From Ballet Des Moines' Cinderella
A two-day journey through movement, drama, visual art, and creative writing — using Cinderella as a launchpad for fourth graders to investigate point of view, empathy, and the art of fracturing a familiar story.
Three movements across two days — explore the story, see how grown-up artists fractured it, then make something of your own.
Move as the characters, freeze the plot in tableau, and walk in another point of view — including the stepmother's.
Five specific choices Ballet Des Moines made — thoughtful fracturing modeled by grown-up artists before students try their own.
Choose a twist, design the world, build a scene with movement and dialogue, write, and perform.
Inhabit the characters, freeze the plot, walk in another point of view.
Before students can fracture a fairy tale, they need to know what's inside it — the characters' bodies, the story's turning points, and the perspectives that the traditional telling leaves out. Part One uses movement, tableau, and acting to put students inside the familiar tale.
Students walk around the room. The teacher calls out a character — they shift their body to embody it. Repeat through three quick rounds:
Q. How does your body show this character?
Q. What's different about how you move when the feeling changes?
Read Cinderella aloud. At three key moments, pause and have students freeze in a tableau — a still pose that captures the moment as if it were a photograph.
Q. What do we see in this frozen picture?
Q. Whose body tells us the most about what's happening?
Q. What would the picture say if it could speak?
This is drama-based embodied learning — the same approach used by Wolf Trap's arts education programs.
In small groups, assign each student a role. Each group acts out a short scene from their character's perspective. Encourage students to be honest, not cartoonish.
Q. Did you understand this character differently after walking in their shoes?
Q. What part of their perspective was the original story not telling us?
A fractured fairy tale takes a familiar story and changes something on purpose:
Read aloud from Seriously, Cinderella Is So Annoying! — a version told by the stepmother herself.
Q. What is different about this version from the one we read first?
Q. Who is telling the story, and how does that change what we believe?
Q. Where does the humor come from — and what truth does it sneak in?
Cinderella changes more than her dress in this story — she changes how she moves. Students create a short movement sequence showing her transformation:
Five specific choices, made by grown-up artists, that change what the story means.
Before students invent their own fractured versions, show them how professional artists do it. Ballet Des Moines' production of Cinderella isn't a museum reproduction of the traditional ballet — it's a careful re-imagining. Five specific choices, side by side with the tradition:
The dancers perform the steps. The "story" happens between them — through mime, gestures pointing to objects, and standing-still acting.
The movement expresses the emotion of the character rather than miming objects. The dance and the drama are the same thing.
A long comedic convention — the stepsisters played by male dancers in over-the-top costumes, played for laughs.
Minnie is played by a female dancer. Maxxie is played by a male dancer. The comedic tension stays — but the meaning shifts.
The Stepmother and Stepsisters are mostly "acting" parts — broad comedy, big faces, less technical dance.
They act up a storm, but they also have beautiful, technically challenging choreography of their own. They're complete artists in the work — not just comic relief.
Flat villains. We laugh at them, but we don't ask why they are the way they are.
Maxxie knows what it's like to be bullied by Barbarra and Minnie. She feels empathy for Cinderella and shows her small kindnesses — but only when no one is watching, because she knows she'll be punished.
She arrives, delivers the magic, sends Cinderella to the ball, and disappears. A plot device more than a character.
She accompanies Cinderella to the ball, guiding her through the event and creating an air of mystery that mesmerizes the entire court.
Q. Which of these changes surprised you? Which felt right?
Q. What did the artists at BDM keep? What did they change?
Q. Who do you feel for differently in their version — and what choice made that happen?
Q. If you could fracture any part of a story you love, what part would it be?
Brainstorm the twist, sketch the world, build a scene, write, perform.
Now students put it all together. They've explored the original, watched professionals fracture it, and walked in unfamiliar shoes. Day Two is the day they make something of their own.
Students pick one twist to start with:
Each student draws one of the following — a character sketch of their reimagined main character, or a setting drawing of where the story takes place. Around the drawing, students label: three character traits, three differences from the original, and one detail no one else has thought of.
This aligns with arts-integration strategies championed by The Kennedy Center.
In groups of 3–4, students create a short fractured scene that includes both acting (dialogue or narration) and movement (gesture, dance, or tableau). Clear beginning, middle, end. Encourage expressive use of body and voice — and remind groups of Part Two: the movement isn't decoration; it should help tell the story.
Students write a short version of their fractured story — one paragraph to one page. Two questions guide the writing:
Q. What changed from the original story — and why?
Q. Who is telling this version, and how do we know?
Groups perform their scenes for the class. After each performance, the audience discusses:
Q. What was different from the original story?
Q. What artistic choice helped tell the story — a gesture, a line, a moment of stillness?
Q. Did this fracture make you feel for a character you didn't before?
Close the unit with a single reflection question students can write or speak. Honor the time it takes — the best answers come slowly. Some students will write a page; some will say one true sentence. Both count.
Assessment, differentiation, notes, and resources.
The complete lesson plan — including a traditional-vs-fractured comparison handout and student-facing prompts.
Download Lesson Plan (PDF)