BalletMet closes out its fourth decade with favorites

October 31, 2017

12:00 AM

Photo courtesy of Jennifer Zmuda and BalletMet

For BalletMet’s first professional season in 1978-79, the company’s budget was tiny and the staff was even smaller, with in-house professional dancers few and far between.

Now, BalletMet is thriving with 27 professionals, 1,700 students and an active board of trustees, all impacting more than 125,000 lives annually. And in 2017-18, it has created, for its 40th season, a set of diverse and collaborative shows with new and traditional works.

“We absolutely are making this a special year,” says Sue Porter, executive director at BalletMet. “An arts organization that has grown the way we have and is still doing exciting, interesting work that is still really relevant to our community is pretty exciting to have. And 40 years is a great milestone.”

BalletMet opened the season in October with Parallel Connections, a collaborative effort with The Ohio State University Department of Dance and the Wexner Center for the Arts, which featured four different dances.

The second show of the season, slated for Nov. 9-19, is Front Row: A Collection of Short Ballets. Featuring three original pieces choreographed by Ma Cong, Andrea Schermoly and BalletMet Artistic Director Edwaard Liang, the show exhibits intense themes and movements.

Photo courtesy of Jennifer Zmuda and BalletMet

Photo courtesy of Jennifer Zmuda and BalletMet

Photo courtesy of Jennifer Zmuda and BalletMet

Photo courtesy of Jennifer Zmuda and BalletMet

“We love to be able to … serve the community with family-friendly affairs to cutting-edge, state-of-the-art work,” says Liang. “Some of these works can be quite intense and we love that. And, I think, getting responses from our fan base, they absolutely love it as well.”

The show’s name is a reference to the audience’s proximity to the performers. Front Row takes place in the BalletMet Performance Space, an intimate 225-seat theater next to the company’s offices, where viewers will be able to fully capture the theme of creativity and innovation.

An arts organization that has grown the way we have and is still doing exciting, interesting work that is still really relevant to our community is pretty exciting to have. And 40 years is a great milestone.

“We’re committed to creating new work here,” says Porter. “The new works this year are incredible, and are a great combination with the existing works by these master choreographers.”

After Front Row is completed, BalletMet will be less than a month away from its traditional production of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker.

The show is familiar to even the most casual ballet fan, and BalletMet’s 2017 version isn’t going to be markedly different from its 2016 version, but The Nutcracker is always a fresh performance, Porter says.

Photo courtesy of Jennifer Zmuda and BalletMet

“Our Nutcracker has so many things going on, I don’t think any person can see all of it in one year,” she says. “The show always looks fresh, partly because we have different dancers, but they all do a fabulous job.”

BalletMet’s current rendition of The Nutcracker, choreographed by former Artistic Director Gerard Charles, features more than 150 local students in various roles. It’s a holiday staple in Columbus, and its popularity stretches beyond the city’s borders, Liang says.

“A huge part of what we do is being a part of the holidays,” he says. “The reason why Columbus loves The Nutcracker so much is because we’re a part of their fabric, we’re a part of their family. And that is one of our missions.”

This whole program and this whole season is so varied. That is what I’m most excited about.

After the holidays, BalletMet has three other spectacles on the schedule including the final 40th-season show, Dorothy and the Prince of Oz, a four-year project choreographed by Liang.

Porter and Liang say they’re thrilled to be celebrating an accomplishment with such loyal audience members. Most of all, though, Liang says he is very proud of his dancers and their ability to bring such a range of dances this season.

“This whole program and this whole season is so varied. That is what I’m most excited about,” he says. “The community gets to have an entire buffet of art; but my dancers are able to stretch and do really modern pieces, really amazing masterpieces that need to be told over and over again.”