Relevé (pronounced rel-uh-VEY) is a ballet term that means “to rise” in French.

The Milwaukee Ballet Relevé program is one of our cornerstone Community Engagement programs, providing ballet training to 280 students from three Milwaukee Public Schools. These students, in 3rd, 4th and 5th grades, participate in a three-year ballet training program with weekly classes at Baumgartner Center for Dance. In addition to their ballet classes, the young dancers watch our Company dancers in class and rehearsal, giving them the chance to see what a professional dancer’s day is like. Each student receives their own pair of ballet shoes and students in 4th and 5th grades are loaned ballet dancewear. Additional enrichment activities round out the program, such as free tickets to our Student Matinee Series, as well as a Ballet-in-a-Box performance featuring the Milwaukee Ballet II dancers and end-of-year recital at their schools.

Dedicated, focused and talented students are invited to attend the Relevé Summer Program or Milwaukee Ballet School & Academy’s summer maintenance program. Once they graduate from 5^th grade, they have the opportunity to receive a full scholarship to Milwaukee Ballet School & Academy for as long as they would like to dance.

Participating schools in the 2020-21 season are ALBA Elementary School, Allen-Field Elementary School, and Milwaukee Parkside School for the Arts.

We had an incredible summer with our Releve students this year. Participants developed their technical skills in ballet, explored different careers in the arts such as costume design and choreography, and most importantly had an opportunity to express themselves through dance.

Interested in joining us next year? Please check back in early Spring for more information on Summer 2022!

We are grateful for our partners who make the Relevé program possible: