DANCE

ITHACA BALLET STILL MAGICAL AFTER 61 YEARS

By Ross Haarstad

Cindy Reid, Ithaca Ballet’s Artistic Director, recalls playing a butter y in Alice in Wonderland “decades ago” at Sonnenberg Gardens in Canandaigua. “It was so much fun to do it outside, on the grass, even though we couldn’t wear point shoes.” at memory is just part of Ithaca Ballet’s rich history. Now in its 61st year, it is the oldest continuously performing arts group in Tompkins County. Cindy’s mother, Alice Reid, was cofounder with Vergiu Cornea. When Cornea retired a er seven years, Alice took over the Artistic Director reins, which she held until her death in 2011.

“She was great, a force of nature. She saw in me the person to keep it going and somehow I’ve grown into that position.” A er time away as a professional dancer with American Ballet eatre II, and in Chicago, she returned to Ithaca, serving rst as Associate Director, then Co-Artistic Director. is Saturday, October 15, the Ithaca Ballet presents their “Fall Magic” program featuring three family ballets: Alice in Wonderland, Haunted House, and e Sorcerer’s Apprentice. ere are two shows, one at 3 p.m. and one at 7 p.m., at the Hangar eatre. (Tickets at hangartheatre.org) e Ithaca Ballet has a dedicated core of people making the magic happen, “even our crew people have been with us for decades,” Cindy explains. ere are the mothers of company members who keep the costumes up to date. “ e organization has roots; people come and go, but they’re always training new people, so it’s sort of organic and natural.”

Fun and magic are the key words that keep coming up as Cindy describes the program. Alice was choreographed by her mother in 1965 as a student recital piece, so it was originally quite simple, but “over the decades,” Cindy has added to it. All the familiar characters appear: the Caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts, and so forth, 19 dancers in total.

“I told the kids, be as loony as you can. Just be as out there as you can. It’s going to take a lot of personality to take this ballet past the footlights” Cindy says.

“ e second ballet is also by my mother, Haunted House. Again, I’ve spiced up the choreography because the dancers were not all that advanced back then.” Cindy and her sister Lavinia grew up with the Ithaca Ballet, and as they got older, they decided, with their mother’s blessing, to strengthen the company. “You know when Balanchine came to America, he said, ‘But at rst a school.’ We kind of came in reverse, we had a ballet company. e school had been there right along, but it hadn’t had a curriculum, and a training program, and a tradition of training, which makes all the di erence.”

Cindy owns the school and runs it with the help of her “right-hand” woman, Rachel Myers—“she’s really great with small kids. She’s still a young woman, so she can really jump and point her feet in a way that I can’t”— and other faculty.

“We’re closing with e Sorcerer’s Apprentice. And this is in a way much more sophisticated. It’s by my sister Lavinia. When [the apprentice] chops up the broom: Boom, Whack, Whack—it’s right in the music and the brooms…and they do this goofy dance…it’s a really jam-packed ballet.”

One week before opening and the a ernoons are devoted to run-throughs of all three ballets. ings move fast in the main studio, as the autumn light spills in from the second-story atrium windows. e dancers in Haunted House le in. e youth are alert and highly focused. Cindy sets the curtain call, which snaps into place with only a few instructions. She snaps in a cassette (“Isn’t that a blast from the past,” she whispers to me.) Mussogorksy’s Night on Bald Mountain springs out of the speaker. A trio of boy-girl couples sneak into ‘the house’ in a sort of chain. A pair of lovers cavort. Vampira rises. Skeletons pass through. Spiderosa and her baby spiders enter. It’s sweet and kooky.

Cindy gives notes. She pushes the skeletons to do a deeper plié and a higher side kick. She works on a section of the lover’s duet. She is spry, exact, expressive.

And so it goes through the next two pieces.

“I love this. It’s my job, but it’s also my life. My mother worked right to the end as far as she could, and I don’t see a retirement for me either. Obviously, I won’t be as spry in another ten years. But I’ll keep working at it. I keep doing yoga, and I keep walking.”

No rest. Next Monday, Lavinia arrives from her company in Pennsylvania to start rehearsing the kids’ parts in her Nutcracker.

The “brooms” rehearse their sweeping for the Saturday performances. (Photo: Ross Haarstad) The White Rabbit (Sage Korfine) and Alice (Bailey Baier) prepare for Wonderland. (Photo: Provided)