Manhattan Youth Ballet

We are SO excited to be celebrating our 10th Anniversary of The Knickerbocker Suite this year! We are the 3rd longest running Nutcracker in New York City and our NYC celebration to Tchaikovsky's iconic score has been seen by over 10,000 audiences members. 

Over the course of the last 10 years, we have made little edits and additions including 2 big crowdfunding campaigns that helped us acquire our awesome Christmas Tree that turns in the Chrysler building, our traveling Statue if Liberty, a curtain for our theater, and many new costumes.  

It is now time to refurbish some of these items including our growing Tree and Lady Liberty as well as replace some costumes (our flowers from Central Park).

If you are as excited as we are, we hope you will consider donating to our Kickstarter campaign to refurbish a few key costumes, scenery and props that are starting to show their age...

We are hoping to raise a total of $15,000.

A generous anonymous donor has offered to match all donations up to $10,000 at a 1:3 ratio, but the matching will only count towards donations made before OCTOBER 31st!

Please help us keep our Knickerbocker alive and kick(start)ing!

From the bottom of our hearts, we thank you!

Hello MYB Family and Friends,

Manhattan Youth Ballet is so grateful to be able to offer 3 performance opportunities totalling 20 shows and 4 invited dress rehearsals to our dancers throughout the year.  In an effort to make these opportunities affordable, we do our best to keep performance fees as low as possible, use any donated materials, request non-profit discounts on any rentals and rely on our incredible parent volunteers for help with our costume department.  

That being said, our performance fund is in need of support.  Each performance opportunity involves covering the costs of

*choreographer commissions
*rehearsal coaches
*music rights/new compositions
*studio fees
*costume rentals/new costume construction
*prop material fees

This fundraiser is an effort to help cover some overages in our Workshop division of the performance fund as well as help set us up for our June performances and Annual Gala. As always, we are extremely thankful for all of your support.  

With love and gratitude,
Manhattan Youth Ballet

THE MISSION
We at Manhattan Youth Ballet are so excited to have NYCB Principal Dancer, Ask la Cour bring his amazing mother Lise la Cour's wonderful children's story ballet based on Hans Christian Anderson tale, THE UGLY DUCKLING to life for our Spring Workshop Performances! This work, with an ORIGINAL SCORE was first choreographed on the Royal Danish Ballet and later seen at Lisa la Cour's LaCademy of Ballet.  It has not been performed in quite a few years and we feel honored to have it come to the MYB stage.

We are now asking for help from our community to make it happen :)  Any amount helps us toward our goal of making this production a beautiful addition to MYB's repertoire for years to come! 

WHERE THE MONEY WILL GO

COSTUMES
Brand new costumes designed by Angela Kostritzky Haws. We are creating just over 40 original costumes! 

ARTWORK/PROJECTIONS
A beautiful artist is hand painting images for each scened that will then be scanned and projected in high definition.

SETS
We are looking to build beautiful stacks of books to flank the stage as if we are bringing the storybook to life. :) 

ABOUT LISE la COUR
Lise danced with the Royal Danish Ballet for many years but her time at the Royal Danish Ballet was not only spent dancing. From 1988 to 1995 she served as the Associate Ballet Director. She moved to the U.S. in 2002 to direct the school of Ballet San Jose and in 2012, opened her own school. 

Lise passed away this last year, leaving an indelible mark on the dance world. Her mentorship and leadership helped shape countless lives. Blessed with a unique vision of artistic form and function, Lise was an invaluable asset. Her range of influence extended to developing the technique and artistry of ballet students and professionals alike, in addition to guiding productions of countless ballets and operas. She had an ability to connect with untapped potential in all who worked with her, pushing people to excel beyond their own boundaries of creativity. She possessed qualities of a true leader.

STAY TUNED...
For photo and video updates from the rehearsal process and as costumes and set pieces start to come to fruition! 

AND THANK YOU!
From the bottom of our hearts for whatever you can spare to help us reach our goal!