The Road to Enlightenment

Lareen Fender’s
The Ballet School
Performing Arts
1357 N.Main Street Walnut Creek CA 94596
(925) 934-2133 • theballetjoyeux@yahoo.com
www.theballetschool.org

 

To dance is to grow. In skill. In strength. In imagination.

In its exhilarating combination of the mental and the physical,
of discipline and freedom, dance has few equals.

At Lareen Fender’s The Ballet School, there are few limits to when dance training can begin and no limits to where it can lead.  The Ballet School has helped both children and adults take their first steps into the world of ballet, jazz and theatre.  On the other end of the spectrum, the school has trained many fine professional dancers for professional companies throughout the world.

Our approach to the teaching of dance recognizes both the demands of the art at the professional level and the pure enjoyment dance offers to those students who may not aspire to a dance career.  In a school dedicated to the highest standards of dance training, the atmospheres of our classes are friendly, and our faculty is supportive to the varied goals of our students. 

Whatever those goals are; career, personal growth, or perhaps just fun and exercise, The Ballet School offers training and guidance to help every student develop his or her potential, one-step at a time.

Our students have opportunities to display their training and talent in performances. All students in the academic level may participate in our annual School Demonstration.  More advanced students are given the opportunity to dance with the school’s affiliated company, The Ballet Joyeux, both in yearly concerts as well as in a full length ballet.

The Ballet School also offers private coaching, as well as special classes for adults and children in the Theatre Arts.

 

A Note From the Director of the School

Hello and Welcome to The Ballet School,

Lareen Fender’s The Ballet School Performing Arts has been in Walnut Creek since 1976 and is one of the longest running businesses in existence on North Main Street.  Lareen Fender is the founder of the school and has created a truly remarkable foundation.  I am lucky enough to say, that Lareen Fender is my grandmother.  I have had the privilege of growing up right here in Walnut Creek and have spent many hours in the classroom training with my grandmother over the years.

What I did not realize then, but realize now, is that I was learning so much more than Ballet.  I was learning so much about LIFE within the classroom walls.  I was learning about discipline within myself, I was learning to express myself through movement, I was acting, telling stories, creating a sense of myself and who I would eventually become.  I was gaining poise and confidence and was learning how to be JOYFUL and RESPECTFUL to myself and others.  By training and studying the excellence of Ballet, I was learning what true COMMITMENT was.  I would not be the person I am today without every moment I spent at The Ballet School.  I made many choices in my life to continue the LEGACY my grandmother created.  I know there is really no place like The Ballet School.

At The Ballet School, we celebrate the gift of everyday.  We stay positive in our teaching and still teach excellent body alignment and technique and discipline within both.  It is my continued goal as Director of the school to continue inspiring and teaching excellence in the classroom, but also to create a safe environment to grow and learn.  It is very important to me to have an excellent teaching staff in the classroom with the students who are wonderful role models for the students to look up to.  The Ballet School is a very special place in so many ways.

It is with great pleasure that I welcome you to Lareen Fender’s The Ballet School Performing Arts.

Sincerely,

Jennifer Perry

 

THE BALLET JOYEUX

The Ballet Joyeux, a classical ballet Company, is the performing Company of  The Ballet School.  This well-established Company, led by Artistic Director and Shellie Award nominee Lareen Fender, has been performing for the past twenty-eight years throughout the Bay Area.  The company repertoire includes such productions as Etudes, Peter, Petra and The Wolf, Concert Waltzes, Cakewalk, Celebration for Life, Rodeo, The Shellie Awards, Art on the Main, Thanks for The Memory, and The Family Day Festival, celebrating the opening of the Dean Lesher Regional Center for the Arts.  The Company has performed with Diablo Symphony, and continues to perform lecture demonstrations yearly, which provide a visual demonstration of the training and yearly, which provide a visual demonstration of the training and development of a dancer.  During this twenty-eight year history, The Ballet Joyeux Company has become a beloved treasure to families throughout Contra Costa County, and many of the company’s dancers have gone on to professional theater and dance careers throughout the United States and Europe.  Each December, The Ballet Joyeux is proud to present ONCE UPON A CHRISTMAS, a delightful narrated holiday ballet, which allows audience members of all ages to pass across the threshold of make-believe into a world where dreams can and do come true by learning to first believe in oneself.