Prestigious National Grant Awarded to Ballet Memphis

When New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA) announced that its National Dance Project (NDP) has awarded $669,400 in Production Grants to support the development of new dance works during the 2009-2010 seasons, there was a joyous surprise in our studios. Twenty-one contemporary dance artists and companies—many of the largest, well-known national and international companies among them—will receive NDP Production Grants, and Ballet Memphis is proud to be on that list. Jane Forde, NDP Manager, could see in the various companies an aspect that is very important to Ballet Memphis, and that is an attempt to bridge cultures and create work that will truly engage communities across the United States.

Ballet Memphis' grant will go to fund a new work by choreographer Jane Comfort. Jane Comfort’s ballet, set to a score by Kirk Whalum, is a highly structured, abstract dance that blends classical ballet with contact and modern dance’s sensibility. Known in the business as Whitney Houston’s “sax guy,” the eight-time Grammy nominated African American musician Whalum has composed a score firmly rooted in the gospel tradition. Presented in an evening of mixed repertoire, the ballet celebrates the joy that is gospel: the ability to maintain an utterly enthusiastic and positive spirit in the face of dire circumstances and conditions.

The new work will premiere at this season's AbunDANCE: Joyful Noise, the premiere of Ballet Memphis in their new Midtown home in Playhouse on the Square. Once developed, the works will be available for national touring activity during the 2010-2011 or 2011-2012 performance seasons.

NEFA's National Dance Project Production and Touring grants are generously supported by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the MetLife Community Connections Fund of the MetLife Foundation.

Score one for the little guys!

Putting Down Roots On Stage

A writer from a publication asked this week, "What’s a good example of a past Ballet Memphis piece that was based on Memphis roots music?" Mixing local musical artists into our repertoire has always been important, especially given the strong nature of the Memphis music scene, but there is so much more to communicate. Ballet Memphis made international inroads with the Memphis Project Tour, interpreting the cultural legacy of the South. Performances have been set to the music of such Memphis-area recording artists as B.B. King, Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis. One of the strongest pieces in this repertoire is In Dreams which showcases the emotion and power of the voice of Roy Orbison, yet remains very "accessible" to people. Another popular piece of work we commissioned is Pork Songs, where the choreographer Trey McIntyre worked with the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi to devise a collection of grainy old recordings about pork. The final selection ranged from "Chitlin's" by Huey "Piano" Smith and the Clowns, "I Like Pork" by Redd Foxx, "Porker Song" by The Bowmans and more.

But Ballet Memphis is not just about tapping into the culture of music, it's everything Southern roots. Perhaps the most powerful piece in this repertoire is Curtain of Green, choreographed by Julia Adam based on the Eudora Welty work. In just two scenes and with just three dancers the audience explores the inequitable balance of power in the south with both race and men and women. It's a rich, beautiful, simple, stark piece with dancers wearing hair down. Other pieces include I Am a Man, The Awakening and Two Jubilees which was based on a photograph of children dressed up for a cotton parade and tackled the separate celebrations experienced by whites and blacks at the time of high cotton.

Some might say these pieces could only be performed in the South, but Ballet Memphis sold out the Joyce Theatre in New York with these pieces on the bill and still answer requests for it as part of our touring packages. We're proud to give people all over the country a taste for the modern, creative power that can come out of a region with a deep and sometimes troubling history.

Come FUSE With Ballet Memphis

You know what it feels like to see that special someone, to drive a new car, score the winning goal or land the dream job—the things that really light your fuse? That make you explode with joy like fireworks over the Mississippi? Things that bring you such instant joy that you do your little happy dance when no one is looking? Well, we’re looking now, and we want you to rekindle that joy and share it with the world. 

Show us your happy dance, and you could win our Grand Prize—seeing your joyous inspiration become a professional Ballet Memphis dance work. The winning happy dance will premiere opening night at Playhouse on the Square, the new midtown home of Ballet Memphis. Don’t have a happy dance? Then show us what you think joy looks like in dance. You don’t have to be a pro—this dance is for everybody.

All you have to do is film your happy dance in three minutes or less, and submit it to Ballet Memphis through our YouTube group. Our panel will view your little piece of joy and select semifinalists. All semifinalists will have their submissions posted online for audience voting and win two tickets to the February premiere, Abundance: Joyful Noise. We’ll announce the finalists at FUSE—our September dance party and 23^rd season opener celebration. Then, each finalist will work with Ballet Memphis dancers who will turn your spark of joy into a new professional dance work. We’ll be watching the process, and will announce the overall winner at our November performance of Wizard of Oz. If you win, you’ll be watching Ballet Memphis perform your happy dance on opening night at Playhouse on the Square in February 2010.

FUSE is a series of community-wide events that celebrates the fusion of imagination, joy, and collaboration that dance ignites in all of us. So embrace that flicker of creativity that burns deep inside you! Start dancing, start filming, and start sharing your happy dance with us.

Find an entry form at balletmemphis.org/fuse.

The Most Gracious Dancers Ever

We've wrapped our 22nd season, but the dancers here at Ballet Memphis are all still hard at work. I've never seen a group so committed to their city, their community, their students, their practice. The continue to teach in both our Ballet School and Pilates Centre. They just made appearances at Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center and St. Jude Children's Medical Hospital to visit the sick children who cannot leave the premises. We also have two company members, Julie Niekrasz and Scott Spivey, who are defying the odds as two of only eight Americans selected to compete in the Helsinki International Ballet Competition. They have spent countless hours and have been extremely gracious in giving of their time and attention to represent U.S. professional dance in the best light possible. And then there's Interiorworks. Now in its 10th year, this end-of-season performance is completely choreographed and hosted by the dancers as a fundraiser for the Artist Resource Fund. Now that's giving back. This year there will be eight new dance works premiered, wonderful silent auction items from other artists and a warm, casual atmosphere in which to meet, mingle and remember the fabulous season we've just experienced. 

Beauty Can Be All Around Us

“Beauty is treasure; but graciousness is priceless.”

This quote by Charles Perrault struck Cinderella’s choreographer, Steven McMahon, as a most appropriate way of describing the real beauty this tale highlights in its lead character, Cinderella. In doing a little research on the story’s origins myself, I discovered that the first version of the Cinderella story was recorded in the first century B.C., centering around a young woman servant who loses her sandal while washing clothes in a stream in Egypt. The sandal later was picked up by a bird and dropped at the feet of the Pharaoh in, guess which city? Memphis! The Pharaoh chases her down until he finds the person who was the right and beautiful one to wear the golden sandal. Early versions of the story also are found in China, Japan, the Philippines and Korea. A Scottish/Celtic myth/lore version exists as well. (Our Steven is from Scotland.)

Cultures have used stories through the ages to wrestle with ideas of beauty and ugliness. One idea that has lasted a long time is the need to know who we are, especially if we believe real beauty lies in attaining happiness. The Ugly Stepsisters in Cinderella are funny because they are strong, hairy men pretending to be women. They pretend to be beautiful, but we all know they cannot be until they acknowledge their mean-spirited and dim-witted personalities. The stepsisters offer contrast to Cinderella’s beauty, who serves others thoughtfully and gently. They also allow us to laugh at their weaknesses, precisely because we know we have a bit of them in us.

Steven speaks of being struck by how Cinderella never seems to be defined by her environment. She responds with kindness, even when burdened with genuine sorrow, by doing what she knows she has to do. Steven also decided to bring the mother/daughter story into Cinderella in a smart way. Mothering is a tremendous force, and like most forces, it has potential for good and bad. Protecting and nurturing our young is utterly necessary, as is letting them have their space to make their mark. But giving our children the idea that their wants and desires should be placed at the center of the universe is a terrible idea. As we see so clearly in Cinderella,The Wicked Stepmother has bred monsters in her image. Cinderella, however, teaches us that those who give, care and nurture become given to, nurtured, and cared about, which is one of those things in life that never changes. When we participate in the handing down and adaptation of culture, we can glean so much from it if we remember to examine where we fit into the story; if we remain open to the possibilities for transformation. Where is Cinderella in our heart? She who serves others and helps the needy? When are we as Fairy Godmothers, recognizing good and moving it forward? When do we reward excellence and do the difficult work of demanding it, not settling for the ease of imitative mediocrity? When are we willing to do the work, write the check and put in the time, instead of waiting for someone else to do it for us? Are we going to be Memphis with leaders like the Pharaoh, believing in , supporting and searching for real creativity and beauty? The more we can honestly search our hearts and answer yes the better our lives will be. And I hope we will always have art to prod us, inspire us and push us toward being the better selves we can be.

Connections:Puppets

Dear Board and Patrons:
This weekend at Clark Opera Center , Ballet Memphis will perform one of the smartest, most creative programs we have ever produced, and you know we have produced a great many of those! Connections: Puppets takes our dancers , and thereby our audiences, to new levels of delight, surprise, and imagination. When Jane Comfort came here to set her work , Underground River, on four of our dancers, she had no idea that our ballet dancers would take her work to this height. Our dancers sing, speak, dance, and manipulate the most beautiful and evocatively simple puppets (by Basil Twist) all the way through the piece. It is , really, something that will take your breath away. I am moved with every rehearsal I am privileged to see. This is a work that is very, very smart on so many levels, and captivating from start to finish.
Lily Cai’s work follows, and anyone who has ever loved a child will be deeply moved . This piece has five women holding baby dolls all the way through the gorgeous Samuel Barber adagio, and the mesmerizing movements’ intensity and heartfelt love of parent for child is the perfect coupling to this rich and penetrating music.
When we get to Travis Bradley’s piece , The Ugly Duckling, prepare to be taken in another direction entirely, with a number of different puppets in a wide range of sizes being moved by the dancers, or dancing with the dancers. This is all on a backdrop of clear, bright color and texture, created and danced with high spirit, but still touching with all with its important message of self-discovery and delight in life.
Jane Comfort is one of the leaders in the world of theatrical dance. Lily Cai used to be a principal dancer with the Shanghai Opera before moving to California , and puppeteer Frank Kane, who has designed the puppets for Travis and is working with the dancers as well as holding a puppet workshop this Saturday afternoon before the performance, worked on Sesame Street with some of the greatest puppets most all of us have come to know and love.
This is not a program to miss. I can’t wait to see and hear your responses after you have experienced it! Thank you again for helping us bring these amazingly creative elements all together.

Most affectionately, and with great excitement,
Dorothy

A Connection to Children, Through Puppets

There is a line from William Wordsworth’s poetry that reads, “The child is father of the man.”

If we think back upon our childhood toys, or toys that we have given to children, puppets are
likely to be among them. With simple finger or hand puppets, we have actually given our children ways to practice experiencing the world. Calling upon their imaginations, they negotiate and practice their skills through human interactions using these puppets.

For centuries, puppetry has delighted and entertained us, but it has also given us opportunities to extend ourselves into the world of practicing being human. Watching these performances gives us the opportunity to practice again, vicariously, but in a very real sense. It seemed natural to me that when we reach out to objects that personify us as living creatures, as puppets with their nonhuman skin do, we are actually doing the work of digging deeply within.

If you watch the dancers closely in Connections: Puppets, you will see how inevitably they must be apart of the puppets they touch. They must leave their secure place of self-knowing as dancer, and extend to the other, the puppet—and while doing so, the puppet transforms them even as they are transforming bits of material into creatures with life. This is far from their normal dance assignment, different from how they think of themselves or present themselves as dancers. Empathy and attentiveness are demanded in immediate and necessary ways whether the dancers are mother guiding and cradling child, as in Lily Cai’s tender and searing piece, or they are the various emotions and thoughts of little Kara trapped in her world of coma, as in Jane Comfort’s breathtaking and stunning creation. These are works that go straight to the heart of human meaning. They address the consequences of the intense unconditional attachment we have for our children, and the unfathomable love of which we are capable.

The fairytale, too, is a world that helps us confront the human narrative, so it is naturally a rich source for puppetry and dance. We all must know the feeling of being excluded or the yearning to be our most beautiful selves. Travis Bradley, in his search through many stories and fairytales for this project, kept returning to The Ugly Duckling. He had felt like the outcast. Just like our ugly duckling in this performance who is being picked on by everyone and realizes she has to leave, there are times in our lives when we have to leave relationships, bad habits or the unkind messages we may have learned to tell ourselves about our worth. Those are the “dogs” in this ballet, the things that keep us abject. The duckling goes from one place to another, but it is actually a journey of self in which she is engaged.

Would that we all will find the strength in our human characters to shelter, with love and compassion, those who are small, defenseless and with few resources. Would that we all find our true nature. Just as the dancers are moving with their puppets, it is by overcoming our fears and extending our hearts, our minds, our blessings and resources to the other, tthat we move to find the beauty that is our true selves.

An Abundance of Gifts to Share

In times of unease, one of the most empowering things we can do is to look at our blessings. Then, the next step is not to hoard this abundance, but to disperse it to others. We find, mysteriously, that by giving away, we are replenished. This may be the single most important value at Ballet Memphis.

Reflect upon our gifts, use them by giving them to others, and a cycle of good will, deep personal growth, and eventually deep community growth will unfold. Look around us and inside us, always. There is a need in human beings to take an inward journey and an outward journey in order to find peace and contentment, and to progress and move forward in more spiritual richness. With this Abundance program, I have asked our choreographers to take, as a springboard for this journey, artwork from four of our very fine art museums in Memphis.

Dana Tai Soon Burgess took his inspiration from John Singer Sargent’s painting titled Ramón Subercaseaux in a Gondola. His serene, gentle, quietly beautiful work is a wonderful expression of the inward journey. Jane Rehm focused on Matt Ducklo's art to be touched by the visually impaired, is a large leap into the life of the other. She had dancers rehearse blindfolded to understand how other senses must come into play in perceiving the world around us. Travis Bradley was drawn to the steel lock and key by Manuel Guerra, and what appeals to the heart when we see various avenues open to us behind its symbolism, behind the doors that we open. And Camille Brown, drawn by the color and theatre of a painting of Beale Street by Mario Bacchelli, chose blues music by Aretha Franklin to complete her story.

So again, four new, thoughtful works appear on the stage for you, produced by Ballet Memphis. We offer you our gifts, taking our cues from other gifted visual artists. We know that taking our journeys, singly and collectively, require a will to explore, to examine, and ultimately, to give. I suspect this is the most important reason to herald, celebrate, and support the creation of art and the institutions committed to the life of art. We are not committed solely to the product created, nor solely to the creators and artists who present the work, but to the amazing spiritual and mysterious ways of living asked of us by art as it is given, through artists, to all of us.