Prima Princessa Presents Swan Lake -DVD Review

We recently had the opportunity to review a great new dvd that is coming out called Prima Princessa Presents Swan Lake.
From the website of Prima Princessa - "This DVD is designed by two mom-entrepreneurs on a mission to bring the beauty and magic of ballet into the lives of children everywhere. It is a hip new twist on learning about ballet, featuring the Paris Opera Ballet and Students from School of American Ballet at Lincoln Center, Official Academy of New York City Ballet. Our 40 minute DVD is a cool, fun, beautiful show with a brain. Prima Princselect segments of Swan Lake. In between acts, the children return home to learn simple ballet steps which are playfully shown mixed into colorful montages of toys, animals, children and young dancers from the School of American Ballet."

I was really excited to review this video, with three girls in the family ballerinas are loved.  At first I sat down with my older two girls to watch it, and half way through the video the younger two kids came and sat down.

This is a really great way to introduce Ballet to children of all ages.  The video starts of with Prima Princess who narrates the story.  The video features the Paris Opera Ballet performing four acts of Swan Lake.  In between each act, their are children from the school of American Ballet who show you how to do specific ballet steps.  There are four steps taught:

• Pirouette- to turn
• jete`- to jump
• pas de chat - step of the cat
• grand battement- big kick

Each step is spoken and then illustrated by the child ballerinas, then there are scenes to reinforce what each step means.   For instance-Jete` means to jump, they then showed a cat jumping etc.   I really liked how each step was shown and then reinforced repeatedly.   In between the acts are scenes of small little girls dressed up in their tutus dancing around and laughing.
I really thought this was a great video, and even though it says ages 3-6 all my kids liked certain parts.  My older daughters (8) and (6) enjoyed the ballerinas performing, while the youngest (20 months) liked to watch when the little girls danced and played.

This dvd is being re-released on March 2, 2010 and will be available to purchase at Amazon, Target, and other stores.

***Disclaimer*** I was not paid for this review. I was sent a copy of the video free of charge, and this in no way influenced my review.  Thanks to Mary Kate and The Product Review Place for the opportunity to review this product.