Virtual Performances on Demand
Purchase the Roxey Ballet Channel
featuring original content available from February 5 - July 4, 2021.
Channel Content includes: The Pied Piper of Hamelin, Carnival of The Animals, and Latin Creations-exploring Latino-Hispanic and Afro-Caribbean dance and culture through Bipoc choreographers
Mark Roxey, Giovanni Ravelo, Mark Flaco Best, Solana Hoffman-Carter, and Lisa Botalico, as well as, Behind the Scenes auditions and rehearsals, interviews with cast and crew, dance classes, previews and bloopers.
$99.99 for 6 months of entertainment!
The Made for Television Performances
The Pied Piper of Hamelin
Music and Lyrics by
Richard Jarboe & Harvey Shield
&
The Carnival of Animals
Produced, Directed & Choreographed by
Mark Roxey
Latin Creations - exploring Latino-Hispanic and Afro-Caribbean dance and culture through 5 Choreographers
Meet the Latin Creations Choreographers
Marck “Flaco” Best is a native of Philadelphia from the Mt. Airy section of the city. For the last 2 decades, he has dedicated himself to dance, and to advocating for the performing arts. Much of that time has been spent increasing social and emotional learning skills for students in schools across the Delaware Valley, using Ballroom and Latin dance as his vehicle. In that capacity, he has positively affected the outcomes of the lives of literally thousands of children, not only with what this minister's son refers to as the gospel of dance, but also with his behavioral example.
Maestro Flaco, as he is known, is a tenured instructor with the Mt. Airy Learning Tree, where he has taught adult continuing education classes for almost 20 years. He is one of the founding teaching artists of Dancing Classrooms Philly, and currently holds roster positions with Young Audiences of NJ & Eastern PA, Perkins Center for the Arts and the Pennsylvania Ballet. 2 years ago, he earned his certification from New York's Colombia University's Teacher College as a professional teaching artist. He is the only Latin dancer in PA to do so, and plans to pursue national accreditation in 2020. Not just a teacher, but also a promoter/ producer, and advocate for the Latin dance scene, he is the man responsible for the success such venues as Philly Empire Lounge in Juniata, NXNW in Mt. Airy, and Salsa Caliente! at The Painted Bride Art Center in Olde City, which was awarded Best Dance Party by Philadelphia Magazine in 2013.
As a performer, he and his partners have delighted and amazed audiences from Norris Square to Love Park, and from Camden, NJ to Heredia, Costa Rica, and those performances continue to this day. He made his motion picture debut along side many of Philly's best Latin dancers in the Salsa scene of the THX Pictures release, 21 Bridges, starring Chadwick Boseman (Black Panther). He continues his work as an active teaching artist.
Giovanni Ravelo - a native from Colombia, was born in Bucaramanga and began his ballet training at Anna Pavlova School in Bogotá. He also attended the School of the National Ballet of Cuba and the Rock School for Dance Education in Philadelphia. He performed and toured internationally with the National Ballet of Colombia before moving to the United States in 2003. Giovanni continues his career in America with the Ballet Theatre of Scranton’s production of Romeo and Juliet choreographed by Ana Consuelo Gomez. Since then he has been an artist with Roxey Ballet, Les Ballets Grandiva, Staten Island Balet and Ballet New York. In 2008 he joined Les Ballets Trockadero de Montecarlo, where he continues performing and touring around the world. During the last fifteen years, Giovanni has also taught and choreographed for students and professional dancers here in the States, Japan and in his home country, where he founded last year an organization to bring educational and performance opportunities for young dancers.
Solana Yemaya Hoffmann-Carter (she/her) is a dance artist and Waldorf teacher living between New York City and central Jersey. She began her formal training at the Mill Ballet School in 1998 and has never stopped dancing. Since receiving her BFA in dance and minoring in Religion and Philosophy at the University of the Arts, she has worked with many NYC based companies, projects and people, such as Movement of the People Dance Company, Silva Dance Company, Jasmine Hearn and Dancers, Adrienne Westwood, Ismael Ivo, Rosangela Silvastre and Moving Spirits Inc, to name a few. While seizing every opportunity to travel internationally, she continues to pursue her passion of discovering and connection with new people and places.
Driven to work within creative spaces that continuously strive to provide an inclusive and equitable environment, she has found many opportunities to teach, which furthered her desire for a practice in education. Currently at the Sunbridge Institute she has launched into her studies of Waldorf education while keeping her language of movement always at the forefront.
Mark Roxey - Founder, Executive and Artistic Director of The Roxey Ballet Company, Inc a BIPOC person with a disability, has created a humanistic organization where accessibility, equity, diversity and inclusion are the core principles, the guiding ethos to include all people of all abilities with differing viewpoints, experiences, and resources in both the training, exhibition, staffing, artists’ and board of director aspects of the company.
In his youth he began professionally as a b-bop, hip hop dancer in movies, commercials and with a group called Fresh Kids from Coney Island. From there he received a full scholarship from Joffrey Ballet and thus began his career at the Joffrey Ballet Company II under the direction of Gage Bush and Richard England, and The Joffrey Ballet under the direction of the late Robert Joffrey. He later joined American Repertory Ballet and Dayton Ballet as a principal dancer under the direction of Dermote Burke and Marjorie Mussman.
Roxey Ballet was founded by exploring the humanities as, initially, Mark used break dance as a means of expression and education against racism and social inequality, then concert dance to communicate and explore ideas to create transformational of ways of thinking about humanities subjects. For 27 years Mark Roxey has been transforming communities through interactive programs that communicate human, civil, disability rights, women's health initiatives, bullying and the cultural condition.
He was Voted # 1 Move & Shaker in Hunterdon County, New Jersey and is an active member of Art Pride NJ, has served as the Board President of Dance NJ, and served on the Board of Trustees for Dance USA, IPAY, APAP, Arts Presenters, and the national Arts Access Task Force.
Lisa Botalico is currently Assistant Director/Principal Dancer/Choreographer of Alborada Spanish Dance Theatre. For years Lisa toured the USA as Artistic Director/Principal Dancer of La Compañía Folklorica Latina for the National Theatre of the Performing Arts. She is the featured dancer on Images/Imagenes’ Emmy Award winning program, The Spanish Guitar featured on NJN. Her photo appeared in the exhibit 100 Years of Flamenco in NYC at the Library for the Performing Arts Lincoln Center. New Jersey performances include: NJPAC, New Brunswick PAC, Morristown Community Theatre, Crossroads Theatre and George Street Playhouse. Choreography collaborations include: Roxey Ballet’s Carmen Ballet; Nrithyanjali Institute of Dance’s Journey through Genre at Crossroads Theater and Outlet Dance Project at Grounds for Sculpture. In 1999 she founded the Arts Council of Princeton’s Adult and Children’s Flamenco Dance Programs and was their 2014 Artist in Residence. In 2019 Lisa was nominated for a Best Choreographer Perry Award by the New Jersey Association of Community Theaters for her choreography in PinnWorth Production’s North East premier of Zorro, the Musical at the Kelsey Theater.
Roxey Ballet presents
Children's Classic Stories featuring
The Pied Piper of Hamelin and Carnival of the Animals
Originally co-written by Stockton, New Jersey resident, Richard Jarboe and Los Angeles resident, Harvey Shield, The Pied Piper premiered as a musical theatre production in Los Angeles in 1984 at the Olio theater. In 1986 it moved Off-Broadway to the Circle-in-the-Square. Mark Roxey's original choreographed version debuted as Pied Piper of Hamelin in 2002 at Villa Victoria Theater in Ewing, New Jersey.
"Our contemporary version of The Pied Piper is a zany romp through a notorious German folk tale with rock-opera style anthems and upbeat choreography." The production recalls the story of the rat-catcher dressed in multicolored clothing hired by a medieval town to lure rats away with his magic pipe. When the townspeople refuse to pay for his service, he invokes the pipe's power to lead the children away as he had the rats.
Carnival of the Animals is a musical suite of fourteen movements by the French Romantic composer Camille Saint-Saens, with each movement depicting a particular animal. The ballet tells the story of a young child lost in a park where she encounters a variety of animals.
Roxey Ballet's goal of our annual Children's Classic Stories is to offer familiar tales in vibrant ways to engage new audiences. These are family-friendly productions highlighting the talents of local student dancers complemented by our fully professional ballet troupe. Even the youngest dancers play pivotal roles and their enthusiasm is contagious.
Both productions are directed by Mark Roxey, director and co-founder of this acclaimed professional company, and features more than 57 costumes designed by Alicia Worden and Nilda Roxey, with assistance by Ana Ana Vichnevetsky, and unique lighting design by Jeffrey Goldstein. Complemented by an international star cast of professional performers, Roxey Ballet draws on the abundant local talent pool from neighboring communities, including Lambertville, New Hope, Hopewell, Titusville, Lawrenceville, Pennington, Ewing, and Princeton.