The Bent­ley Pot­ter School of Dance, to­geth­er with the Cas­cade Fes­ti­val Bal­let, pre­sent­ed “The Mag­i­cal World of Oz and the Rhythm With­in” on No­vem­ber 22 and 23 at Queen’s Hall, St Ann’s.

The first half of the pro­gramme fea­tured the Bent­ley Pot­ter School of Dance in a charm­ing adap­ta­tion of the chil­dren’s clas­sic The Won­der­ful World of Oz. Blend­ing el­e­ments of clas­si­cal bal­let with cre­ative sto­ry­telling, the pro­duc­tion trans­port­ed au­di­ences in­to a world of beau­ty, grace and emo­tion.

The sec­ond half show­cased the Cas­cade Fes­ti­val Bal­let in an orig­i­nal per­for­mance ti­tled “Rhythm With­in.”

The Bent­ley Pot­ter School of Dance was found­ed by Eve­lyn Bent­ley and Aver­il Pot­ter, and the two-night pro­duc­tion was ded­i­cat­ed to Bent­ley, who re­cent­ly passed away. To­geth­er, Bent­ley and Pot­ter built a bal­let fam­i­ly that has flour­ished for 55 years.

The school re­mains com­mit­ted to teach­ing clas­si­cal bal­let based on the tech­nique and dis­ci­pline of the Roy­al Acad­e­my of Dance syl­labus. Each year, stu­dents are pre­pared for op­tion­al ex­ter­nal ex­am­i­na­tions, of­fer­ing those who wish an un­bi­ased and pro­fes­sion­al as­sess­ment of their progress.

The teach­ing staff com­pris­es six in­struc­tors—Car­o­line Pot­ter-Vi­lain, Cindy-Ann de Souza, Nico­la Heffes-Doon, Chan­tal Si­mon Thomp­son, Hei­di Aa­nensen and Dal­ius­ka Ma­go—all ded­i­cat­ed to in­spir­ing a love of dance and in­still­ing the dis­ci­pline of clas­si­cal bal­let in cur­rent and fu­ture gen­er­a­tions of stu­dents.