On The Road With The Ballet Theatre. Who Needs Red Velvet Armchairs.


For the most part, they’ve gotten so used to navigating life as to complain a little about sameness. (In St. Louis, the distribution of tour swag got them excited again.) Usually, tour dancers have to adapt to a different scene in each town, but this time, as they brought their own stage, it was always familiar—sometimes lively, though lively. hot.

Where to put this scene was more difficult. At the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, where the locker room at the Bee and Pollinator Discovery Center was next to the red barn, the floor sloped off the stage, cutting off the view of the dancers’ feet. st. Louis fixed the stage at the bottom of an amphitheater-like valley, but squeezing the stage to that point was an alarmingly close shave.

Despite the company’s desire for ABT Across America to mirror the band’s transcontinental tours in the 1940s and 50s, it was a much less strenuous task. During the war, in the 1943-4 season, the ensemble performed in 73 cities, of which 48 had one-night stands. The tour 10 years later was similar: four months, 20 states on buses and trains, mostly a different city each day.

But if the ABT Across America were shorter and more comfortable than that, it was significantly smaller and cheaper than the company’s touring model in recent years. “Even before the pandemic,” McKenzie said, “the servers were white at the expense of bringing in 130 people and holding an orchestra.” A new touring model similar to the ABT Across America “could add a new branch to our mission,” he said. “The dancers will be signing up. It’s going to be extra work.”

The tour definitely opened up space for young dancers. “We stand out more or less equally in every piece,” said Carlos Gonzalez, a corps member. “It’s a great opportunity to dance, be seen, and get experiences that we don’t usually get.”

Teuscher said it felt good to reach audiences that Ballet Theater wouldn’t normally reach: “We’re America’s company, so it feels important to bring ballet to America.”



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