Louisville Ballet: it started with just one swan - Brief Article - Critical Essay

Dance Magazine, March, 2003 by George R. Hubbard

There was one swan and one cello; it was The Dying Swan. It could easily have turned into a wild goose chase or a dead duck, but it was the first public performance by the Louisville Ballet, on March 16, 1952. That was the beginning of the company founded and nurtured by Nancy S. Dysart, Thomas L. Jordan, and William Habich, which celebrates its fiftieth anniversary this month.

I first saw the company on a brilliant September day, dancing Doris Humphrey's The Shakers on a street closed to traffic for "Downtown Salutes the Arts." That must have been in the early '60s. The Canadian choreographer (and ballet master at American Ballet Theatre) Fernand Nault was then the artistic director. Fast forward to 1975--Alun Jones and Helen Start joined the company to take charge of the school, and in 1978 Jones succeeded Richard and Cristina Munro as artistic director, inheriting a group of eight "talented, hard-working, and grossly underpaid" professional dancers, he said. Jones credited the board of directors as being likewise dedicated and hard-working. "All believed it could happen," he said.

As highlights, Jones remembers the acquisition of Balanchine's La Sonnambula, Apollo, and especially Serenade. Another high spot was the Antony Tudor program in 1995: Little Improvisations, Judgment of Paris, Dark Elegies, and Gala Performance. In 1990 the company had danced the first U.S. production in more than twenty-five years of his Echoing of Trumpets. Jardin aux lilas was to follow later. A particular favorite of Jones was Andree Howard's La Fete etrange, with decor done from the Sophie Fedorovitch original designs, which the company presented while on tour in New York.

New works that stand out in remembering the years are Domy Reiter-Soffer's Paradise Gained, which showed scenes from the life of French author Colette, and the commissioned score of Karel Husa for The Trojan Women, with Jones's choreography, and performances conducted by the composer.

Audience favorites from the Jones years included Billy the Kid (Louisville Ballet was the last company to which Eugene Loring gave the work before his death) and Ruthanna Boris's Cakewalk.

Designers to whom Jones paid tribute were David Walker for a Nutcracker in the 1980s and Akiko Shirai for Madam Butterfly and Picture of Dorian Gray.

"None of this would have been possible without Helen," admitted Jones. As wife and muse, as teacher and coach of the classic works, as mentor to the company, and as principal ballerina for most of those years, she was an inseparable part of the operation.

The accidental death of company member and rising choreographer Patricia Olalde, whose works were so full of promise, was a blow to the company. Her The Edge, set to Elgar's Introduction and Allegro, remains in the company repertoire.

I caught up with the current artistic director, Bruce Simpson, just before a dress rehearsal to ask for his impressions and his hopes and dreams. Nine months into his tenure (he began in July 2002), Simpson said he is impressed with the depth of the company repertoire, both classic and contemporary. "With Alun and Helen's English-Continental heritage wedded to an American eclecticism and energy," he said, he feels comfortable and "at home," since he comes out of the same heritage.

The season opener, Romeo and Juliet, and the subsequent Coppelia were on the books before his arrival. But this month's fiftieth-anniversary gala program, which was selected to show the breadth and depth of the company, includes The Dying Swan, Esplanade, Cakewalk, The Trojan Women, the grand pas de deux from Raymonda, excerpts from Shades of Gershwin, and Stravinsky Violin Concerto. The Stravinsky features New York City Ballet principal Wendy Whelan (see page 34), who began her study in the Louisville school at age 8 and, according to Jones, "never wanted to dance anything but Balanchine."

Simpson says the company is now financially stable--with a financial strategy to parallel the artistic strategy that is now in place. The challenge, however, is always to be outside the safe zone. "Art is not safe!" insists Simpson, and he advises never to take the audience for granted.

The Louisville Ballet School has been reorganized under the directorship of Donald Tolj; a suburban satellite school has been established, and there are plans for four more.

Simpson says his dream is to grow the company into a destination company--a company with such repertoire, resources, and budget that dancers and audience see it as a goal and not just as a step to a bigger company. This is a challenge for the future, but Simpson, who terms himself a "romantic realist," is confident that it can happen.

That swan certainly did not die, and generations of cygnets have since hatched and matured here. For many of the audience, the stage at the gala will be crowded with memories, but for just as many it will be seen as another beginning.

George R. Hubbard is a freelance critic for The Louisville Courier-Journal, who covers dance and other performing arts.