About Us
Dennis Nahat's The Nutcracker Battle Scene
HISTORY
Ballet San Jose was established in 1985, as a co-venture with Cleveland Ballet, and for fifteen years flourished as a successful two-city enterprise. In 2000, the Cleveland entity dissolved, and the San Jose board supported relocating the entire company including dancers, sets, and costumes West, to make downtown San Jose the home-base for the 'new' Ballet San Jose Silicon Valley. Since then, the company has maintained production and rehearsal studios in the same historic building that also houses the Ballet San Jose School.
The mission of Ballet San Jose is to provide our audiences with professional ballet performances that are produced to the highest artistic standard, which contribute to the cultural needs of the community, and that are accessible to the broadest possible audience.
The Company is firmly committed to providing arts education for children and adults through a ballet school and free outreach programs, focusing on both professional training and on general community enrichment.
In support of this mission the company performs three or more repertory programs in addition to Dennis Nahat's THE NUTCRACKER each performing season (Oct-May). The company repertoire includes more than 120 works, over eighty of which are ballets with original choreography by Dennis Nahat. His classical works such as ROMEO & JULIET, SWAN LAKE, GISELLE, and COPPELIA are recognized for their traditional as well as theatrical interpretations. And Nahat is also known for other more contemporary choreography, such as his Emmy-award winning BLUE SUEDE SHOES danced to original Elvis Presley recordings, or his dramatic modern interpretation of Carl Orff's CARMINA BURANA. His most recent original choreographic work was a full-length collaboration with Chinese dancer/choreographer Yong Yao, covering Chinese myth and history entitled MIDDLE KINGDOM-ANCIENT CHINA, with original music composed by Phil Young. The company is also proud to have license to present works by many choreographers, such as Balanchine, Antony Tudor, Flemming Flindt, Twyla Tharp and Daryl Gray among others. Ballet San Jose also welcomes invited guest artists such as dancers Inaki Urlezaga and Carlos Acosta, as well as guest conductors, most recently, Andrew Mogrelia, who was invited to conduct Symphony Silicon Valley musicians in Bizet's CARMEN, and George Gershwin's orchestrated songs for Balanchine's WHO CARES?, the concluding repertory program of Ballet San Jose's twenty-fifth anniversary season.
School Director Lise La Cour showing how it's done
THE SCHOOL
Ballet San Jose School was established in 1995, to further support the company mission, and provide an educational opportunity to teach the art of ballet to aspiring professional as well as community students. Since 2003, the school has been directed by Lise la Cour, formerly with the Royal Danish Ballet and Ballet School, and recipient of the Margot Lander Award in 2009 (named for a Danish prima ballerina). Now boasting ongoing enrollment of 400+ students, the school offers a curriculum in three divisions: Professional, Open and Teen/Adult. Training follows the Danish Bournonville technique, and also draws from French, Italian, Russian and American styles. The school amenities include five spacious studios equipped with dance floors, mirrored walls and sound systems, although live piano accompaniment is provided for all professional division classes. Ballet San Jose School is the only educational institute attached to a professional ballet company in the south Bay Area, and Pro division students are provided with the opportunity to supplement the dancers in the Corps de Ballet and perform in some repertory productions as well as Then Nutcracker. The students of the Ballet San Jose School Professional Division also perform in an annual fully-staged and costumed production at the historic California Theater in downtown San Jose, presenting one of five Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale ballets, with original choreography by Lise la Cour.
Education and Outreach programming has been a commitment on the part of Dennis Nahat and the executive management and board members from the first company performances in San Jose. Outreach offerings have evolved over more than two decades, and have provided literally hundreds of thousands of public school students with an introduction to, and the opportunities to experience, performing art and ballet first-hand. The current program components include 'Student Matinees' for grades 2-8 which are offered during the annual presentation of The Nutcracker, the ballet most beloved by children, and these free performances had more than twelve thousand students in attendance in 2009. A second program component is offered to grades 1-3, when individual classrooms visit our downtown San Jose building for a 'Studio Tour' field trip. Participants are introduced to ballet by a staff member who provides an overview of the training required to be a ballet dancer; they are then escorted to the costume production department to handle costumes and see the staff preparing for upcoming ballets; then they are escorted one of the dance studios to watch company dancers in either a class or a rehearsal; and lastly, the participants are encouraged to attempt ballet movements in a ballet studio themselves, instructed by a ballet teacher and accompanied by a live pianist. Several hundred students attend these field trips each year. The final and third outreach program component is an invitation to all field trip participants to take a 'First Step' ballet class, including a boys-only class. With parental approval, they attend a once-weekly beginning level class on Saturday mornings, with their tuition, and dance attire provided for a semester. Enrollment in First Step classes by outreach participants numbers between 25-50 students each semester.
Middle Kingdom Finale
ACHIEVEMENTS
Since beginning his dance career on a music scholarship at Julliard, and with credentials in ballet, musical theater, and feature films, Artistic Director Dennis Nahat has been recognized by both the American Dance Guild and American Dance Masters for his lifetime achievements in dance. Nahat was also the recipient of a fellowship for his choreographic body of work from the Arts Council Silicon Valley. His signature ballet, Blue Suede Shoes, was broadcast nationally on TV receiving two Emmy nominations and one award. Additionally the company and various individual dancers have received multiple Bay Area-based Isadora Duncan awards. In 2005, students from Ballet San Jose School competed in Grand Prix Italia, and received two first place awards.
Having completed its twenty-fifth season in San Jose in 2011, the company also reflects proudly on a five-week, eight-city "Goodwill Tour: of mainland China undertaken in the summer of 2008 immediately preceding the Beijing Olympics. The tour was highly successful, supported and commended by the City of San Jose and the California State legislature, with the company performing in some of the China's newest state-of-the-art theaters to full audiences, many of whom had not seen a 'Western' ballet company prior to the BSJ tour. The company also offered free outreach performances for students in some cities, with the BSJ dancers who were from China onstage translating the explanatory lecture/narrative offered by artistic director Dennis Nahat.
Finally, the company management has remained committed to an education and outreach program offered every performance season at no-cost to public school students, focused on the participation of 'Title 1 schools', many of whose students would not be exposed to the performing arts without such a program. Ballet San Jose presents free Student Matinees during the annual holiday production of The Nutcracker, as well as dozens of Studio Tour field trips to our building in downtown San Jose, and provides weekly beginning First Step ballet lessons to interested students. The commitment on the part of the company to these educational and outreach offerings has resulted in literally hundreds of thousands of school children experiencing live ballet and the performing arts for more than two decades in San Jose.
Dennis Nahat at rehearsal
VISION
Every year, Ballet San Jose's enormous family of talent brings their work together, along with the dedication and performances of so many individuals, including volunteers, staff, board members, the accompanying musicians of Symphony Silicon Valley, and of course, the dancers. Each performance is an occasion when we enjoy the fruits of our labor, as well as joy in knowing that thousands in the south Bay Area community recognize Ballet San Jose as one of the finest regional artistic assets.
However, if not for our award-winning Ballet San Jose School, many Ballet San Jose performances would be at a loss. Illustrating the importance of our student body, a partial list of the ballets they have participated in since 1995 includes The Tempest, Blue Suede Shoes, The Firebird, Romeo & Juliet, Serenade, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Nutcracker, and many more. Ballet San Jose School students have gone on other professional companies, and have graduated with degrees in Dance from Princeton University, Columbia University, Boston Conservatory, UC Irvine, and others.
Led by School Director Lise la Cour, and the outstanding faculty of Ballet San Jose School, students benefit from their training in dance as it offers them a full spectrum of confidence and self-awareness, and opens all their possible avenues in life. The forecast, hopes, and dreams for dance are as vibrant and alive as ever at Ballet San Jose School.
REVENUE SOURCES
Ballet San Jose is a non-profit public charity. While realizing earned revenue through ticketed performance programming and ballet school tuition, this covers only about half of the costs required to put world-class repertory works onstage, operate the ballet school, and provide the educational and outreach programming the company is committed to maintaining. Consequently, the company seeks contributed income from a variety of sources. In more than two decades, Ballet San Jose has enjoyed contributions from and the support of a corps of 'great benefactors' who gave given significantly over that period of time. The company also receives consistent support from the constituent base of season subscribers as well as contributions from single ticket purchasers. Individual gifts are made and pledged throughout the performing season in response to general operating appeals, fundraising campaigns for targeted funding (e.g., dancer career transition fund, ballet school scholarships), and special events. Development staff also pursues funding and grants from civic sources, corporations, and private and community foundations. Ballet San Jose has consistently received support from the City of San Jose, the Wm. & Flora Hewlett Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Applied Materials Foundation, SanDisk Community Sharing Fund, Morris J. Skaggs Foundation, Leo M. Shortino Family Foundation, Target Stores, Macy's, Nordstrom, and Fry's Electronics, among many others.
|
|