Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley succeeds with ‘do-or-die’ fundraising effort
By Karen D’Souza
POSTED: 03/16/2015 06:00:07 AM PDT# COMMENTS| UPDATED: A DAY AGO
Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley successfully overshot its do-or-die fundraising goal over the weekend by almost $100,000. Many see it as a much-needed shot in the arm for the valley’s fragile art scene.
“The community does not want to lose another arts organization,” said Lisa Mallette, head of City Lights Theater Company. “People are willing to step up and ensure that this one remains strong and vital.”
The South Bay’s major resident dance company snagged $640,000, more than the $550,000 it needed to stay alive. With the emergency push behind it, ballet leaders said they intend to reboot its operation, including rebranding it: Silicon Valley Ballet.
Corps de Ballet members, from left, Alison Stroming, Grace Anne Powers and James Kopecky, practice during a company class taught by San Jose Ballet Artistic Director José Manuel Carreño, at Ballet San Jose in San Jose, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2014. (LiPo Ching/Bay Area News Group) ( LiPo Ching )
“This campaign proves that people care about the ballet as much as we do and it gives us the ramp we need to get out ahead of the situation,” said ballet CEO Alan Hineline. “Finally there is some good news for the arts in the South Bay. We believe the ballet can be a rallying point for the city and the downtown.”
Withhttp://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site568/2015/0310/20150310__SJM-BALLET-0311~1_300.JPG many in the arts community still reeling over the loss of San Jose Rep, the fact that the ballet stayed afloat is the source of great relief. It was also seen as a vote of confidence that the valley, often knocked as an industry town interested only in high tech, also values the arts.
TEETERING ON THE EDGE
It’s also a refreshing outcome because it comes after a series of devastating losses in recent years.
Corps de Ballet members, from left, Alison Stroming, Grace Anne Powers and James Kopecky, practice during a company class taught by San Jose Ballet Artistic Director José Manuel Carreño, at Ballet San Jose in San Jose, Calif. on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2014. (LiPo Ching/Bay Area News Group) ( LiPo Ching )
The region has lost not only the Rep, which went under last year, but also Shakespeare Santa Cruz, which died in 2013 (before being reincarnated in a smaller form) and American Musical Theatre of San Jose, which perished in 2008.
Hineline, for one, has been pushing hard to buck the trend of local arts groups teetering on the edge.
“We know that the collapse of the Rep hurt everyone. A loss like that sends shock waves,” Hineline said. “We wanted to change that narrative, to change the ending of that story — and we did. Finally there is some good news for the arts in the South Bay.”
So, what made the ballet better positioned for survival than the Rep, which was also a beloved local institution?
One of the smartest moves the ballet made may have been making a public appeal over its fate, instead of slipping away quietly.
“The Rep went under without a word, which upset a lot of people,” said Andrew Bales, head of Symphony Silicon Valley. “The ballet made some noise and gave people a chance to have their say.”
Of course, this could be just a temporary reprieve. Ballet leaders must stay on their toes because there is another deadline looming. Company officials say they will need to raise $3.5 million by October to restructure the company’s business model and re-brand itself as Silicon Valley Ballet. The troupe, now led by ballet hotshot Jose Manuel Carreno, wants to raise its profile and reach out to a wider geographic audience.
SHORT HISTORY
The troubled company, which partnered with New York’s American Ballet Theatre in 2012, has weathered many fiscal crises over the years. Old debts have piled up, including a $500,000 tax bill, and the company’s biggest patron, John Fry, CEO of Fry’s Electronics, dialed back his patronage. The ballet has countered by cutting back, scrapping some performances and dropping live music accompaniment here and there. The budget for the organization, which includes 32 professional dancers and bustling school of 350 students, now stands at $5.6 million, down from a high of $8 million.
One of the most frustrating aspects of the harsh South Bay arts economy is the comparative wealth of groups in San Francisco and Berkeley. Yet local arts honchos suggest these struggles may simply be growing pains.
“The San Francisco art scene was built over 150 years, seeded in the Gold Rush,” said Randall King, head of San Jose Stage Company. “South Bay cultural resources have a relatively short history. We have built a competitive environment in a very limited timeline. We are younger, but no less valid or viable.”
José Manuel Carreño adjusts Ommi Pipit-Suksun in company class. Photo by Alejandro Gomez
Ballet San Jose Needs $550,000 To Stay Afloat
Posted by Kristin Schwab on Friday, Mar 06, 2015 (reposted from Dance Magazine)
Ballet San Jose announced this week that it must raise $550,000 by March 14 to keep its doors open.
The company has a troubled past when it comes to leadership and funding. For instance, it sought out loans to help cover what critics more or less dubbed as over-ambitious seasons during the final decade of artistic director Dennis Nahat’s leadership. In 2013, former American Ballet Theatre dancer José Manuel Carreño was appointed AD. As we reported in our January 2014 feature, during his first season, the company’s prospects were looking up. Though Carreño had little to no experience running a company, his fame helped donations rise during the 2012–13 season and Ballet San Jose nearly broke even, compared to a $1 million operating loss in the previous year.
In a press release, BSJ said that if it is open come September 2015, the company will rebrand itself as Silicon Valley Ballet—a move to more closely identify itself with the neighboring tech community.
Artistic Director and principle dancer Tamara Rojo & Fabian Reimair from English National Ballet rehearse Akram Khan ‘s new work: Dust, as part of a program entitled ‘Lest We Forget’ in commemoration of the start of World War I, at The Barbican Centre in London Photo: Araud Stephenson
Tamara Rojo: Axing dance in schools will restrict ballet to wealthy
Tamara Rojo, the artistic director of the English National Ballet criticised the decision of former education secretary Michael Gove to cut dance from the school curriculum
Artistic Director and principle dancer Tamara Rojo & Fabian Reimair from English National Ballet rehearse Akram Khan ‘s new work: Dust, as part of a program entitled ‘Lest We Forget’ in commemoration of the start of World War I, at The Barbican Centre in London Photo: Araud Stephenson
By Keith Perry 11:47PM GMT 05 Dec 2014
Tamara Rojo, the artistic director of the English National Ballet has criticised the decision of former education secretary Michael Gove to cut dance from the school curriculum, saying it risks making dance a preserve of the better off.
Ms Rojo said it was unfair as it meant “those that don’t have the means won’t have access to dance”.
She told the Evening Standard that is was particularly unwise to take dance out of schools as there was evidence of overwhelmingly improved results in maths taught through movement and 100 per cent increase in confidence.
The ENB itself offers tickets for as little as £10 to enable people to enjoy live dance. “We try to ensure that it is an art form that is accessible to everybody,” she said.
The Spanish dance star and her company are preparing to open their traditional Christmas production of Nutcracker followed by a run of Swan Lake.
Rojo said Nutcracker was important because the company had been performing it for more than 60 years. She added: There are two dozen Nutcrackers going round the United States. it is a very important tradition because for so many people it’s the first time they come to see ballet at all or to see a live performance in an orchestra.
“It’s a family tradition that goes from generation to generation and serves as an introduction to the art form.”
The challenge, she said, was to keep those first-time visitors – but audiences for dance have been growing. She praised both Billy Elliott, which overturned many prejudices about boys doing ballet, and Strictly Come Dancing for helping to foster a new passion.
But she rejected any notion she might follow Darcey Bussell in becoming a judge on the BBC show saying: “I think Darcey does a wonderful job.”
Rojo, 40, boosted the ENB’s fortunes when she returned as principal and boss two years ago but she said the pressure was shared with the arrival of major dancers such as Alina Cojocaru and guests including and guests including Ivan Vasiliev.
But she warned she would not be able to dance for as long as Sylvie Guillem who will retire next year at 50.
“She has an incredible physicality that I sadly don’t have. My end will come much earlier than that.
The Nutcracker runs at the London Coliseum from Thursday to January 4.
How dancers learn their steps: music, muscle memory and mystery
When ballerina Jenifer Ringer took on a new role at the New York City Ballet, she had to train her ear for the composition and her body for the moves – then let her imagination take flight
I’m often asked how we remember all of the steps to the vast repertoire we dance at New York City Ballet. Corps members might dance 20 ballets in a short six-week season. Principals might dance 10 or more, and often we will rehearse three or four ballets during the day and then perform a completely different ballet that night.
I find the music to each ballet to be the key to remembering all of the steps. With choreography as musical as what we’re blessed with in my company, someone just has to sing the music to me, and my body will do the steps. Each ballet must have its own little piece of my brain that is reserved just for that ballet, ready to be called up whenever the music is played.
When we’re learning a ballet for the first time, whether it’s new choreography or one of the famous ones already in the company’s repertory, we do it systematically, going forward in chunks and then going back to the beginning to dance the piece through up to the point we have learned. Once we can successfully get from the beginning up to where we stopped learning, we then go forward to learn another chunk before returning to dance it from the beginning again. Layer by layer we train our ear to hear the music and how it matches up to the steps. With enough repetition, the music is inevitably linked by some mysterious connection to our muscle memory so that eventually, we don’t have to think about the steps. Our bodies know what to do, leaving our brains free to give flight to our imaginations in performance.
It is certainly easier to learn a ballet if I’m already familiar with the music or have seen the ballet before so that I have a frame of reference for what I’ll be dancing. If I have not seen the ballet before, I’ll watch a tape if possible so that my brain can have a map in place for where my part in the ballet will go. However, I try not to watch tapes too often if I can help it because it is too easy to find myself mimicking the ballerina dancing the part on the tape; I’ve always wanted to do parts in my own way, even while I take inspiration and guidance from the wonderful ballerinas who have gone before me. Balanchine and Robbins often made different versions for different dancers, and they wanted their ballerinas to be unique. Though both choreographers have now passed away, their ballet masters try to follow in their spirit as they teach each successive generation of dancers these masterpieces. Though the steps might be mostly the same, artistry is left up to the individual.
And each dancer’s artistry is radically different from another’s, so that ballets change and evolve according to which dancer is dancing which part. Most of the ballets in the repertory of the New York City Ballet have no story line; there is often drama, but that drama comes from the music and the steps. I’ve realised that a lack of story line actually gives the dancers more opportunity to place their own personal interpretation into a role.
For example, in the last movement of George Balanchine’s Vienna Waltzes, a solitary woman dances in a ballroom with a man playing a partner who materialises as if from her imagination. There is a moment when the music comes to a standstill and then starts over, slowly and haltingly. I’ve never danced the role and have only watched it, but I’ve always thought that at that moment, the woman’s imagination becomes so powerful that she conjures up a real man from her fantasy world. I’ve seen some ballerinas interpret it this way, and have seen others remain remote, looking at their partners as if they were not quite there.
One day while watching a rehearsal of Vienna, I asked my friend and fellow principal dancer Tyler Angle, “Do you think he becomes a real man there?”
Tyler looked at me with interest and said, “You know, I’ve seen it done both ways. It depends on the ballerina – I’ve always wanted him to become real. But Jenny, you and I are always searching for a story even when there is none.” And he is right about that. I’m one of those dancers who searches for some hint of a story, even in the plotless ballets.
Jenifer Ringer and James Fayette dance in the Emeralds section of Jewels by the New York City Ballet.Photograph: Alamy
Musicians from the New York City Ballet orchestra have told me that they love to play for our company because of the great music the choreographers have chosen for the ballets we perform. But what may be thrilling for a musician to play can be difficult for a dancer to decipher, and some ballets have more difficult music than others. These I have a harder time learning and assimilating into my body. If I have to rely on counting the music to keep my place in the choreography, I find I have to use a different part of my brain that isn’t a natural part of my dancing. These ballets take more focus, and I’m often more nervous for them; sometimes the second I let the performance side of myself take over, I stop counting the music. With these ballets, I have to do a lot more physical repetition and mental dissection of the music before I feel that I really know the ballet.
Also, the music we hear from the orchestra is often completely different from what we have been hearing in the studio. We have wonderful rehearsal pianists who play for us during the day, but often the piano accents notes differently than a full orchestra does. The arrangement written for the piano might highlight different sounds and melodies from what we would hear from the orchestra pit during a performance. Also the piano can set a more obvious tempo, whereas sometimes the orchestration is written as more of a wash of sound. There have been plenty of stage rehearsals, particularly of brand-new choreography, that have fallen apart completely because none of the dancers could tell where they were in the music. This is of course incredibly frustrating for the choreographer, and the dancers usually go into a panic as what seemed so certain and comfortable just the day before suddenly becomes an unknown.
This happened to us the first time we had an orchestra rehearsal for a ballet that Peter Martins made called Naïve and Sentimental Music to music by John Adams. It used almost every principal dancer on the roster, 26 of us either onstage at the same time or just exiting and entering. We were all experienced and used to dancing under every kind of stress, but when we were onstage for our first orchestra rehearsal and suddenly couldn’t find a beat or a melody in the music, we just stood around and stared at each other, befuddled. Peter had anticipated the problem and rehearsed us often to a CD of the orchestra version of the music, but somehow the orchestra sounded wildly different from the CD’s version of the piece. It was hard for us to find any kind of rhythm or melody to anchor our steps. In group sections where we were supposed to be dancing together, it looked like we were all doing different choreography because we were so out of sync. Peter was obviously very upset, because the premiere was only days away.
Jenifer Ringer in Romeo and Juliet.Photograph: Ted Thai/The Life Images Collection/Getty
We eventually figured out that in every section, there was somebody who could hear where we were supposed to be. Those who were musically lost just found a way to watch that dancer and stay together with his or her movements. We counted for one another and gave one an- other significant looks. During a section where the women danced in a revolving circle and we couldn’t make eye contact with one another, Janie Taylor called out the counts for us. Before a finale step that Jennie Somogyi and I led off, we would look at each other across the stage, nod, and take a large preparatory step so that we started at the same time. At other times, when in doubt, we just watched whoever was in front, and even if we thought she was wrong, we did what she did.
Somehow we pulled it off, but we were all stressed about it. For this ballet, it was not necessarily the dancing that was hard but the musical and mental focus required to do it correctly. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that many principal dancers counting music loudly at the same time, both in the wings and onstage, looking questioningly at their opposites and partners to see if they were correct. But in the end, hopefully we looked professional from out front! We tried not to move our lips too much as we counted…
mysylph 
I’m often asked how we remember all of the steps to the vast repertoire we dance at New York City Ballet. Corps members might dance 20 ballets in a short six-week season. Principals might dance 10 or more, and often we will rehearse three or four ballets during the day and then perform a completely different ballet that night.
I find the music to each ballet to be the key to remembering all of the steps. With choreography as musical as what we’re blessed with in my company, someone just has to sing the music to me, and my body will do the steps. Each ballet must have its own little piece of my brain that is reserved just for that ballet, ready to be called up whenever the music is played.
When we’re learning a ballet for the first time, whether it’s new choreography or one of the famous ones already in the company’s repertory, we do it systematically, going forward in chunks and then going back to the beginning to dance the piece through up to the point we have learned. Once we can successfully get from the beginning up to where we stopped learning, we then go forward to learn another chunk before returning to dance it from the beginning again. Layer by layer we train our ear to hear the music and how it matches up to the steps. With enough repetition, the music is inevitably linked by some mysterious connection to our muscle memory so that eventually, we don’t have to think about the steps. Our bodies know what to do, leaving our brains free to give flight to our imaginations in performance.
It is certainly easier to learn a ballet if I’m already familiar with the music or have seen the ballet before so that I have a frame of reference for what I’ll be dancing. If I have not seen the ballet before, I’ll watch a tape if possible so that my brain can have a map in place for where my part in the ballet will go. However, I try not to watch tapes too often if I can help it because it is too easy to find myself mimicking the ballerina dancing the part on the tape; I’ve always wanted to do parts in my own way, even while I take inspiration and guidance from the wonderful ballerinas who have gone before me. Balanchine and Robbins often made different versions for different dancers, and they wanted their ballerinas to be unique. Though both choreographers have now passed away, their ballet masters try to follow in their spirit as they teach each successive generation of dancers these masterpieces. Though the steps might be mostly the same, artistry is left up to the individual.
And each dancer’s artistry is radically different from another’s, so that ballets change and evolve according to which dancer is dancing which part. Most of the ballets in the repertory of the New York City Ballet have no story line; there is often drama, but that drama comes from the music and the steps. I’ve realised that a lack of story line actually gives the dancers more opportunity to place their own personal interpretation into a role.
For example, in the last movement of George Balanchine’s Vienna Waltzes, a solitary woman dances in a ballroom with a man playing a partner who materialises as if from her imagination. There is a moment when the music comes to a standstill and then starts over, slowly and haltingly. I’ve never danced the role and have only watched it, but I’ve always thought that at that moment, the woman’s imagination becomes so powerful that she conjures up a real man from her fantasy world. I’ve seen some ballerinas interpret it this way, and have seen others remain remote, looking at their partners as if they were not quite there.
One day while watching a rehearsal of Vienna, I asked my friend and fellow principal dancer Tyler Angle, “Do you think he becomes a real man there?”
Tyler looked at me with interest and said, “You know, I’ve seen it done both ways. It depends on the ballerina – I’ve always wanted him to become real. But Jenny, you and I are always searching for a story even when there is none.” And he is right about that. I’m one of those dancers who searches for some hint of a story, even in the plotless ballets.
Musicians from the New York City Ballet orchestra have told me that they love to play for our company because of the great music the choreographers have chosen for the ballets we perform. But what may be thrilling for a musician to play can be difficult for a dancer to decipher, and some ballets have more difficult music than others. These I have a harder time learning and assimilating into my body. If I have to rely on counting the music to keep my place in the choreography, I find I have to use a different part of my brain that isn’t a natural part of my dancing. These ballets take more focus, and I’m often more nervous for them; sometimes the second I let the performance side of myself take over, I stop counting the music. With these ballets, I have to do a lot more physical repetition and mental dissection of the music before I feel that I really know the ballet.
Also, the music we hear from the orchestra is often completely different from what we have been hearing in the studio. We have wonderful rehearsal pianists who play for us during the day, but often the piano accents notes differently than a full orchestra does. The arrangement written for the piano might highlight different sounds and melodies from what we would hear from the orchestra pit during a performance. Also the piano can set a more obvious tempo, whereas sometimes the orchestration is written as more of a wash of sound. There have been plenty of stage rehearsals, particularly of brand-new choreography, that have fallen apart completely because none of the dancers could tell where they were in the music. This is of course incredibly frustrating for the choreographer, and the dancers usually go into a panic as what seemed so certain and comfortable just the day before suddenly becomes an unknown.
This happened to us the first time we had an orchestra rehearsal for a ballet that Peter Martins made called Naïve and Sentimental Music to music by John Adams. It used almost every principal dancer on the roster, 26 of us either onstage at the same time or just exiting and entering. We were all experienced and used to dancing under every kind of stress, but when we were onstage for our first orchestra rehearsal and suddenly couldn’t find a beat or a melody in the music, we just stood around and stared at each other, befuddled. Peter had anticipated the problem and rehearsed us often to a CD of the orchestra version of the music, but somehow the orchestra sounded wildly different from the CD’s version of the piece. It was hard for us to find any kind of rhythm or melody to anchor our steps. In group sections where we were supposed to be dancing together, it looked like we were all doing different choreography because we were so out of sync. Peter was obviously very upset, because the premiere was only days away.
We eventually figured out that in every section, there was somebody who could hear where we were supposed to be. Those who were musically lost just found a way to watch that dancer and stay together with his or her movements. We counted for one another and gave one an- other significant looks. During a section where the women danced in a revolving circle and we couldn’t make eye contact with one another, Janie Taylor called out the counts for us. Before a finale step that Jennie Somogyi and I led off, we would look at each other across the stage, nod, and take a large preparatory step so that we started at the same time. At other times, when in doubt, we just watched whoever was in front, and even if we thought she was wrong, we did what she did.
Somehow we pulled it off, but we were all stressed about it. For this ballet, it was not necessarily the dancing that was hard but the musical and mental focus required to do it correctly. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that many principal dancers counting music loudly at the same time, both in the wings and onstage, looking questioningly at their opposites and partners to see if they were correct. But in the end, hopefully we looked professional from out front! We tried not to move our lips too much as we counted…
Looks a lovely book!