Foo Foo Festival has a way of bringing Pensacola’s creative community into focus, with artists and organizations from across the city finding new ways to share their work. This year, Ballet Pensacola is joining that conversation with a production designed to introduce audiences—and particularly young ones—to the world of dance.

From November 1-3, Ballet Pensacola will present Carnival of the Animals, a production inspired by Camille Saint-Saëns’ classic 1886 composition. The performance will take over the courtroom at the Clark Family Cultural Center, transforming the space into an immersive setting where ballet, puppetry, elaborate costumes, and projection come together to create a world of animals.

For Ballet Pensacola Academy Director Debi Janea, having the opportunity to bring the production to Foo Foo Festival is meaningful on multiple levels. “What’s really special to us as an organization about Foo Foo Festival is that it really highlights all the pieces of Pensacola, where the rich arts culture really come together,” she says. “It’s a big culmination of how rich in the arts this community is.”

Ballet Pensacola has been part of that larger arts community for years, collaborating with organizations including Pensacola Opera and Pensacola Little Theatre. But this year is different: rather than just appearing as part of another organization’s production, Ballet Pensacola is bringing a production of its own to the festival. “We are really excited and grateful,” Janea says. “We feel like it’s a big step in just a testament of our organization, not only as a whole but especially the students participating.”

Those students will be at the heart of Carnival of Animals. The production features dancers from Ballet Pensacola’s student company and performing youth ensemble, selected from an academy of roughly 300 to 359 students. For Foo Foo audiences, that means seeing young Pensacola dancers take on a production that’s both ambitious and accessible. “Carnival of the Animals is a famous title known in the ballet world,” Janea says. “We’ve never done it before. We feel passionately about this title and doing a show by kids and geared toward kids.”

Saint-Saëns’ composition is made up of 14 movements, each inspired by a different animal. Ballet companies around the country have interpreted the work in their own ways, and Ballet Pensacola is using it as a foundation for an experience that goes beyond a traditional ballet performance.

The courtroom at the Clark Family Cultural Center will be configured more like a black-box theater, and instead of simply watching the dancers from a distance, guests will be surrounded by an environment designed to suggest the habitats and worlds of the animals.

Elaborate costumes and puppetry will be a major part of that transformation, while projection will help shift the environment from one habitat to another, creating a visual thread throughout the production. “ It really creates not only a beautiful artistic sense of flow, but a very engaging thing for children,” Janea says.

The experience will continue after the final movement. The production will conclude with a Parade of Animals, bringing the audience into the celebration alongside the dancers. In addition, Ballet Pensacola is partnering with the Pensacola Humane Society to bring several puppies to the event, all dressed as animals and available for guests to meet—and potentially even adopt—following the performance.

For Janea, ending on a spirit of togetherness and community feels fitting, as it’s also at the heart of what makes Foo Foo Festival—and Pensacola’s arts community—so special. “We believe heavily in the arts here and are fortunate to be in Pensacola where they believe in the arts too,” she says. “Foo Foo Festival is always so great at showcasing that.”