Pushing Forward, With Momentum

Momentum X leads off this season and asks our audience and our choreographers to look at our dancers from many angles. Why not try to change your perception? Step into a view that may be uncomfortable and perhaps disconcerting. The result just may be a new way of seeing—an amplified conception. Enjoy the change and bring your openness and willingness to the rest of our season. 

Our Momentum series has always been about pushing the boundaries, and looking at what's hot in fresh, young, choreographic talent. This year we bring three choreographers and three world premieres to the stage Labor Day weekend, and they each shared a little behind their piece and how it fit into the Momentum method. 

Nicole Corea, in constructing her piece, takes a long piece of fabric—inspired by a tattoo on her back that is based on the native American medicine wheel centering around the number four. This number refers to the four seasons and what they represent in life, and the four parts of us that make us complete as a person (physical, emotional, mental and spiritual) and how our will is what drives us to finding the wholeness. The fabric, then, represents the things that thread us together.

Julie Niekrasz imagined a metaphorical wall separating the two Momentum stages (which are weaving around existing columns in an expansive turn-of-the-century hall.) She has the dancers immediately curious about the wall. She see walls within ourselves and between other people. in the second movement pas de deux, after the individuals touch, the wall then vanishes, a metaphor for our human story.

Gabe Masson and musician Scott Detweiler are both originally from New Orleans. Naturally they both have discussed their need to dig more deeply into their feelings post Katrina. Gabe thinks the residents of New Orleans were forced into a place of "necessary intimacy" when Katrina struck. All lines of division in daily life—race, class, etc.—were all of a sudden blurred and people had to go "beneath the surface," as it were, to (re)discover their humanity. 

The range of music throughout the three pieces ranges from classical to new age to original acoustic blues, and the range of emotions is just as wide. With the audience seated all around the stage, we'll have to be open not just to the experience, but to each other. 

Looking Beyond Skin

This season, it is our hope that every work touches upon the theme "Beyond Skin." We live in a culture that often seems obsessed with what is on the surface; but, the best artists and the most curious people, including our audiences, aren't content to lightly gloss over the substance of life. The things that lay deep within us, connecting us to one another and to a vibrant, changing, fascinating world, are what we crave to investigate and try to understand. Whether we laugh or cry, we want to make contact with what is deeply real, not glib or assumptive. 

For dancers who are artists, for choreographers who are seekers, for all who are thirsty for substance, the human body is an instrument that can be utilized to explore, to experiment, to push to new levels, and to be a part of expressing something greater than the sum of its parts. Our bodies are not used to sell a product, nor are they to be used for another's gain or sense of power and dominance. Our bodies lead us far beyond our skin in a never-ending journey to know more, be better, and be more whole. We believe this path is noble and needed in our current culture. 

Seeing Is Believing

For our 22nd season, we invite you to travel with us beyond the ordinary, to push the boundaries past the expected. Together, we'll look beyond mere skin, beyond our own bodies and those of the dancers to fully experience all that may not meet the eye. This year, more than ever before, seeing is believing. 

We love pushing the boundaries, and delivering on more than what people expect from a mid-size ballet company. This year alone we're bringing more than 15 original new works to the stage!

Three new explorations of beloved classics like Firebird and Cinderella will delight you like your first ballet or symphony. Through fairy tales, puppets and exciting new collaborations with our fine arts community, you'll explore new avenues of the imagination. Throughout our season we'll reach out to you with topics that beg you to question, to ponder and to talk back to us; to open a dialogue within our community about what our city can truly become with a fully-engaged and fully-supported arts community. 

Check out our website at www.balletmemphis.org  to request a brochure or check out our upcoming season. We're looking forward to an amazing journey with you.

Another New Journey

What gifts both this city this ballet company offer one another. As Ballet Memphis continues to stretch its repertoire and pour out new, original works onto national stages, it also brings more prominence and accolades back home. Did we ever believe that Ballet Memphis could shine so brightly on these national stages and receive such favorable reviews? We've proven the answer resoundingly—yes!

In return, Memphis is expanding its prestige, becoming known increasingly as a national spotlight for superior dance.

And Ballet Memphis continues to make physical movement, in all its forms, more accessible and well-loved to even more Memphians. Take, for example, the company's beautiful new Pilates Centre. As the only STOTT-certified teaching and instructor-training center in Memphis, the new location complements our mission of a stronger, healthier Memphis. 

Reaching out throughout our communities also includes educational enrichment opportunities—master classes taught by Ballet Memphis dancers and our school faculty, and school dance programs to give children who might not otherwise ever see a ballet a glimpse into this magical world. 

Finally, as ambassadors for Memphis, we're strengthening our touring schedule and reaching out to areas of the country that continue to be astounded by the talent we have here. The company continues to successfully push forward, and we hope that you'll enjoy the travels alongside us. 

Welcome to our blog!

Why We Do What We Do, Part 1

For a couple of years now, I’ve been watching as many businesses and industries, including Ballet Memphis, have been required to rethink and reinvent themselves to stay relevant in our quickly changing world. This has made me wonder if traditional dance training will be required to undergo a similar evolution, and if so, what might a new ballet school paradigm look like? The ballet school model in America has not changed very much in the last 75 years, but if significant adaptation is required, I want Ballet Memphis School to be a part of the leading edge of growth and change, not struggling to keep up or catch up. In trying to imagine where dance training may be headed, I thought it appropriate to first examine why we do what we do.

I sat down last year with the students in the highest level of the school and asked them why they dance. Before I tell you what they said, take a moment to think about what you’re passionate about, how you choose to spend your limited time and energy. Chances are you choose activities that make you feel good, that challenge you in some way, or that allow you to express yourself.

The students’ answers all fell into one of those categories. Yes, dancing makes us feel beautiful, and we enjoy its physicality; we like the intellectual challenge of mastering difficult movements and learning choreography; and we love performing with focus and passion and receiving adulation from an appreciative audience. But the students all agreed that the most important and compelling reason that they dance is that dance allows us to express things that words alone cannot say. That idea has become the tag line for the Junior Company – (we dance) “because words are not enough.”

Artists of all kinds, both visual and performing, create works of art as a means of expression, and each utilizes a different kind of language. Writers and poets have words. Musicians have sound and rhythm. Painters have color and shape. And dancers have movement. Each artistic medium uses a different language, but the intent is the same – we tell our stories, express our thoughts, emotions, and beliefs, through our art.

Even the simplest gesture is a means of communication. I’m not speaking just of traditional pantomime like: “I see you,” or even a gesture that suggests “I have a headache.” Rather, gestures in dance are usually abstract, and open to interpretation.

Through gestures and the postures and movements of the entire body, we portray characters, tell stories, or emulate familiar beings like animals. At other times we simply create an atmosphere that is inspired by the music and the exact interpretation is left up to the audience. As one of the students wrote about the experience of dancing: “The world tells us what the norm is and gives us strict rules to conform to. When we dance, there is no wrong way to move. We are free to express things any way we want. There are no limits.”