For the Christmas holiday season, the GAC School of Ballet gave many the gift of a beautiful performance. Not just to their parents, grandparents, friends, and classmates here at GAC. Middle School and High School dance elective students performed for Meadowcreek Elementary School, Village Park Senior Living Center, the Winship Cancer Center, and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta-Egleston during the month of December.

After experiencing service transform her own life, School of Ballet Director Regan Burnett developed a passion and determination for the GAC dancers to experience it firsthand. She and teachers Tina Martin and Caroline Cates have made service and outreach an increasing priority for their students over the past several years. “We were made to glorify God. I want the girls to know that when you’re confronted with adversity, sadness, grief, or heartbreak…that is the time that you get outside of yourself and be of service to someone else,” Ms. Burnett said.

In return for their gift of performance, the dancers heard cheers from the crowd of Meadowcreek Elementary students; saw smiles on the faces of nurses in the hospital; and felt a warm embrace from some of the young patients who were in the hospital at Christmastime. When the dancers showed up to the hospitals in their sequined costumes, they were unsure of how many people would be able to make out of their rooms for the performance. But that didn’t matter.

“We might perform for one person; we might perform for 15. Our philosophy is that God made sure that the people who were supposed to be there, were there,” Burnett said.

Ms. Burnett has also seen increased self-confidence in the dancers as they’ve performed for a more varied group of audiences. She isn’t surprised, however. “When you are serving, you are in alignment with your Creator. You are using the gifts that He gave you to shine a light and be a light,” she said.  

And what is more confidence boosting than being a light, after all?

To view highlights from the 2019 Nutcracker Performance, watch below: