Oregon Ballet Theatre opens tenth season amidst controversy - public outcry over artistic director James Canfield's 'Revenge Poems' choreography - Brief Article

Dance Magazine, Oct, 1998 by Martha Ullman West

PORTLAND, Oregon--Oregon Ballet Theatre opened its tenth-anniversary season August 24 with "OBT Exposed," an annual and extremely well-attended event in which the dancers take class and rehearse for the opening concerts in a tent set up in Portland's park blocks. OBT and its school were exposed in a rather different way last April when company artistic director James Canfield premiered Revenge Poems, a ballet he calls "Shakespearean" and some audience members have called pornographic and violent because of the explicit sexuality of the movement and two onstage murders. In addition, when the city of Portland announced it would grant the company $1 million for outreach and education programs over the next five years, parents of current and former students protested, charging the school with psychological and physical abuse. Much ink was given to both aspects of the organization by the Oregonian and Portland's alternative newspaper, Willamette Week; National Public Radio reporter Nasem Rokah, who usually covers state politics, aired a story on All Things Considered about Canfield's success in attracting new, young audiences with his controversial repertory.

Canfield tendered his resignation to the company's board, which declined to accept it. "If you try to do something for everyone, you're going to make someone unhappy," Canfield says of the controversy about the content of his choreography, which over the years has become increasingly explicit. "When you're breaking new ground, building an audience, you can't always be right."

While Canfield uses less and less of the classical vocabulary in his popular culture-based choreography, OBT's school, under the directorship of Haydee Gutierrez, which is feeding dancers into the company annually, provides rigorous, old-fashioned training. This kind of training can be difficult to accept in a community in which classical ballet is still a fledgling art form. To investigate the allegations, OBT's executive staff met with teachers, and the company invited parents of current students to discuss concerns with Canfield. None responded, although several sent unsolicited letters to the Oregonian in support of the school.

With a budget of $4.3 million, twenty-five dancers, including Patricia Miller (who returned to the company last spring from South Carolina), 7,500 subscribers, an expanded season, and funding for outreach from Nike as well as the city's million dollars, the company seems to be in an extremely strong position to move forward. Canfield is even getting funding for artistic programming: the Schubert Foundation has just given OBT a $5,000 grant, the first awarded to an Oregon-based company.

The season opens officially October 16, with two weekends of performances of Giselle and a new work by resident choreographer Trey McIntyre. Twenty-three performances of the company's gorgeous, cohesive production of Nutcracker follow in December. Canfield premieres a new work based on the life of Coco Chanel in March, completing a trilogy of ballets about women that includes Anai's and Edie. Other pieces from Canfield's repertory are also included on this program. In April, "Moving Signatures," a program of new choreography intended to tour in small performance spaces with a chamber-sized ensemble of dancers, takes place in Portland State University's Lincoln Hall. "Moving Signatures" will also play at the Joyce Theater in New York City next August. The season ends in June with three separate programs reprising the innovative American Choreographers Showcase, which includes works by Bebe Miller, Val Caniparoli, the late Dennis Spaight, John Selya, Paul Vasterling, Donald Byrd, Josie Moseley, McIntyre, and Canfield. A gala performance takes place in the Portland Civic Auditorium on October 10, which showcases the company's education and outreach programs; this is followed by excerpts from the works of Spaight, who was OBT's resident choreographer until his death five years ago, and work by McIntyre, his replacement.

"The tenth-anniversary season is a milestone, which like every other recaptures the past," Canfield says. "I'm proud of what we've done, although it has been a growing experience for everyone and there is a lot we can do better. This is really a beginning, not an ending, and we will build toward what we want to become, which is [to be] an organization that moves the art of the ballet forward and also presents a parallel season of classics."