Cincinnati Ballet practices for “Sleeping Beauty”

Dressed in a plain white, long-sleeved t-shirt, Devon Carney, Cincinnati Ballet Associate Artistic Director, had the full attention of each dancer during a recent practice for the upcoming performance of “Sleeping Beauty.”

The group gathered around him in a semi-circle as he gave directions to them on how the end of the first act would play out. Then, the group practiced it, as Carney walked around the gray dance floor, showing the lighting director what he wanted her to focus on.

When the Cincinnati Ballet debuts “Sleeping Beauty” on Friday night at Music Hall, they will need everything to be right from the dancing to the lighting. For the first time in four years, the ballet will hold a performance in Music Hall. Performing in Music Hall allows for its other tenant, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, to accompany the ballet, led by Cincinnati Ballet conductor Carmon DeLeone.

The practice, held in the Mickey Jarson Kaplan Performance Studio in the ballet’s headquarters on Central Parkway, was a rough run through of the total performance. The dancers weren’t dressed in costume, but rather in tights and skirts. The music accompanying the dancers came from a CD player, and blared through two speakers on each side wall of the studio.

The dancers who got the most work were Janessa Touchet, who plays Princess Aurora, and Ogulcan Borova, who plays Prince Desire. Even as Carney discussed a scene with the entire group, Borova and Touchet stood off to his right, watching their every move in a mirror that runs in front of the dancers, perfecting their timing.

And as the practice progressed, Carney snapped his fingers and clapped his hands to perfect the timing of the group. At one point he yelled, “Do it again, do it again,” as the company restarted the beginning of the play’s third and final act.

Carney’s work doesn’t go unnoticed. When the rehearsal ended, each and every dancer came up and thanked him for his work.

Even though patrons of the ballet may not visibly see Carney this weekend, his work, which has been practiced over and over, will be appreciated by all who come to see “Sleeping Beauty.”