ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Wednesday, May 22, 1996 TAG: 9605220006
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MATT CHITTUM STAFF WRITER
You know ballet school.
Little girls with hair up in tight buns and ponytails, their chubby legs bulging under pink tights and tutus.
They pirouette and they plie, though not necessarily ensemble.
"And they do their little recital with their chicken costumes at the end of the year," says Adair Branner. She knows the drill well, even has a name for it.
"Tappy times and tutus at the strip mall in suburbia."
The Roanoke Ballet Theatre was never that kind of school, but Branner, artistic director for the company, will tell you it was close.
A few short years ago, a class at Roanoke Ballet Theatre was just one more item on the busy schedule of the average 13-year-old girl.
"We were ranked in there with Girl Scouts on Wednesday and soccer on Monday," Branner says.
But in the last year and a half, the school has made a turnaround that tempts a writer to indulge in ridiculous puns:
Board members put their collective foot down and stopped the company's downward twirl.
The school is choreographing a brighter future for itself.
The Roanoke Ballet Theatre is moving up a few steps in the dance world.
Yet that's exactly what the school and dance company did. It's become more professional, with serious ideas about making some great dancers. At the very least, teachers there hope to turn out a bunch of well-postured girls bubbling over with grace, poise and especially discipline.
They've got a new home at the Jefferson Center in downtown Roanoke, a paid executive director, an artistic director, a preprofessional dance company, and come June 29, 25 of the school's girls will dance modern and classical pieces before an international audience at the Olympic Games Cultural Olympiad in Atlanta. The group will preview it's performance Friday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. in Virginia Western Community College's Whitman Auditorium.
The dancers will perform a classical ballet piece called "Still Motion," which was commissioned by the Roanoke Ballet Theatre, and a post-modern piece called "Numb" choreographed by Executive Director Jenefer Davies, as well as two other pieces.
"It seems to me that we're really on track," Branner says.
When Branner first came to Roanoke Ballet a few years ago, the school was "more or less adrift, without any kind of direction or philosophy, no real rudder to guide it."
Kitty Hopkins, daughter of board member Ann Hopkins, started at the theater before all the big changes, when classes still met above the old C.W. Francis & Sons offices on Kirk Avenue.
"You went up these old wooden stairs," Ann Hopkins remembers, "and it was just like when I went to dance class." Small, no air conditioning, parents waiting patiently in a separate room.
For years, one couple, Jim and Marie Hart, whose daughter Darcy was the premier dancer in the company, kept things going as board president and executive director.
"They really held things together," Hopkins says.
But when the Hart's daughter went off to college and conflicts arose in their personal lives, they left the company on its own. Marie Hart remained on the board, but the company's longtime leadership was gone.
Some things changed quickly, like the makeup of the board, which suddenly had eight new members to go with four veterans.
"We sat down as a board and we talked about our vision and what we wanted for Roanoke Ballet Theatre," Hopkins remembers.
First on the list was a new home. Though the company's rent tripled, it moved into a space on the second floor of the newly renovated Jefferson Center, with an office and a brand new studio.
Next, they hired Davies, a young, energetic Hollins College graduate who also has a master's degree in dance from George Washington University.
At 27, Davies says she's already living out a dream.
"The thing I always wanted was to have my own company," she says. Though she admits not all of the work is glamorous - "I have to talk to board members 17,000 times a day," she says - she gets plenty of chances to teach modern dance, too.
"One key thing about Jenny," Hopkins says, "is her enthusiasm is incredible. We keep looking for something to distinguish ourselves. Jenny has found that in modern dance. She's going to make that niche for us."
Modern dance will help lure young kids into dance classes, Hopkins says.
"It's not so exact," explains Lee Marx, 13, whose mother, Mary Ann, is also on the ballet's board. Lee likes Davies' classes because "she tells you about the steps and why you do them."
If Davies brings modern steps, fun and unwavering enthusiasm to the company and school, Branner, the artistic director, balances that with classical ballet and a serious degree of discipline.
Branner danced professionally for years, in Utah, Seattle and Richmond. She came to Roanoke for a part-time teaching job at Hollins, but it was, in part, a tragedy that landed her at Roanoke Ballet Theatre.
Branner says she's blocked out the trauma, but others tell her she turned a wok of hot oil onto herself. She spent a year in the hospital recovering.
Doctors tell her, and she believes, that the discipline she learned from dancing helped speed her recovery.
Past 30 and off her dancing feet for more than a year, Branner accepted that it was time to find another career. Influenced by her hospital caretakers, she went to school to become a nurse. She keeps dance in her life by working with the Roanoke Ballet.
All ballet schools teach position and steps, Branner says, but she wants to teach the kind of discipline that got her back on her feet after her accident.
It amounts to a second full-time job.
The same goes for Ann Hopkins.
"Mary Ann Marx and I have a mantra," she says. "Ballet is my life."
Hopkins figures she spends 30 hours a week working for the ballet.
It's worth it for the discipline she sees in her daughter Kitty, she says. The 13-year-old plans her days to include homework without being asked. Told she can't spend the night with friends, she comes home without a wimper or whine.
Hopkins' work mostly involves drumming up funds to cover the rent increase and the expense of paid executive and artistic directors.
They have the usual bake sales and a car wash, the "Tutu Clean" fund-raiser.
"I'm having to learn really quickly to write grants and call people to ask for money," Hopkins says.
The company already has landed a $20,000 grant from the Beirne Carter Foundation to bring the Richmond Ballet to Roanoke next year.
They cut corners where they can, though.
When the dancers from Roanoke Ballet Theatre go to Atlanta next month, they'll save a few bucks by staying at Davies' mother's house.
The Cultural Olympiad is the first of what Davies and Branner hope will be a long line of high points in the company's new direction.
Atlanta, it seems, is a long leap from the chicken suit recital.
"That," says Branner, "is just not where we're at."
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The Cultural Olympiad is the first of what Davies and Branner hope will be a long line of high points in the company's new direction.
LENGTH: Long : 154 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ERIC BRADY Staff 1. Kim Mizack and other members ofby CNBthe Roanoke Ballet Threatre practice part of "Numb," a routine
choreographed by Executive Director Jenefer Davies. The troupe will
perform the dance during the Olympic Cultural Olympiad in
Atlanta.|
2. Dancers (above, from left) Christina Hale, Deanna Eschbach,
Amy Underwood and Emily Manetta work on "Still Motion," a dance
commissioned by the Roanoke Ballet Theatre. 2. Adair Branner,
artistic director (left), has played a major part in the ballet's
turnaround. "We were ranked in there with Girl Scouts on Wednesday
and soccer on Monday," Branner says. "It seems to me that we're
really on track."|
3. Hiring Jenefer Davies, a Hollins College graduate, has worked
out well for both the troupe and Davies - she's living out a dream
and the ballet got a young energetic executive director.
|ERIC BRADY/Staff 4. Dancers (above, left to right) Autumn Scott,
Lee Marx and Kitty Hopkins and 5. (below, left to right) Martha
Kastler, Mandy Lucas, Leigh Johnson and Christina Hale work on parts
of a performances they will give at the Olympic Cultural Olympiad in
Atlanta. color.