My Choreographic Workshop Experience

Guest writer: Katelyn May, Ben Stevenson Academy student

As a Houston Ballet II student, it is an honor to rehearse and perform time-honored traditional ballets by artists of many years ago, as well as works from the masterminds of the present.

Houston Ballet II recently participated in a Choreographic Workshop with four local choreographers, with a concluding performance at the Barnevelder Movement/Arts Complex.  While working on the Choreographic Workshop, HBIIs experienced the process of having a choreographer put their artistic ideals into a concrete work for the stage.  In my experience, I had the pleasure of working with three of the four choreographers in the workshop: Tina Fehlandt, Ray Dones, and Garrett Smith.  Each had different ideas about what they wanted to get from their piece.  Needless to say it was an honor and a joy to be part of such a process.  To go from a piece of beautiful music to an entire choreographed work is such a feeling of accomplishment and inspiration.

While I enjoyed working on all of the pieces for this workshop, I had the privilege of working very closely with Garrett Smith.  Garrett is a fellow HBII student (and a friend of mine), and it was interesting to work with him on a professional level. To begin with, his music was beautiful, and served as a source of inspiration for him as well as me.  I was impressed at how creative and logical Garrett was when choreographing things such as the pas de deux that I got to perform with my partner, William Newton, a fellow HBII student.  Garrett came up with interesting and inventive lifts that I would have never thought of, but also always took our comfort and safety into account.  He would always ask for our opinion on different transitions and lifts to insure our comfort in the piece and to maintain the fluidity of the movement.  I was also amazed at how he was able to keep such a tight theme running through the piece.  Like the title says, the dance was about “Subtle Release”.  I was impressed with how Garrett was able to repeat steps throughout his choreography to maintain the theme that the title portrayed.

Working with Garrett as well as the other choreographers was, as I said, a pleasure and an honor.  They all had different and creative ideas about what they wanted their piece to be, and I think that we, the dancers, were able to portray these ideas successfully because of the hard work and creativity of these amazing choreographers.

-Katelyn

Dresser Turned Diva

Guest writer: Soloist Sharon Teague
(Read Ms. Teague’s bio…)

Recently, Stanton Welch completed choreographing a piece set to music by George Gershwin called The Core.  The company will be premiering it on Thursday, February 21 at 7:30 pm alongside George Balanchine’s masterpiece Serenade and Christopher Bruce’s intense Swansong. 

Stanton has developed several characters and vignettes that intertwine and overlap to create a comedy set in the 1940s.  I play a couple of different parts in alternating casts.  Right now, I want to talk about the character of “Jane” and the thought I’ve put into developing the role.

I like to interpret Jane as a caretaking shadow artist.  I imagine she’s the oldest child of seven or eight kids that she cares for during the day because both parents work.  She also has to work, but she needs a night job.  Luckily for her, the theater down the street needed dressers for night shows.  That means she can make money and watch the spectacular showgirls every night from the wings.  Jane had always wanted to be a dancer.  However, she is poor and cannot afford proper dance lessons, nor does she has the time between dirty diapers and dinner for 10!  She is constantly day-dreaming about her ‘big break’ and possibly a romantic rendezvous with “Mr. P”–the great choreographer.  Jane appears plain on the surface, but she has a secret life full of theatrical fantasies.  In the wee hours of the morning she rehearses the routines from the show she saw the night before.  She pictures her name on the marquee in flashing lights and practices her curtain calls in the reflection of storefront windows.  She has an inner diva waiting to come out.  And, alas, the opportunity she has been waiting for arrives when she volunteers to fill in for a chorus showgirl who was injured.  This scene Stanton choreographed is filled with high drama–clothes are ripped off for a quick change, Mr. P fusses about steps, and Jane ends up stealing the spotlight from the current diva.  It’s a hoot!

This ballet has a huge cast of characters.  There’s a hooker, a drunk, some sailors, and a police officer (just to name a few).  It’s been interesting to witness the process of the dancers developing their unique roles within Stanton’s guidelines and vision and to see the differences between casts.  We are blessed with a company full of actors and actresses who have embraced this piece with open arms.  It’s a fun one and definitely one not to miss!

-Sharon 

The Cutting Edge

Guest writer: Laura Lynch, Houston Ballet costume shop supervisor

The room is always abuzz with the sounds of industrial machines.  I’m speaking of course about the Houston Ballet costume shop.

As the shop supervisor, I oversee the costume shop in the creation of costumes from rendering to completion, as well as refurbishing and altering existing costumes.

Currently the shop is busy with the finishing touches for Stanton Welch’s new ballet, The Core (formally known as “Gershwin” in our shop).  Also, we are building a few new skirts for Serenade because many of our new dancers are taller than the existing skirts…so the only solution to keep the design integrity is to build new ones.  The shop is preparing Cinderella for stage, which includes new builds (Cinderella and Stepmother) due to sizing issues.  When we rent a show not all the costumes work for all our casts.  When this happens we sometimes have to build new.  We are also altering existing costumes so they look their best on our dancers.

I am currently in the process of scheduling personnel and working on our upcoming show strategies for Reps 5 and 6.  The designer for Rep 5′s Kudelka premiere (Denis Lavoie) will be coming in for our production conference soon, and we await designs.  Also arriving this month will be the designer for next season’s Marie (Kandis Cook) for production work and to present the final designs.  I am working with the co-designers for Rep 6′s A Doll’s House (Houston Ballet costume shop’s own Monica Guerra and Travis Halsey), helping them purchase materials and objects.  I’ll organize all the treasures we find so that when we begin the build, anyone in the shop can easily find what they need to move forward on whatever project they may be working on for that show.  This is something I do for all our new build productions.  I also prepare “Bibles” for each show, which contains designs, designer notes, reference notes, swatches, receipts, correspondence, casting, and any information gathered during the production process of the build.

I showcase all new build designs on a design board located in the costume shop so anyone can refer to the designs with ease.  I like to have the build designs visible for the shop as well as those who visit the shop.

Included in our busy season, we also do pre-season work on The Nutcracker, which this year requires a substantial amount of rebuild.  The shop will be rebuilding Symphony in C for the upcoming season as well.

 In a nutshell…we are busy.

 -Laura

                          

Costume design for The Core’s “Dancing Girl”.  All rights reserved by designer Holly Hynes.