Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 23, 1992 TAG: 9202200103
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jeff DeBell
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
BALLET DIRECTOR BACK ON FEET AFTER BIG SCARE
The new artistic director of Roanoke Ballet Theatre is lucky to be walking, let alone dancing.Clay Alan Sales came down with Guillain-Barre Syndrome last summer. It began with numbness in the extremities while he was performing in Georgia, but spread so quickly that he left the show and came to Roanoke to recuperate at a friend's house.
Two days later, unable to stand, he was taken to a local hospital. A neurologist diagnosed the auto-immune disease and quickly ordered Sales into intensive care.
"It was incredibly fortunate that the neurologist who examined me was familiar with the disease," Sales BACKSTAGE JEFF DeBELL said. "Most cases are misdiagnosed until the paralysis has spread from the extremities to the torso, at which point the lungs stop functioning. Two days more and I would have ended up on a respirator."
Sales was released from the hospital about three weeks later, 30 pounds lighter and walking with a cane. He immediately began a program of physical therapy and expects to recover completely by late summer.
To deal with the ordeal psychologically, Sales said, he has set a goal of rebuilding his body to a point at which he is physically stronger than before he was stricken, thereby enabling himself to regard the whole episode as "a positive experience."
In the meantime, he has placed his skills as choreographer and dance educator at the disposal of Roanoke Ballet Theatre. The company's first performance under his direction will take place March 28-29 at Hollins College Theatre.
Though he didn't start dance training until the age of 22, the 29-year-old artistic director has studied ballet, tap, jazz, modern and ballroom dance and was a principal dancer with the Raleigh-based Carolina Dance Company. He has performance credits with the Jekyll Island (Ga.) Theatre Festival, Southern Arizona Light Opera Co. and at Virginia Tech, where he studied computer science and education.
Roanoke Ballet Theatre has been without an artistic director since Diana Gonzalez resigned last August after being in the job for about a year. She and former board president Jim Hart failed to come to terms on a new contract.
Artistic responsibility was turned over to a senior dancer in the company, but Hart said the arrangement "didn't work out," and a performance planned for January had to be canceled.
Roanoke Ballet Theatre's March performance will include a new ballet by North Carolina choreographers Mark and Leslie Shields. It is set to Vivaldi's "Four Seasons."
Alison Weaver is the new president of the company's board of directors. Valerie Lucas is vice president, and Jim Hart is treasurer.
Ferrum College's Jack Tale Players, founded 16 years ago next month, will celebrate the anniversary with a series of performances in New York City from March 1-4.
Hosted by New York University, the company will play to audiences of inner-city children. The shows consist of dramatized mountain folklore tales about a boy named Jack, supplemented with traditional music. After each New York performance, there will be workshops for the audiences on story telling, mountain music, folk games and dance.
R. Rex Stephenson, who teaches theater at Ferrum, founded the Jack Tale Players and is the group's writer and director. Todd Necessary is musical director. All other members of the company are Ferrum students.
During its history, the company has performed an estimated 1,300 shows for a cumulative audience of more than half a million.
Franklin County artist Brenda Tatum has won the best-in-show award of the 77th annual international painting competition for students and graduates of Art Instruction Schools.
Her winning entry is a still life in oil titled "Nostalgia." It will go into the permanent collection of the Minneapolis-based art correspondence school, and a reproduction of the painting will appear in the April issue of "The Illustrator" magazine.
Tatum works in her Fork Mountain studio south of Rocky Mount, specializing in portraits and figures. She is an alumna of the 3-year Art Instruction Schools program and of Radford University, where she earned a master's degree.