Reflecting on AbunDANCE

Over the course of our 25 years, Memphis' only fully professional and nationally lauded dance company has created or acquired the finest concert dance choreography our community has ever seen. There are always works our audience asks to see again, and this year's AbunDANCE gives us an opportunity to do just that.

Ballet Memphis has an abundant history of producing thoughtful programs of the finest curatorial quality, and we celebrate some of that history with you this weekend. AbunDANCE presents the perfect setting. it is, after all, a repertory show, one for which I have selected works that reflect our strongest qualities and showcase the richness of our versatility and our commitment to acquire and perform well-crafted, meaningful work. Each one of these pieces brings to life the ideas and feelings we share together.

At the basis of all that we do at Ballet Memphis, we work as ballet-trained artists. This assures an elegance of bearing and a sense of line that is a strong foundation from which we can depart, often in many directions. Dana Tai Soon Burgess' work, Venetian Reflections, was one of the works created for AbunDANCE: Art in Motion (2009) based on a John Singer Sargent painting at the Dixon Gallery. Its quiet drama and subtle movement vocabulary illustrate the contemporary classical ballets we have created or acquired. It is a fiercely delicate ballet, belying the utter strength it takes to sustain the movement that must be in place to partner with the music's intense fluidity.

Ballet Memphis' own Steven McMahon created Soul Selects Her Society for Interiorworks (2010), an annual dancer-produced season-closer event. We have nurtured many young choreographers, and as our choreographic associate, Steven is one of our success stories. The company has performed his work on stages across America, and it has become part of our most-important and most-danced repertoire. Ballet Memphis does much work to sung lyrics and this was Steven's first foray into this type of piece. He has created more than a dozen works for us and for our Junior Company, so seeing one of his well-crafted, deeply sincere, and first lyric-based pieces is a good way to view is copious talents, and Ballet Memphis' talent for creating significant work through the mentoring of young talent for which we are nationally respected.

Robert Battle, new artistic director for the prestigious Alvin Alley Company, is a longtime friend of Ballet Memphis. I met Robert and saw his solo work, Takademe, years ago when Ballet Memphis was the only American ballet company to be selected to perform in Houston's Dance Salad Festival in 2003. Robert choreographed for us after that for our first Connections series, but it wasn't until AbunDANCE: Joyful Noise that I found a place for Takademe. Ballet Memphis is often the first ballet company to acquire a signature work from well-known modern dance choreographers, and this is one of them. Our commitment to expand our audiences' experiences and our dancers' remarkable athleticism and skill are clearly manifest in this work. Enjoy it fully, as Ballet Memphis is the only ballet company in America with Robert's rights to perform it.

Ballet Memphis is also a company that has a uniquely American persona in its repertoire, its particular physicality, and its open and confident delivery. Over the years we have returned frequently to Mark Godden's glorious Angels in the Architecture, including our first performance in New York in 2000. Angels not only reflects a fascinating piece of American history in the Shaker community, the largest of which was north of us in Kentucky, but it is a bold and compelling work infused with the spirit of the profoundly stirring Aaron Copland score.

I have always felt that the coupling of Mark's poignant choreography with the ecstasy of this iconic American musical suite is a match made in heaven. It takes a very fine ballet company to dance this exacting work. The Shakers, just like those of us who believe in ballet, were idealists. Their hopes for purity and their belief that they could dance into heavenly bliss are tailored hand in glove with what we believe and practice at Ballet Memphis. For 25 years, we have believed in this capacity to look beyond the norm, and we are compelled to be those idealists, those explorers.

Thank you for your part in the journey. There is more wonder ahead.

-- Dorothy Gunther Pugh

What I'm Grateful For

What I am incredibly grateful for is the increasing awareness among our donors of how vitally important it is to support true artistic excellence in our city. Looking back on 25 years, I see that the foundations, many businesses, the city government under Mayor Wharton, and the leadership of the Chamber of Commerce and Arts Memphis are energetically embracing the creative spirit as a way of expressing what we can be as a city and as a community. They also understand how necessary it is to embrace the drive toward dreams—dreams that can inspire and express the community’s soul.

I also am grateful for the leadership of a number of arts organizations in this city, their goodwill, commitment to excellence, and collaborative and companionable spirit, particularly with us. Stax, Hattiloo, Memphis Symphony Orchestra, Brooks Museum of Art, Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Playhouse on the Square, the National Ornamental Metal Museum, Memphis College of Art, Collage dance Collective, Theatre Memphis, Tennessee Shakespeare Company, Opera Memphis—such good leadership and I am lucky to count them as friends.

This means that we are increasingly working together to make sure our art forms take a place in civic dialogue and civic progress, and include a wide embrace, so all people get a share at the feast.

I am so grateful that I, the lone Southerner, have been given the amazing opportunity to study with 100 of the finest arts leaders across the world in the NAS Executive Fellowship program. My first round at University of Michigan was exciting beyond words. And it is always affirming to see what high esteem Ballet Memphis is held in, both nationally and in some cases, globally. As we wrestle with questions no one has the answers for, in the middle of such rapid convergence, change, boundaries blurring, economies rising and falling, disparate media, it is my great fortune, and the fortune for Memphians who recognize that cultural upheaval provides great opportunities for innovation and creativity, to be part of this amazing group of thinkers.

I am thrilled that our collaboration with Collage dance Collective was so rewarding for all of us and that Nutcracker was the best ever. It was marvelous to have the Symphony back in the pit. Watching our professional dancers grow in partnerships, like Hideko and Kendall, or Ginny and Brandon, while Crystal and Rafael continue to have so much fun dancing together, is just a triple treat! Our trainees are so good this season and also so very willing to make a difference and be an inspiration, including going into the community centers with our childhood obesity program.

Reflecting also means ways we can see to grow:

There is still not enough understanding or appreciation for different leadership viewpoints and in artistic decision making, particularly the kind that asks for a less patriarchal, top-down approach, and involves expression of community and nest-building, for lack of a better word. That is something I look forward to addressing more, on a national front as well. And as the middle class shrinks and poverty increases across the United States, I hope the arts become a more vital voice in counteracting the fear, divisiveness, anger and finger-pointing, that can become so strident.

The opportunity to find instant information is breathtaking, but it also means that the opportunity for lies to spread to maintain power bases increases. Ultimately, arts groups that insist we be the best we can be, the most concerned, compassionate and committed to aspiring toward high standards, will give the most to all of us in the world.

-- Dorothy Gunther Pugh