don’t know any more about what the near future holds than any of you, however, our rent, utilities, directors’ salaries, insurance fees, payroll taxes, dumpster fees, phone/internet/cable and contract labor paychecks for those still putting in hours, will all still be due, as well as operating costs/bills still trickling in daily from expenses incurred during January, February and March. We would be extremely grateful if you would help us keep our financial obligations to those people and services that help keep our doors open, by still submitting tuition in April, if you are able, regardless of whether we are able to reinstate in-studio classes immediately. If for some reason we are not able to stage Coppelia, or hold our fundraiser as planned, we will be suffering substantial financial losses this fiscal year. It is our hope this is just a precautionary discussion! Thank you in advance for your consideration. As of now, the last week of classes in May will be the makeup week for this current week we have been out. It is doubtful if we would be able to make up any other weeks that we might potentially be out after Spring Break.

7. Ballet Babble –  (no, not a typo!) This is our new Blog! It may be found here, on our website: https://ballet2017.wpengine.com/ballet-babble/

We will be using the blog as a new platform to continue providing educational content, ideas, insights, inspiration, and other information for our students and their families.

8. Virtual Classes – We are working to be able to provide live, virtual classes that students can join to participate from home while in quarantine. We hope to fine tune this idea in the coming week in order to launch something toward middle or end of next week in the event that we need to stay home past spring break.

Stay well!! Stay positive!! Stay active and engaged!!