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To be honest I am not a big fan of ballet, but after an hour
watching beginning preschool girls try their best at it I began to see the grace, beauty and discipline of the
art. They were making their legs and arms move in beautiful motions that are not often seen in 3 to 5 year olds.
Their teacher, Julie Beery, started out at the Mariposa Academy of Performing Arts when she herself was only three years old. Beery left Mariposa after High School to obtain a degree in education. She returned and began teaching one class a week on Saturday mornings. Her education background certainly shows in the way she motivates and instructs her students. The butterfly dance where the students donned shimmering cape wings was especially beautiful.
The Academy was organized 26 years ago by Tamara
Andrews. Andrews who has been teaching ballet for 40 years was trained in the Cecchetti Method. She teaches
most of the classes with the help of older student assistants. Besides ballet the School also teaches Jazz,
Modern and Contemporary dance.
"The Mariposa Academy of Performing Arts' goal is to develop strong, straight, supple and graceful bodies. To inspire the students to strive to learn as much as they can each lesson, to inspire a love of dance and creative expression, and to create dancers." The Academy has as many as 55 to 60 students at any one time. The age range of the students is between 3 and 20. . Each year The Academy puts on a recital in June at Merced College. The Academy has been at the same location since it was started in 1982. The Cecchetti method is a form of ballet instruction created by Enrico Cecchetti
(1850-1928). The method is a strict training system with special concern for anatomy within the confines of
classical ballet technique, and seeks to develop the essential characteristics of dance in its students through
a rigid training regime. The goal is for the student to learn to dance by studying and internalizing the basic
principles, in an effort to become self-reliant rather than imitating the movements executed by their teacher.
Tamara Andrews, Director
Mariposa Academy of Performing Arts
4607 Highway 49 South
Mariposa, CA 95338
209-742-7303
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