Elizabeth Farotte living a dream
The dreams of 4-year-olds rarely stay the same throughout life,
especially when they are little girl fantasies of dancing
gracefully on stage as a ballerina. One Gilroy woman has managed to
hold on to her dream of being a dancer from preschool to college
graduation and beyond.
Elizabeth Farotte is performing with the Oberlin Dance
Collective in their annual production of
”
The Velveteen Rabbit
”
at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. The
current production tells Margery Williams’ 1922 children’s tale
about a toy rabbit who yearns to become a real rabbit.
Elizabeth Farotte living a dream
The dreams of 4-year-olds rarely stay the same throughout life, especially when they are little girl fantasies of dancing gracefully on stage as a ballerina. One Gilroy woman has managed to hold on to her dream of being a dancer from preschool to college graduation and beyond.
Elizabeth Farotte is performing with the Oberlin Dance Collective in their annual production of “The Velveteen Rabbit” at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. The current production tells Margery Williams’ 1922 children’s tale about a toy rabbit who yearns to become a real rabbit.
“I’m Snow and I’m a real rabbit,” Farotte said. “You won’t see girls on point and in tutus, but we’ve got a lot of great costumes and dancing.”
For her scene as Snow, Farotte teases the velveteen rabbit along with the other real rabbits. After she got several performances of the show under her belt this week, she started to enjoy herself even more.
“You get into the flow and go out and have fun and add more things,” she said. “Every show, it gets sillier.”
Farotte has spent most of her life dancing and majored in the art form in college. She concentrated on ballet at the University of California, Irvine, but dabbled in other dance forms such as social, jazz and modern styles. While at Irvine, she received the Donald McKayle Medal Scholarship. She traveled to Paris with McKayle’s dance ensemble and performed at the National Conservatory for Music and Dance in Paris.
“It was a great opportunity that came along while I was in school,” she said. “At some point, I would have wanted to tour over there so I was really fortunate that the university had the program when I was there.”
She admitted that she was so focused on her rehearsals that she didn’t get to see much of the city.
After graduation, she performed with the BalletMet in Columbus, Ohio before traveling overseas with another performing arts company. She joined ODC in September.
“I knew I wanted a full-time job,” she said. “I wanted to find a home, a place I could stay for a while and grow.”
At ODC, she is starting as an apprentice so she will have time to adjust and learn the style of contemporary dance the company uses.
The dancer counts herself lucky to have a full-time gig as a dancer, especially one so close to Gilroy.
“One thing that made me want to be in the Bay Area is to be close to my family,” she said.
Her mother, Rosalind Farotte, is also glad to have her daughter nearby.
“One thing about the Ballet Met, she was so far away,” Rosalind said. “There were times I wished I could go there, not necessarily to see her dance, but just to be there.”
Her parents see the years they spent driving her to practices or rehearsals on stage now when she performs.
“I always took ballet,” Farotte said. “I think maybe by sixth grade it came to a point where I had to choose – I played sports and did other activities – but there came a time when I had to decide to train more seriously.”
As Farotte advanced to more complicated dance classes and roles in performances, she had classes five days a week. Some school nights, she spent evenings rehearsing until 7 or 8 p.m.
“She was always very focused,” her mother said. “I enjoyed every minute of it and now I can see her dance with this absolutely wonderful company.”
Farotte will be performing in “The Velveteen Rabbit” at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard Street, San Francisco on Saturday, Dec. 3 at 1 pm and 4 pm, and Sunday, Dec. 4 at 2 pm. Tickets are $15-$38 and can be order by calling 1-415-978-2787 or visiting www.ybca.org. For more information on upcoming performances of “The Velveteen Rabbit” in Davis and Pleasanton, visit www.odcdance.org.
