This year San Pedro City Ballet celebrated its fifteenth anniversary. Patrick wrote extensively in our program of our history. He has a great sense of humor, and it came out completely Patrick. It was fun to think back about all of the great people who started the company with us and who support the company to this day.

We are most proud of our alumni who have become parents, taken on careers, are furthering their education, teaching others, or dancing somewhere in the world.

We are looking forward to this year’s "Nutcracker" at the Warner Grand Theatre. In the last couple of years, we have raised funds to replace tutus, gumdrop dresses, and mice costumes. This year we improved our sets. Each change is generously noticed and complimented upon by our audience, and that is quite gratifying.

This year we have received a grant from the LA County Arts Commission to turn our San Pedro Ballet Studio B into a performance space. Also, we are looking forward to partnering with Angels Gate Cultural Center. These endeavors will allow our dancers, as well as other groups, more performance opportunities.

We started a Junior Company last fall for our younger students. Their participation was very beneficial to their technical development, and the company gained a new group of enthusiastic, highly appreciated parents.

We have renewed our contract with LA's Best, where we are providing dance teachers for after-school programs in San Pedro and South Central Los Angeles. This continues to be a most rewarding experience for our teachers and especially for the children who are very positively impacted by the artistic and confidence-building aspects of this program.

We are looking forward to the upcoming year, the return of our company dancers, and to welcoming future San Pedro City Ballet members. As a teacher, I always see an instant transformation in the new students. A young person walks into their first dance class and soars out afterwards. I always think that they believe they can fly. When we see our advanced dancers leaping through the air, we know it is only a matter of time until our new students are “flying” also. We know it is possible.

We are so proud of our hardworking dancers.
In March of last year they performed “Ruckus” at “Celebrate Dance – 2007” at the Alex Theatre in Glendale. This was the fourth year that producer Jamie Nichols invited San Pedro City Ballet to be part of this annual festival. “Ruckus” was choreographed by Artistic Director, Patrick David Bradley. 

Patrick is known for tackling important issues in his original modern works. Last year “Silence” was a piece inspired by the events of September 11, and two years ago he created “Light” about a young person with AIDS ascending to heaven. This year’s “Ruckus” was a delightful and colorful comedic work. It was also chosen to be performed at the Los Angeles Dance Invitational at the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center in Los Angeles for a tribute to the late legendary Stanley Holden. 

Patrick submitted a DVD of the performance of “Ruckus” to “Dance Under the Stars”, a choreography festival at the McCallum Theatre in Palm Desert, and was chosen as a finalist Rukusin the semi-professional category. The company performed at that festival on November 11

This year San Pedro City Ballet has begun to increase its outreach. We have started after-school programs as well as PE dance classes at 186th St. Elementary School, Dana Middle School, Rolling Hills Preparatory School, Renaissance School for Arts and Sciences, and Gardena High School. Hundreds of children in our community have the opportunity of receiving professional dance training.

The company’s “Nutcracker 2007” was the most successful to date. 800 tickets were distributed through our outreach program, and over 2,500 saw the performances. KiannaThe wonderful stage extension at the Warner Grand allowed us to bring back some of our large sets.

Look for San Pedro City Ballet to co-produce a spring production with Angel’s Gate Cultural Center in April.  This project will bring back the edgy performance artist in Patrick Bradley.