A Day At The Ballet

It’s never to early to introduce children to performing arts

- Liz Rothaus Bertrand

Luca Cravotta probably doesn’t remember the first ballet he ever attended, but he was in good company. At 5 months old, he watched “Cinderella” while squeezing the finger of Patricia McBride, legendary dancer, associate artistic director of Charlotte Ballet and a 2014 Kennedy Center Honoree. To the rest of us, this is extraordinary. To Luca, McBride is simply one of his mom’s colleagues. Ayisha McMillan Cravotta, Charlotte Ballet academy director and Luca’s mom, laughs when she recalls this story some five years later.

“We were able to approach it with a lot of flexibility since I work for the ballet and my husband [Jeff Cravotta] is a photographer and does a lot of work for the ballet,” she says.

Most kids don’t get to see their first performance under such remarkable circumstances, but whenever and wherever it happens, introducing children to the arts can open a world of discovery.

Cravotta, who spent her early career performing with the Houston Ballet and North Carolina Dance eatre (now Charlotte Ballet), started dancing when she was 2 years old. She grew to love the art form and was a professional dancer for 11 years. In her role at Charlotte Ballet Academy, Cravotta oversees the artistic and educational programming for amateur dancers, age 3 to adult, ranging from novice to pre-professional. Cravotta shares her tips for best ways to introduce children to the magic of performing arts.

First Time

For very young children, consider starting with events that are less formal and specially tailored for kids. “My parents took me to a lot of live music performances,” Cravotta says. “Back when I was growing up, it was people like Raffi and folk musicians who hit the circuit. I remember storytelling as another really early way that I got engaged with performance.”