On Thursday night I went to Aladdin with my mom. Before I saw the dance, I saw the movie and they are different. In the dance, characters have different names -- Aladdin’s monkey is called Malik, Jafar is called The Sorcerer, and Princess Jasmine’s name is Kalila. The dance is also different because they defeat the Sorcerer by making him a rat instead of turning him into a Genie.
In the dance there are two genies -- the genie of the lamp and the genie of the ring. The genie of the ring is small and he was my favorite character. The way he was called was cool -- the dancers crossed their hands and twinkled their fingers. The little genie danced sharp and serious.
Other kids might like the Sorcerer because he wears jewels and has an evil laugh. They might also like the parts with a camel and snake because kids like animals and they were cool and funny. The snake dancer had a fake snake head and wiggled her arms. The camel had one dancer at the top and one at the bottom and they kicked their legs.
The part I liked best was the fighting with swords and the machines that made it smoky.
Other kids might not like the wedding because it’s the longest part and the most boring, even though the dancers were pretty. Other kids might be confused about why the narrator says there are slaves dressed in pink, that didn’t seem like slavery to me, but it is a fairy tale.
I think kids should go see Aladdin because it’s only an hour, there are some funny parts, and the dancers did a good job.
Anderson Garrett is a first grader at Washington Elementary; he has taken creative dance class at Tanner Dance and tap at Janet Gray Studios.
Ballet West’s annual Family Series is designed to present a complete story ballet with just an hour running time. Ballet West II dancers perform alongside Ballet West Academy students in Aladdin through this Sunday, October 22nd: https://balletwest.org/events/aladdin2017.
