Dayton City Paper » ballet

A grand jeté!

Eric Street — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 14:00:39 +0000

Dayton Ballet 75th anniversary Celebration!

By Eric Street

Photo: The Dayton Civic Ballet production of Papillons in 1962 at the Dayton Art Institute Renaissance Theatre; photo courtesy Dayton Ballet

Seventy-fifth anniversaries are rare enough among humans, and rarer by far among ballet companies in this country. Dayton Ballet is only the second American ballet company to achieve this impressive milestone and they are celebrating appropriately with a dazzling program of what one might call “Dayton Ballet’s Artistic Directors’ Greatest Hits.”

“We’re looking back from the beginnings of Dayton Ballet with Miss Jo and Miss Hermene and honoring the artistic directors who guided the company through the years,” said Artistic Director Karen Russo Burke. “We’re also honoring our choreographers. In the second half of the program, we’re looking at the topography of the choreographers who have worked with Dayton Ballet. It’s a very big retrospective of the past directors and the choreographers we’ve brought to Dayton.”

The program includes photo montages of past ballets and a mix of 12 pieces of repertory danced by the 18-member company to showcase the achievements of the Dayton Ballet throughout the years. A highlight will be a short film montage of Dayton Ballet founders Miss Jo and Miss Hermene Schwarz. Photographs used in the montage were taken by Jane Reece, an internationally known Dayton photographer and, remarkably, one of the first professional female photographers in the United States. They are selected from a Wright State University archive collection consisting of 89 photographs taken by Reece, covering approximately the years from 1912 to 1937. The collection contains historic portraits and dance compositions of Josephine and Hermene Schwarz, portraits of the Schwarz family and others. “We’re lucky to have many photos of Miss Jo and Miss Hermene taken by Jane Reece,” explained Russo Burke. “Jane loved to take photographs and her work is housed in the archives at Wright State University.”

Celebration! opens with the Joffrey Ballet’s “Confetti!,” a 12-minute piece choreographed by Gerald Arpino, co-founder and former Artistic Director of the Joffrey Ballet. It will also include a dance piece titled “Two Sisters,” choreographed by Karen Russo Burke, a short film on former Dayton Ballet Artistic Directors Jon Rodrigez and Bess Imber, as well as the dance pieces “Bushido” and a segment from Inner Geist, choreographed by Rodrigez and Imber, respectively.

The program continues with a short film on former Artistic Director Stuart Sebastian, followed by two of his dance pieces – an excerpt from Fast Company and a pas de deux from his ballet “Dracula.” There will be a short film on former Executive Director and Artistic Director Dermot Burke followed by two of his dance pieces, “There Was a Time” and the finale from Basics.

Also included is a film montage of photos of many past ballets, a pas de deux from the ballet Fluctuation Hemlines, choreographed by Septime Webre, Artistic Director of the Washington Ballet, as well as the beloved “White Swan” pas de deux from Swan Lake. Other featured numbers include an excerpt from the ballet Orchids, choreographed by Gregory Robinson and the last movement from the ballet Canyons, choreographed by Karen Russo Burke.

Three former directors of the company will be in attendance for the retrospective, including Dermot Burke, Jon Rodrigez and Bess Imber.

Who else should come to this program? “Celebration! should appeal to everyone, particularly anyone who has had any contact through the years with Dayton Ballet, including former students, company members, past and present subscribers and anyone who has even attended a Dayton Ballet performance,” said Russo Burke. “I think they’d be awed and amazed by this wonderful gem in the heart of the Miami Valley.”

The Dayton Ballet began 85 years ago when Josephine Schwarz and her sister, Hermene, opened The Schwarz School of Dance. “Miss Jo” later studied at the School of American Ballet, but returned home after receiving an injury while performing in New York. In May 1937, Miss Jo and Miss Hermene gathered together the school’s finest talents, named the troupe “The Experimental Group for Young Dancers,” and staged a performance at the Dayton Art Institute. This was the first performance of what is now the 75-season-old Dayton Ballet.

Over the past 75 years and through the efforts of four subsequent Artistic Directors, Dayton Ballet has continued to flourish. A commitment to new dance led to it being dubbed “the company of premieres,” and its 75 years of continuous operation make it the second-oldest ballet company in the United States. It is truly one of Dayton’s outstanding legacies.

The 75th Anniversary Season Sponsors are Kettering Health Network and The Miriam Rosenthal Memorial Trust Fund. The latter sponsor will host a complimentary champagne toast at all five performance intermissions. Celebration! performance Sponsors are The DP&L Foundation and Emerson Climate Technologies.

Dayton Ballet will conclude its 75th anniversary season with Celebration! on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, March 21, 22, and 23 at 8 p.m., and Saturday, March 23 and Sunday, March 24 at 3 p.m. in the Victoria Theatre. Tickets range from $20 to $70 and are available at Ticket Center Stage 937.228.3630 or online at daytonballet.org. Senior, teacher and student discounts are available at the box office.

Pretty fantasies

Arnecia Patterson — Tue, 05 Feb 2013 14:30:09 +0000

Dayton Ballet’s “Cinderella” dances in the details

By Arnecia Patterson

Photo: “When the fairy godmother works her magic, it will light up and the hands will spin”: the clock designed by Ray Zupp for Dayton Ballet’s “Cinderella”

When Dayton Ballet’s “Cinderella” dons a universal fantasy – couture clad, she falls through a party thrown by the aristocracy where her future husband, the Prince, awaits – she will do so on a stage chock with visions brought to life by artisans Lowell Mathwich and Ray Zupp. The costume designer and scenic designer have wended different paths to their respective roles in Dayton Ballet’s upcoming premiere of “Cinderella” – the second full-length story ballet of its 75th anniversary season. Yet, both are as in-step with the dancers and choreographer as if they were taking the stage themselves. In an art form that depends on wordless, centuries-old dance technique to provide context as narrative and details that move things along, spectacle is created with the right attention to the colors, fabrics and embellishments of ball gowns, headpieces and waistcoats; the whimsical color palette in a make-believe kitchen and the magic craft set upon an hour that sends a clock’s hands spinning. These pretty fantasies build fairy tales.

On an afternoon, three weeks before the opening night of “Cinderella,” a typical hour in Dayton Ballet’s costume shop looks like a construction zone strewn with silk, netting and ribbon. A shift of stitching women sit at whirring sewing machines as bright and satiny garments, breathy with tulle, take shape around the hardware. A rack of silk, jewel-toned waistcoats is being unloaded from a van in front of the Victoria Theatre where the ballet will be performed. Mathwich is there to inspect them, eyeing their pleats in the sunlight and checking for the constructed perfection it takes to transform a working dancer into a page and transport an expectant audience into a fantasy.

Mathwich is to the costume manor born. He danced princely roles back in the early ‘80s with the Dayton Ballet and, from there, worked his way to shoe master and occasional headpiece builder, then into resident costume designer. Thirty years of dancing and designing for dance has taught him a lot about costuming dancers. “First, it has to move well. It has to fit to allow the dancers to be able to move,” said Mathwich. “That could mean extra gussets in places, or fabrics that would have a little more stretch than normal or the way that it’s cut and constructed.” His experience partnering ballerinas comes into play as well. “You learn where not to put trim on something because of partnering. I remember seeing a dancer bleeding because he cut his hand on a rhinestone in the wrong place on a costume.”

For the “Cinderella” audience, Mathwich’s attention to function will be immersed in the fairy godmother’s gown of deep blue and purple tulle topped by a shimmering starry bodice to represent the magical night’s sky and tied up in the gold and white ribbon stitched on to Cinderella’s tutus – she has both classical and romantic – that represent rays of light. The fairy seasons will have their own runway show of gossamer petaled, colorful spring flowers, sunflowers, shafts of wheat, grapevines and silver embellished lavender. “The whole point is to make it magical,” said Mathwich. “It’s a fairy tale. I’ve designed a lot of real life or true-to-life or historically-correct shows. This is a chance to do a fantasy, but it’s ballet fantasy, fairy tale fantasy, not science fiction fantasy.”

Ray Zupp’s circuitous path to scenic design has included a lot of miles between his boyhood home in Vandalia and Los Angeles and New York with plenty of trips back to Dayton to reconnect. He worked in the art department that provided the set for ABC’s drama, “Brothers and Sisters.” Working in the land of television and film, which places a high premium on the impact of visual setting, has prepared Zupp for his first foray into ballet. “I painted for Scott Kimmons for a long time and he was busy working on something else, so he gave my name to Karen (Burke).” Burke, choreographer and the artistic director of Dayton Ballet’s production of “Cinderella,” asked for something whimsical. “I’ve put some unusual colors in the large stones and there are a lot of colors and spirals,” said Zupp. “The clock itself is huge. It’s a little Tim Burton-y. When the fairy godmother works her magic, it will light up and the hands will spin. I’m still working on the mechanics of it, but it’s very cool.”

The influences of television, film and visual art converge in the ideas that Zupp brings to design. He mentioned Salvador Dali, Tim Burton and the design of the 1997 TV movie, “Cinderella” with Whitney Houston, as touchstones but admits that the process of working in television can be isolating, even from a complementary department. He appreciates how everyone helps each other in bringing a ballet to life. “Theatre and dance is such a wonderful collaborative effort,” said Zupp. “You work with the costume designer and choreographer to create this cohesive look. In television everyone works separately.”

In Dayton Ballet’s case, the dreams of a dream trio are where public displays of fantasy begin.

The Dayton Ballet presents “Cinderella” Thursday, Feb. 7 at 8 p.m., Friday, Feb. 8 at 8 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 9 at 3:00 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 10 at 3:00 p.m. at the Victoria Theatre, 139 N. Main St. Tickets range from $20 to $70 and are available at Ticket Center Stage 937.228.3630 or online at daytonballet.org.

Reach DCP freelance writer Arnecia Patterson at ArneciaPatterson@daytoncitypaper.com

Game changer

Arnecia Patterson — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 15:00:32 +0000

Sensuous is the new “Nutcracker” by Dayton Ballet and Philharmonic

By Arnecia Patterson

Dayton Ballet’s 75th anniversary season beckons like the cut of a diamond ballet company. Yet it adds another facet to this year’s production of “The Nutcracker,” co-choreographed, in 2003 by Karen Russo Burke, artistic director of the Dayton Ballet, and Dermot Burke, former director. The dancers will be accompanied live by the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra, performing the famous Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky score under the direction of Neal Gittleman.

“The Nutcracker” is a challenging spectacle to stage. It is known for its enchanting music, party scene, mice battle, snow scene and pas de deux that change quickly, yet last in the memories of children and adults. At the Dayton Ballet, the production requires months of planning and coordination of professional dancers, plus over 100 children – all outfitted in over 250 costumes by Lowell Mathwich, resident costume designer. Even with all of the thinking, planning and rehearsal that have gone into past productions, with the addition of the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra playing live, audiences may experience a lusty anticipation of each step of choreography joined to the next note of music in a score Gittleman considers “beautiful, luscious and sexy.” By the accounts of both Burke and Gittleman, the melding of live music to live dancing creates a multi-dimensional experience that engages all of the senses completely.

Both have long, diverse histories with various productions of “The Nutcracker.” Burke grew up dancing in an east coast dance school, similar to the Dayton Ballet School. Since age five, she has danced most of the roles that she now oversees and rehearses. Today, she brings special memories to her responsibility for the dancers who perform those roles now. “I remember as a Mouse we were allowed to sit by the director and watch the professionals which I thought was the coolest thing ever,” said Burke. “From that time on it’s been magical for me.”

Neal Gittleman encountered “The Nutcracker” for the first time as Associate Conductor of Syracuse Symphony where he conducted the productions performed jointly with the Connecticut Ballet. He described learning the score “on the fly” as a “baptism by fire.” Years later Gittleman and the orchestra in Marion, Ind. squeezed themselves between the front row and the stage of a high school auditorium to accompany Butler University’s production of “The Nutcracker.”

Each director understands that Nutcrackers bear the marks of their choreographers, dancers and musicians, and they remember the differences clearly. However, both are freshly attuned and responsible to the artists and audiences in Dayton. During hours of rehearsal, where Gittleman sits in the front of the dance studio marking his score as he watches Burke rehearse the dancers, they make decisions in advance on how to craft the best performance. From Burke’s standpoint, live music can show the audience choreography that is fully articulated and finished. She and Gittleman work in tandem with the dancers to adjust tempos that let them add excitement where it happens to occur and subtlety where it falls and lingers. She wants the live music to imbue the choreography with a completeness that is memorable and engaging to the audience. “I think that when we get it right, they’re going to see a fuller presentation of the steps,” Burke said.

To hear Gittleman talk about the music in relation to the mood of the tale is prescient to what audiences can expect to happen as they listen. He is a conscientious conductor who is well aware of how each performance requires him to extend his artistic leadership to dancers as well as musicians. In addition to the practicality of knowing where steps happen in the music, he is just as taken with Tchaikovsky’s magical score. After learning it over 20 years ago, Gittleman still appreciates its shifts between narrative, storytelling music and the ability to create a mood. He describes the musical changes like a conductor who cannot wait for the musicians to play, the dancers to move and audiences to take it all in. “The music segues into the snow scene and suddenly changes. It gets softer, and the harp comes in,” said Gittleman. “Even if it goes over the little kids’ heads, the grown-ups will think, ‘Oh, this is like a slow jam.’”

The live music of this season’s “The Nutcracker” gives audiences delicate shadings that reflect personality and authentic sound that cannot be reproduced in the digital compression of a recording. When you add the movement – fast movement in many instances and advanced, studied, movement in all – of seasoned, rehearsed dancers – professionals and children – the excitement can become a memorable event. Ultimately, “The Nutcracker” is a ballet that creates memories for generations. As put by Dayton Ballet dancer, Paul Gilliam, this year’s collaboration between the Dayton Ballet and Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra provides “more for the memory.”

The Dayton Performing Arts Alliance presents “The Nutcracker” Friday, Dec. 14 – Sunday, Dec. 16 and Friday, Dec. 21- Sunday, Dec. 23 at the Schuster Performing Arts Center, 2 W. Second St. Tickets range from $9 to $70. For additional ticket information and show times, call Ticket Center Stage at 937.228.3630 or visit www.daytonballet.org.

Reach DCP freelance writer Arnecia Patterson at ArneciaPatterson@daytoncitypaper.com

On their toes for 75 years!

Eric Street — Tue, 16 Oct 2012 19:02:05 +0000

Dayton Ballet celebrates “Past and Present”

By Eric Street

Dayton Ballet celebrates its 75th anniversary this year – a remarkable accomplishment for a dance company, and one that places Dayton Ballet in the front ranks as one of the nation’s oldest. “Past & Present” will run Thursday, Friday and Saturday Oct. 18-20 at 8 p.m., and Saturday, Oct. 20 and Sunday, Oct. 21 at 3 p.m. in the Victoria Theatre.

Fittingly, the program features three diverse experiences from Dayton Ballet’s past and present: Stuart Sebastian’s “Mozart Dances”; a world premiere from choreographer Amy Seiwert, “Chasing Ghosts”; and the revival of “Sleepy Hollow.” “I feel extremely honored to be with the Dayton Ballet during this important anniversary season,” says Artistic Director Karen Russo Burke.

“I’m in awe of the sisters, Josephine Schwarz and her sister, Hermene, who 85 years ago opened the Schwarz School of Dance. When we look to the past, I’m amazed at their foresight, their tenacity, their love for the art form. And then to be able to pass it on to so many people – that’s very impressive.

We started our anniversary year this April, with a kick-off performance at the Dayton Art Institute where Miss Jo and Miss Herm had the very first performance of their Experimental Group for Young Dancers. That was 75 years ago! Miss Jo had hurt her knee dancing on Broadway and decided that she would invest her energies in young dancers. They took ten of the top dancers from their school, which was already ten years old, making it one of the oldest dance schools in the country.

Our program is called “Past and Present.” We’re looking back with a piece choreographed by Stuart Sebastian, Artistic Director of Dayton Ballet from 1980-1990. As an added bonus, the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra will be performing the Mozart score.”

Audiences can also gallop down memory lane with the headless horseman in a revival of “Sleepy Hollow,” choreographed by Karen Russo Burke. Washington Irving’s familiar tale of a bully, a good guy, a lovely girl and a headless horseman should prove exciting fun for kids of all ages this Halloween season.

Our future is symbolized by a piece by Amy Seiwert,” says Burke, “who has a company called Imagery. So here we have the past, the present, and the future in one terrific program.”

“I just finished it on Saturday,” says Amy Seiwert, “and I can’t wait to see the performance.” Seiwert is Artistic Director of the San Francisco-based ballet company Imagery, as well as Choreographer in Residence for the Smuin Ballet.

“The music is by New York composer Kevin Keller,” explains Seiwert. “He’s created really emotional music, but it’s emotional without being sentimental. It’s perfect for the dancers.

I’m from Ohio, in fact, I grew up in Westchester. I’ve worked with Cincinnati Ballet and Ballet Met recently, so I’ve been more in Ohio this fall more than in the last 20 years. It’s brought back lots of memories for me – like the smell of fall. In San Francisco we don’t really have the same sort of fall.

It ties in perfectly with the piece. For me, this piece is all about memories, sometimes the fleeting memories you can’t quite put your finger on. The title of the piece is “Chasing Ghosts,” and that’s what it’s all about. The shadow of an experience you’ve once had –it’s pretty abstract.

The Dayton Ballet dancers have gotten it beautifully – they’re really doing it very well. You’ve got a great company there. They’re incredible to work with, partly because of their fantastic work ethic.

They really dig deep into the piece, and they bring a special quality of their own to it. Without these dancers, the piece might come out totally different. It’s been really nice collaborating with them.”

“Nine out of the eighteen dancers are new to Dayton Ballet this year,” says Burke. “They bring with them a lot of positive energy to the company. Their passion for dancing and their work is really tremendous. That’s what I hope people will come and see – our dancers’ passion for their art form.”

The Dayton Ballet 75th anniversary season has plenty more in store for its audience. “The next new thing we’re doing,” says Burke, “is mounting a full-length ‘Cinderella’ to Prokofiev’s music. We’ll have all new costumes and new sets. It will be one of the first full-length story ballets we’ve had in quite a long time.

For the 75th season we’ll perform Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker” with the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra. We’ll close off the season in March with a ballet called ‘Confetti’ by Gerald Arpino, originally done for the Joffrey Ballet but new to our repertoire. There will be a video collage of each choreographer who worked with us.

After the intermission, there will be a video montage of works that have been done by the Dayton Ballet over the years. This will be followed by four or five sections of works that we’ve done to show the range of the dancers.

We are a company of premieres, and we do a lot more of them than other companies. We want to hold on to that tradition!”

The Dayton Ballet will present “Past and Present” Oct. 18-20 at the Victoria Theatre.

Tickets range from $20 to $70 and are available at Ticket Center Stage (937) 228-3630 or online at www.daytonballet.org.

Reach DCP freelance writer Eric Street at EricStreet@daytoncitypaper.com