One of PCA’s member organizations, Charlottesville Ballet is a relatively new local ballet company that has already managed to make its mark on the Charlottesville community with their amazing performances and outreach opportunities, including their participation in PCA’s 2010 Rising Star Award Ceremony. Co-Director Sara Jansen recently took the time to answer some questions about the company and the local dance community. If you have further questions, please feel free to contact her at jansensa@gmail.com.
Before becoming known as Charlottesville Ballet, the group was called the “Ma’at Ensemble.” How does the philosophy of an ensemble continue to influence the dancers and choreographers involved in the organization?
“Ma’at Ensemble” was the name for the original summer ballet company that was created in 2007. “Ma’at” is the Egyptian goddess of Truth and Balance, which personified our values of creating a holistic, honest, and balanced approach to professional ballet. Although our name no longer holds the word “ensemble,” its significance remains woven into Charlottesville Ballet’s structure. Unlike many ballet companies, we don’t have a hierarchy of corps, soloist, principal, etc. – we believe that each dancer has his or her own strengths and that every member of the organization is extremely valuable. Whether you’re a dancer, choreographer, or box office volunteer, we encourage you to share your many talents and add your strength to Charlottesville Ballet. Our “corporate culture” creates a holistic atmosphere that celebrates individual talents, cooperation, and collaboration.
Charlottesville Ballet is currently in its third performing season. What are the advantages and disadvantages to being a relative newcomer to the Charlottesville arts and culture community?
Charlottesville Ballet was founded in 2007 and we entered into the community at a very interesting economic time. Some people have asked us how in the world we created an arts organization in this financial climate, but there are actually some advantages to being such a new non-profit organization. Because we haven’t had the opportunities afforded by private foundation monies or government grants, Charlottesville Ballet is a very “lean” and nimble organization; we haven’t relied on sources of external funding to keep us afloat. While most nonprofits are experiencing massive budget cuts and laying off staff members, we’re completely “out of the storm,” so to speak.
Charlottesville has a thriving arts and culture scene, but the dance presence, while enthusiastic, has always been small. There are many wonderful modern dance companies that drift in and out of town and there are some great dance schools in the area, but there is no established professional ballet company that serves the greater Charlottesville community. One of our biggest challenges has been awareness – without any history of regular performances, education, or outreach activities, the Charlottesville community just doesn’t have professional ballet on the radar. However, this has provided us with the opportunity to reshape the local perception of ballet and fill an important niche in the dance community that helps make Charlottesville a true center for the arts. Our goal is to cultivate this dance audience and provide Charlottesville with a world-class professional dance company.
One of the founding ideals of the organization is to provide a holistic, nurturing environment for your dancers and choreographers. Please talk a little about what this means to the individual artists as well as the greater ballet community.
The world of professional ballet is a very interesting place. Behind the grace and elegance you see on the stage, there are many unhealthy habits that professional dancers are often forced into. Artists frequently suffer from eating disorders to maintain a competitive body weight and dance on pre-existing injuries in order to keep their jobs. Although many of these issues are hidden behind the beauty of the art form, we believe there can be a better, healthier, and more effective approach to professional ballet. Few ballet companies consciously wed health and professionalism, yet we feel these two ideas are not mutually exclusive.
Charlottesville Ballet wants our dancers and choreographers to be intelligent, whole people – who also love to dance. We try to nurture individual talents both inside and outside of the studio, encouraging dancers to pursue their other interests that make them whole, inspired, people. For example, our dancer Elisa Alexander is an avid photographer and shares her talents in visual design (she took the beautiful photo for our upcoming Mainstage One Peformance). Dancer Liz Clain-Stefanelli has a bachelor’s degree in Arts Administration and helps with tasks on the business side of the organization. Dancer Veronica Hart is a chef and works for Harvest Moon Catering. Co-Director Emily Mott is a full-time student at UVa. Kelly Silliman, our Choreographer-In-Residence, owns Sweet Dog Farm with her husband and has four beautiful children. Dancer Caitlin Lennon teaches dance in to fourth graders in the Charlottesville public schools. All of these experiences outside of the dance studio help create that balance that makes for healthy, inspired dancers. Charlottesville Ballet wants to create more than just “dancers” – we want to help develop whole artists.
It seems like Charlottesville Ballet is always involved in an outreach project or collaboration with another arts organization. How do those opportunities play into the overall mission of the organization? Also, what’s an exciting project that’s coming up soon?
We really do believe in collaboration and think it is such a powerful tool, especially for the arts! Last season, we did several residencies with JUMP. In October, the company went on tour to Lynchburg, VA to present our children’s ballet, A Fairy Tale Gathering at the Dance Theatre of Lynchburg. We also held outreach performances for 200 children in the Lynchburg public city schools, many of whom had never seen ballet before. In November, we performed at the Opening Night Gala event for the Virginia Film Festival premiere of Black Swan.
All of these outreach programs and performances are such an important part of presenting dance to a larger audience. We believe that ballet is not just for the opera house; it’s not just for wealthy or “artsy” people; it’s so much more encompassing than just getting people to come to The Nutcracker. In order for ballet to stay relevant, we need to actively promote dance and stay involved with the community through outreach performances and collaboration.
As for our next project, we have two shows coming up on February 12 and 13 – the Mainstage One Performance and our wildly-popular children’s ballet, A Fairy Tale Gathering, which highlights children from the local dance community.
We also have exciting news about a collaboration in April for our Mainstage Two Performance. Choreographer-In-Residence Kelly Silliman is creating a piece (tentatively titled Icon) which is based on the idea of re-interpreting songs by iconic male singers from a female perspective. The theme for this piece is “maiden, mother, crone,” or the different stages of life a woman goes through. For the third movement, Silliman has asked Miki Liszt, a matriarch of the Charlottesville dance scene, to perform as a guest artist with the Charlottesville Ballet dancers. Liszt has been a huge supporter of the performing arts in Charlottesville and the Miki Liszt Dance Company has been in residence at McGuffey Arts Center since 1984. Kelly Silliman also hopes to have a live singer for the work in April. Because it is so important to us to integrate into the community on many levels, we actively seek out ways to include community members, whether as dancers, musicians, or artistic collaborators.
Tell us more about your company classes and rehearsals: Are they open to the public? Are beginners welcome?
Charlottesville Ballet holds open company class on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings from 10:00am-11:30am in our rehearsal space at The Dance Barn studio. Although these advanced classes are open, they are not recommended for beginners due to the professional level of company dancers. We do encourage intermediate/advanced dancers to join us and modify steps as needed, while experiencing a dance class of the highest caliber.
For those who are at a beginners level, we will soon be offering classes! We are currently in the process of founding Charlottesville Ballet Academy, the official school of Charlottesville Ballet. The Academy will offer classes for ages 3 – adult and will be located in the current Dance Barn studio in Stanardsville, VA. We will be announcing our Summer 2011 schedule in the next few weeks, so look out for a new “education” tab on our website!
Finally – because it’s the question every one’s asking these days – what did you think of Black Swan?
There seem to be mixed reviews in the dance world – people either love it or hate it. The New York Times published an excellent review called “To Some Dancers, ‘Black Swan’ Is a Cautionary Tale” (SPOILER ALERT: don’t read it if you haven’t seen the movie yet!). The article is written from the dance perspective and underscores many of the issues (eating disorders, injuries, the all-encompassing pursuit of perfection) that our company dancers have been discussing.
Co-Director Emily Mott loved the movie and agrees that “the film holds up a mirror to a darker side of ballet.” The issues that Darren Aronofsky addressed in the film are of course dramatized, but they are all so prevalent in the field of professional ballet. There was no holistic, healthy environment for Nina Sayers – the hostile, competitive nature of the ballet world is the perfect setting for the “tortured artist” character – and Black Swan highlights some of the exact reasons we felt the need to create Charlottesville Ballet.
While the film is set in the dance world, we think the overall “message” is applicable to all creative and artistic people. So often in the arts, we become wrapped up in the pursuit of perfection, the achievement of excellence – it’s important to keep these things in check and to find the balance between our art and our sanity, happiness, and well-being.
