From the Artistic Director

Welcome to Ballet West’s Fall 2020 program. Since March of this year, Ballet West has not performed live, so it is with great joy that we return to the stage, albeit in a unique performance that both addresses the challenges of our current world but also affirms the power of the human spirit. In March, our artists stopped dancing. Our studios closed down and as the year progressed and we were forced to cancel one program after another, we began to wonder if we would ever get back onto the stage. However, we were determined as an organization to push forward and find the safest ways to create art in the face of this global pandemic, despite the enormous financial hardship and uncertainty of the future. In late June, bucking national trends, our Academy held the only large scale in-person Ballet Summer Intensive in America. Our faculty and staff worked tirelessly in coordination with the Salt Lake County Health Department and created rigorous protocols and safety measures, which we continue to follow to this day. It was complicated, difficult, and required intense focus and attention to details from the entire organization. But we were able to host over 300 students, and guest faculty from around the United States and not one single illness! Our work over the summer gave us courage and while our academy continues in-person classes for our hundreds of students dancing in masks, while maintaining proper social distancing and hygiene, our next step was to bring our professionals back to work. By August we began the slow and careful process of “rehabilitation” classes. Dancers are such hard workers and while they did everything they could to stay in shape, there is no substitute for proper full-scale ballet training in a dance studio. Slowly we worked all together to build back their strength, flexibility, and articulation. Little by little increasing their speed and agility as they began to streamline again and regain their confidence we now turned our eyes to performing. Clearly our planned October blockbuster Dracula would simply not be possible with its huge cast and orchestra in the pit, its complicated production values and its promise of a packed audience. This was not the time for such an undertaking. Nevertheless, our newly planned “additional” fall program Nine Sinatra Songs presented a possible way back to the stage.

We are blessed at Ballet West to have many household couples among the dancers. I realized that by utilizing our married and cohabitating couples I could produce works that incorporated physical partnering and close contact between pairs – a vital aspect of our art form. Using Nine Sinatra Songs, an elegant suite of dances for seven couples, as the lynchpin and by adjusting the other two originally scheduled works, a whole show took shape. The program opens with Jennifer Archibald’s dynamic Tides. A graduate of The Ailey School, and a celebrated international choreographer, Archibald’s approach to classical ballet is not delicate. Instead, she brings out power and fierceness from the artists. And by combining genres, her movement has a fascinating quality at once unpredictable and inevitable. Ballet West audiences first experienced Archibald’s work as danced by the Cincinnati Ballet when we hosted them as part of our 2018 Choreographic Festival. I immediately invited her to create a new work on Ballet West, originally scheduled for our May 2020 Festival. I am so glad she was able to accommodate our changes. Tides, speaks to the ever changing eb and flow of this complicated time and our determination and strength in the face of adversity. Similarly, our Resident Choreographer, Nicolo Fonte’s Faraway Close is a beautiful dreamlike look at the human soul during this strange period in the world. Originally, I had planned the revival of Fonte’s excellent Almost Tango, but in speaking with him, it proved to be impossible right now. Instead, Fonte came forward with a new creation that speaks to the dichotomy of our current lives. Both Jennifer and Nicolo embraced the unique challenge, along with our dancers, of creating ballet while maintaining social distance, wearing masks, and only allowing physical partnering between life couples. Closing the program is Ballet West’s revival of Twyla Tharp’s iconic celebration of relationships as presented to the music of “Old Blue-Eyes” and through the medium of ballroom dancing. Nine Sinatra Songs is glamorous, charming, ironic, sly, and ultimately quite moving as Sinatra’s great anthem “My Way” closes the performance, reaffirming the indomitability of the human spirit. We are committed to assuring your health, safety, and comfort for these performances and we hope that we can offer joy to your lives and food for the soul. Now more than ever, thank you for your patronage and commitment to Ballet West. Stay safe, healthy, happy, and strong! With gratitude,

Adam Sklute Artistic Director Ballet West

Since 2007, Adam Sklute has expanded Ballet West’s outlook, repertoire, and visibility with exciting Company and world premieres, increased touring, heightened public exposure, and greater focus on the Ballet West Academy. He began his career with The Joffrey Ballet, rising through the ranks from dancer to Associate Director. His stewardship of Ballet West has been marked by both financial growth and elevated artistry, and was the subject of The CW Network’s docu-drama, Breaking Pointe, which aired for two seasons. From September 2016 to October 2017, Sklute took on the dual position of CEO and Artistic Director overseeing both administrative and artistic operations of Ballet West. An internationally sought after teacher and adjudicator, Sklute has received numerous awards, including Utah’s Enlightened 50 (2014), The Bronze Minuteman Award for Outstanding Service to Utah and The Nation (2015), and most recently Utah Diversity Connection’s Business Award for outstanding commitment to diversity initiatives.