Karis Pendleton

Hi Everyone!! Sorry I didn’t blog last week. A lot has been going on.

This week was such a fun week!!

Monday, as you all know, there was a solar eclipse 4/8/24. Right before the eclipse happened, Joffrey Ballet, allowed us all outside to watch the eclipse…. which was so fun!!!!! Honestly, though it was a fantastic experience, I was a little sad because we were not in the path of totality. It was still cool to see the moon crossing mostly in front of the sun!!

Tuesday the weather was so nice, a few people in class asked permission to perform our improvisation/ composition on the roof!! Before I go on, I just want to say that we were fully supervised and the roof at Joffrey is very safe. Anyways, for class my teacher allowed us to pick a partner and we chose a scene from a ballet. Once chosen we were tasked with making up our own version of that scene while using elements of the original choreography. Then we had to perform it for the class and the class had to guess what ballet we chose. My partner was my friend Booker, we did the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet. We had such a fun time putting our dance together! We did a lot of fun partnering lifts!

There was one lift where I did a sauté and then he caught me mid air in a “fish” ( I put a pic below) and then spun me around!! Booker is such a great partner I feel so safe when we work together. ❤️ Even though I enjoyed the lifts, I’d have to say that one of my favorite parts of our dance was when I did a cartwheel into a saut de basque. I really loved this assignment, it really pushed me out of my comfort zone and challenged me to be creative. This was probably one of the highlights of my dance week. 🥰🙌🏾🥰

The rest of my week was pretty exciting too but I’ve been trying to keep it quiet until now because I have some really exciting news…..

Recently I got an opportunity to dance in the Youth America Grand Prix (YAGP) Finals Gala at Lincoln Center!!!! YAGP is a worldwide Ballet Competition where some of the best dancers compete against each other. Sometimes at YAGP you can earn scholarships to some of the top training programs in the world. Also for dancers that are old enough there are opportunities for them to get offered company contracts. There are a lot of regional competitions.

Anyways, YAGP reached out to Joffrey and told them they would like to use their dancers to form a corps for two Principal dancers from Paris Opera Ballet; my dream company!! My teachers chose me and 16 other dancers to be in the corps. I was so excited when they chose me!! To be honest it’s a fairly small part and I’m not really doing a lot of dancing. But I’m just so grateful and honored to be chosen for this. I’ll get to meet and dance alongside two Paris Opera Principals!!

As exciting as this opportunity is it is also VERY stressful. Since we are the corps we have to move together as one person. Every arm, head, position etc has to be exact. If one thing is off it is very noticeable. I have had many rehearsals on top of my regular daily dance schedule which has filled my schedule for the last weeks and weekend. I am happy to report Saturdays rehearsal (yesterday) went really well. My teacher was very pleased with all of us! I feel really confident and secure with all of the steps. The gala is this Friday April 19th!! I’ll definitely make sure to take lots of pictures and share them with you all!! 😁🥳❤️🙌🏾

Come see me perform in NYC in May!!

My end of year spring performance at Joffrey is May 11th! There are two shows. There’s one at 2pm and one at 7pm!! I hope to see you there!! Also, I understand that traveling is expensive so I completely understand if you’re not able to make it!! I’ll make sure to share tons of pictures and videos! 💕🎉 The link is below if you want to get tickets!

Tix link: https://ci.ovationtix.com/30745/production/1193417

Go FUND Me Update!

I’m happy to let you all know that I am a halfway to my goal of $10,000s for summer intensives. Thank you all SO much for donating!! If you can, please consider supporting and or share the link with friends and family any amount helps. 🙏🏾☺️

https://gofund.me/32a22c71