Saint Augustine Ballet stages family-friendly performance of ‘Peter and the Wolf’

Renee Unsworth
·3 min read
Jocelyn Herstone, Natalee Hardy, Emma Maroney, Meadow Kuc and Patricia Garcia de Santamarina Roca rehearse for Saint Augustine Ballet's performance of "Peter and the Wolf."
Jocelyn Herstone, Natalee Hardy, Emma Maroney, Meadow Kuc and Patricia Garcia de Santamarina Roca rehearse for Saint Augustine Ballet's performance of "Peter and the Wolf."

A bluebird. A yellow duck. A boy named Peter. A wolf.

“Peter and the Wolf,” a ballet show for all ages, returns to the stage by Saint Augustine Ballet on Saturday, May 21, in Lewis Auditorium at Flagler College. Performances will take place at 1:30 and 7 p.m. Tickets are available at saintaugustineballet.org.

“Peter and the Wolf” was previously staged in May 2012 by Saint Augustine Ballet in Kirk Memorial Auditorium on the campus of the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind.

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Matthew Timm, Jocelyn Herstone, Patricia Garcia de Santamarina Roca, Meadow Kuc, Nature Kuc, and Natalee Hardy rehearse for Saint Augustine Ballet's production of "Peter and the Wolf."
Matthew Timm, Jocelyn Herstone, Patricia Garcia de Santamarina Roca, Meadow Kuc, Nature Kuc, and Natalee Hardy rehearse for Saint Augustine Ballet's production of "Peter and the Wolf."

“We are so excited to be able to re-stage this ballet 10 years later in our wonderful community,” said Luis Abella, executive director and founder of Saint Augustine Ballet. “We are thrilled to share these performances with our audiences from near and far.”

Local dance students from St. Johns, Duval and Flagler counties are featured in the performance, under Abella’s direction.

Special guest Daniel Hilbert, an attorney with Canan Law in St. Augustine, is the narrator. Hilbert is known for his podcast, “The Things I Like,” on The 904 Now App, in which he interviews local business owners and nonprofits.

Guest artist Patricia Garcia de Santamarina Roca plays the wolf. A professional ballet dancer and instructor, she was born in London in 1995, and then attended the Cuban National Ballet School from 2005 through 2013. She became a member of the National Ballet of Cuba, directed by Alicia Alonso, from 2014-18, performing in productions such as “Giselle,” “Don Quixote,” “Swan Lake,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Cinderella” and “The Nutcracker,” among many other dance productions.

Natalee Hardy plays the bluebird in Saint Augustine Ballet's production of "Peter and the Wolf."
Natalee Hardy plays the bluebird in Saint Augustine Ballet's production of "Peter and the Wolf."

From January 2019 through July 2021, she was a member of Acosta Danza in Havana, Cuba. She recently joined Saint Augustine Ballet as a dance teacher in fall 2021, and was a choreographer and assistant director of “The Nutcracker” production, along with dancing the role of the Sugar Plum Fairy.

Act 1 features “Peter and the Wolf,” a “symphonic fairy tale” by composer Sergei Prokofiev. The ballet features a narrator and a young boy named Peter who lives with his grandfather in a small country house surrounded by meadows, a pond and the woods. Peter’s three best friends are a little bird who has a nest near Peter’s home, a duck who likes to splash in the nearby pond at the edge of the woods, and a playful cat who is forever chasing his own tail! This is the perfect ballet for all ages.

Act 2 features “The Don Quixote Suite: The Dream,” a ballet based on episodes taken from the famous novel “Don Quixote de la Mancha” by Miguel de Cervantes. Don Quixote has an enchanted dream about beautiful maidens in which the image of Kitri symbolizes his Dulcinea.

Meadow Kuc, Emma Maroney, Natalee Hardy during rehearsal for Saint Augustine Ballet's "Peter and the Wolf."
Meadow Kuc, Emma Maroney, Natalee Hardy during rehearsal for Saint Augustine Ballet's "Peter and the Wolf."

Tickets are $35, $45 to $50, available at saintaugustineballet.com or by calling 855-222-2849. The ballet is offering free tickets to all St. Johns County teachers and school district staff; email info@saintaugustineballet.com.

Founded in 2021, the Saint Augustine Ballet is a nonprofit performing arts organization that offers performance opportunities to dancers from St. Augustine, St. Johns County and the surrounding area. For details, visit saintaugustineballet.org.

This article originally appeared on St. Augustine Record: Flagler College hosts St. Augustine Ballet's ‘Peter and the Wolf’