Dayton Ballet plans “Daring Duets”

February concert will take audiences behind-the-scenes

When Halliet Slack and Case Bodamer begin talking about their upcoming performance, their faces light up. The Dayton Ballet dancers are obviously thrilled to have been selected to perform an iconic duet by legendary choreographer Antony Tudor.

The icing on the cake is that they’ve had the opportunity to learn that duet from the famous couple that brought the piece to life on stage at New York’s American Ballet Theatre in 1975.

“I know it will be one of my favorite experiences with the Dayton Ballet,” says Bodamer, who’s been dancing with the company for nine years. “Working with Amanda McKerrow and John Gardner and performing ‘The Leaves Are Fading’ is something I’ll remember years from now.”

The piece is one of eight romantic duets that will be featured at the Dayton Ballet's upcoming Valentine's concert Feb. 9-12 at the Victoria Theatre. Other Pas de Deux — a French phrase which literally means "Step of Two" — will include Nicole Haskins' "La Linea Scura," choreographed to music of the same name by Italian pianist Ludovico Einaudi, and the Grand Pas de Deux from "Don Quixote."

A peek backstage

A special feature of the performance will be a series of behind-the-scenes videos.

“When I see a ballet, I’m floored by how effortless it looks,” says Richard Wonderling, the writer/producer who is creating the short videos that will preface each duet. “We don’t see the sweat and toil and all the rehearsal time involved, or the interplay between the choreographer and the dancers. Dayton Ballet’s artistic director, Karen Russo Burke, came up with the idea of sharing that preparation with the audience.”

Dancers were interviewed about working together, and asked about their duets greatest challenges. Choreographers were interviewed as well. “We tried to reveal some of the mystery that surrounds choreography,” Wonderling says. “We can all relate to a writer because we’ve all had to write something. But how do you visualize or conceptualize a dance?”

Before viewing "The Leaves Are Fading," the audience will watch Slack and Bodamer as they learn the famous piece from McKerrow and Gardner. "In a Pas de Deux you both know how to breathe together and have the same intention," explains Slack. "Karen always says that you have to move like dolphins together because you're not speaking and sometimes you can't even look at each other. You have to be comfortable being vulnerable and really have to trust one another."

Two by two

McKerrow, a winner of the Princess Grace Foundation Dance Fellowship, says a Pas de Deux is an opportunity to have a kind of communication, an intimate conversation on stage with one other person. "It can be beautiful to look at but won't touch you emotionally if there's no chemistry between the two dancers," she says. "Chemistry takes it to another level."

She and her husband, John Gardner, are now teachers and stagers who travel throughout the nation carrying on the traditions of their mentor, Antony Tudor, who died in 1987. “He created a whole new genre labeled psychological ballet,” McKerrow says. “He was more interested in creating dances for real people. When he started in the 1930s, dancers were fairies or swans so in the world of classical ballet he was a total original. He was interested in the emotions that made people tick … so his dances are more about the complex emotions someone would be going through in a given situation.”

In ‘The Leaves are Fading,’ — the duet that Dayton audiences will experience — Tudor was exploring all aspects of love in one’s life and levels of commitment.

“He was a master of truth in movement,” Gardner adds. “And he was a master of telling stories through movement. He would tell an entire story in choreography instead of words.”

McKerrow and Gardner, who have also worked with Mikhail Baryshnikov, first met Tudor when they were in their teens and said he had high expectations of his dancers and was constantly asking them probing questions. “He always wanted you to go further into yourself, to think about what you were doing and why you were doing it,” remembers McKerrow. “In ballet lots of times they just tell you what to do.”

Gardner says when he began working with Tudor he’d never had a mentor or teacher approach the work in that way. “He made us both a lot more thoughtful, more sensitive to the music. Everything mattered to him, there was nothing incidental.”

The couple says they could never replace Antony Tudor, but are proud to carry on his legacy. “We had more time in the old days so we have to come up with our own ways of passing along his philosophy in today’s world,” says Gardener, adding that economic restraints and technology have led to fewer rehearsals before a performance.

“We do ask a lot of questions and take dancers deep into the work,” McKerrow says. “Many of today’s dancers tend to try and go too fast. It just takes time to digest this material. We try to work within the minds of the young dancers but coach them to go deeper.”

The goal of setting a piece, they say, isn’t to copy exactly what they do. “It’s the same movement but a different person might go about it differently,” McKerrow explains. “There are different choices to be made on our part, depending on the dancer. Tudor always worked with the dancer in front of him, so there might be slight variations in how you get into a certain step but it will still achieve the same thing.”

Concludes Slack: “It’s been an honor to work with people who were there when our art form experienced such a monumental change.”


WANT TO GO?

What: Dayton Ballet's "Daring Duets"

When: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 9; 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 10 and Saturday. Feb. 11 and 3 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 12

Where: Victoria Theatre, 138 N. Main St., Dayton

Tickets: $21 to $72 available at Ticket Center Stage (937) 228-3630 or online at www.daytonperformingarts.org. Senior, student and teacher discounts are available at the box office.

RELATED PROGRAMMING:

Forty-five minutes before each performance Dayton Ballet artistic director Karen Russo Burke will hold a pre-performance talk, “The First Step,” where she’ll offer an in-depth look at the upcoming performance. The free sessions are held in the Burnell Roberts Room at 126 N. Main St., beside the Victoria Theatre.

The Thursday evening performance includes a Pizza Prelude from Uno’s Pizzeria at 7 p.m.

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