9 minute read
IN MOTION
ROBINSON BALLET SHOWS ITS STAYING POWER
BY ROSEMARY LAUSIER
Iwas filled with nervous excitement as I prepared to walk up the stairs to the Robinson Ballet studio for the first time in 10 years to watch the rehearsal for the company’s spring ballet in April.
Dancing at Robinson Ballet was truly the most magical experience. I started at the School of Robinson Ballet, which teaches the young dancers, when I was seven and then joined the performance company, the Robinson Ballet Company, at 11 when I was first cast in “The Nutcracker.”
But I left all of that behind when I went off to college at 18 and I wasn’t sure how I would feel when I went back into that large rehearsal space.
I wasn’t even sure I would still even be able to make it up those flights of stairs.
Luckily, I did — guess those workouts paid off — and what I felt for the next two hours was nothing short of pure happiness.
I sat next to Robinson’s artistic director and my former dance teacher, Stevie McGary, as we watched dancers run around with large colorful ribbons and banners to energetic jazz music. A boy was sitting on a bed — fashioned with wheels underneath and a large sheet overhead to make it look like he was riding a sailboat — as his peers would push him and the bed around in circles in the middle of the dance floor.
The dancers were rehearsing “Wild Things,” inspired by the children’s book “Where the Wild Things Are” and the company’s first spring performance since 2019.
The 50-minute ballet featured around 30 students in ages ranging from 9 to 30 years old. The students who performed this year come from all over the state, with the furthest driving all the way from Southwest Harbor.
The ballet — which the company first produced in 2017— also blends in the characters from “Wynken, Blynken, and Nod” an 1889 poem written by Eugene Field.
Staged at the Gracie Theatre in Bangor in May, the performances came after a tumultuous couple years for the company due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Robinson was forced to cancel its 2020 spring performances — “Hercules” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” — and the studio’s traditional holiday show, “The Nutcracker,” was suspended as well later that year. There were also no productions in spring 2021.
But as vaccinations became more widespread in 2021, the Robinson Ballet Company decided to stage a smaller than normal tour of “The Nutcracker” in November and December 2021. The company usually tours around the state for performances on
weekends for about a month, but instead stayed in the Bangor and Ellsworth areas due to COVID precautions.
When choosing what to perform this spring, McGary said she wanted to do “Wild Things,” because it’s bright and funny and would offer a respite from the difficulties that the pandemic brought. It’s also her favorite show.
The April 9 rehearsal was the first time many of the dancers rehearsed the show without masks. McGary occasionally reminded them to use their facial expressions as they filled the big studio space with stomping, laughter and smiles.
Brooke McKay, a 17-year-old senior at Hampden Academy, said the company is “back and better than ever now.” 17-year-old Ellie Derosby, a junior at Hampden, said she still gets emotional thinking about the time the dancers lost and the limited time she has left in the studio. But she’s not letting the pandemic take away those few special moments.
“It makes you value every single second,” Derosby said.
After missing out on “The Nutcracker” in 2020, which McKay and Derosby both described as “devastating,” “Wild Things” was a much-needed return for the dancers to the stage.
The forced hiatus also showed the immense staying power of a company that has been in Bangor for 45 years.
Robinson Ballet was founded in 1977 as the Ralph Robinson Concert Dance Company under the direction of Ralph Robinson and his wife Jean-Marie Aubert. Two of the founding members were his
nephew, Keith Robinson, and his wife Maureen, according to Bangor Daily News archives.
Keith and Maureen Robinson traveled to Europe in 1980 and danced professionally in Paris and Athens before returning to the states, and the company, in 1984, to begin their extensive teaching careers.
Keith Robinson took over as co-artistic director of the company with his aunt in 1986 after his uncle stepped down and Maureen Robinson filled Aubert’s spot as co-artistic director in 1990. McGary became artistic director in 2016, while Maureen Robinson stayed on as director of the school.
“We’ve known Stevie since she was 9 or 10, so the same thing that Ralph instilled in us, we’ve been instilling in her for all these years,” Keith Robinson told the BDN in 2016.
And I was lucky enough to be taught by all three of them.
Stepping inside the studio after all these years felt like nothing had changed. Except for the fact that I was interviewing my former dance teacher instead of preparing for a performance.
The things Stevie and the other dancers told me really hit close to home. Talking to Brooke and Ellie about losing out on a year of “The Nutcracker” made me really feel for the then-high school seniors in the company who never got to dance in their final Nutcracker performance. I could only imagine losing the opportunity to miss out on a part I dreamt about playing for years. Like me, they considered their dance friends their family and would see each other after school 3-4 times a week and every weekend for years.
Even after I had finished asking Stevie questions for this article, I asked her if I could stay and watch the repertoire rehearsal that followed the “Wild Things” rehearsal. They were learning a dance I had performed a decade ago. What’s so funny about dancing is that it truly never leaves you. I remembered the moves, the costume I wore and where I performed it.
And even though I wasn’t dancing with the kids (as much as I wanted to), I was so happy to simply watch them.
Stevie told a group of kids about how my mom was her first dance teacher, and then Stevie became one of mine. And now I was interviewing the next generation of dancers.
“It’s really a full circle moment,” she said.
Indeed it was.
Paddling
MAINE WATERS
MAINERS KNOW HOW TO MAKE GREAT BOATS
BY BOB DUCHESNE
OLD TOWN CANOE is 124 years old this year, but the company doesn’t look a day over 100. When business magazines list the brand names associated with Maine, L.L. Bean usually tops the list. Perhaps these lists miss the boat though. Old Town Canoe was founded by the Gray Family behind a hardware store in Old Town in 1898, 14 years before Leon Leonwood Bean began selling his Bean Boots in Freeport. Old Town Canoe is so ingrained in Maine’s cultural history that the company is named for the very place it all began. The company’s earliest watercraft were inspired by the traditional birchbark canoes that had plied Maine’s rivers for centuries. Birchbark canoes were light and capable of carrying substantial loads, but required constant maintenance and repair. Old Town Canoe used wood and canvas to produce a more durable canoe that remained true to the canoe-making style and
OLD TOWN CANOE'S... tradition. The combination launched Old Town Canoe to become what is now the oldest, largest and best-known canoe maker in America.
EARLIEST WATERCRAFT While canoe-making has always remained true to its roots, styles have come and gone. War canoes were popular early in the century,
WERE INSPIRED BY THE and they were offered in the company catalog between 1906 and 1936. Many boys and girls camps in Maine had one ready on the TRADITIONAL BIRCHBARK beach. Two 34-foot monsters were built for Disneyland less than a year after the California theme park opened. CANOES THAT HAD PLIED Tastes change. Technologies change. Over much of the company’s first 50 years, Old Town Canoe expanded to produce a variety of
MAINE’S RIVERS FOR boats to meet the changing public demand, including dinghies, sailing canoes, sailboats and even larger powerboats. Soon after Evinrude CENTURIES. invented the detachable outboard motor in 1907, Old Town introduced a square-stern canoe to accommodate it.
During the latter half of the 20th Century, aluminum canoes encroached on Old Town’s dominance. From 1951 to 1976, Grumman Canoe enjoyed the lion’s share of the canoe market. In the long run, modern materials such as fiberglass and spun plastics proved to be quieter, more resilient, and more repairable than aluminum. Old Town Canoe pioneered the use of Royalex, with a three-layer polyethylene rotational molding process that the company still uses on several of its most popular canoes, including the Discovery and Penobscot canoe lines.
The historic design for canoes was limited by one important factor — how far wood could be bent before breaking. With molds and modern materials, new shapes and sizes became possible.
Today, Old Town uses 3D printers to produce test versions of new models, allowing the company to swiftly improve designs and correct flaws. That’s important, because materials aren’t the only things that change constantly. So does usage.
Near the end of the last century, the popularity of kayaks began to skyrocket. Old Town started making kayaks in 1995, and within five short years, the company was making more kayaks than canoes. Furthermore, it was making more styles of kayak, constantly innovating to meet the growing demand for boats that served very different markets. There are solo kayaks and tandems. There are small kayaks for day paddling and larger boats for touring. Some models of siton-top kayaks are popular with recreational paddlers, while other higher-end models are specially designed to suit fishermen.
In 2013, Old Town launched the Predator line of fishing kayaks, created specifically for anglers. A year later, it offered the first motorized kayak, with an integrated Minn Kota trolling motor to keep hands free for casting. The first pedalpowered kayak followed two years later. In 2020, Old Town launched the Sportsman line, with a new selection of paddle, pedal and motorized models.
One model includes an Autopilot feature, integrating GPS with an electric motor that can hold a boat in place without an anchor despite wind and current — an angler’s dream.
Johnson Outdoors bought Old Town Canoe from the Gray Family in 1973. The new parent company retained the brand name and wisely kept production in Old Town, taking advantage of nearly eight decades of boat-building experience and a highly-skilled workforce.
Even the biggest brand names come and go. Sears, Oldsmobile, TWA, Toys-R-Us and Radio Shack all had their day. Somehow, more than a century after that first woodand-canvas canoe rolled out of the shop behind the hardware store, Old Town Canoe is a Maine brand that just keeps going. Innovation and adaptation may have kept the company prosperous, but one factor is likely the secret to success: Mainers just know how to make great boats.
BOB DUCHESNE is a local radio personality, Maine guide, and columnist. He lives on Pushaw Lake with his wife, Sandi.
