Home-Grown Classical Ballet Gets a Chance to Shine

One night a few years ago, Don Hewitt--sometimes called L.A.’s “Ambassador of Dance” for his artistic directorship of the annual Dance Kaleidoscope series--was washing dishes when he heard something lovely and classical coming from the television in the next room. Discovering it was a ballet video on cable, he sat down to watch.

“I was very impressed,” Hewitt remembers, sitting in his office at the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, where he is acting chair of the dance division. When the credits showed that the dance was by L.A. choreographer Francisco Martinez, something passed through Hewitt’s mind that he’s almost embarrassed to disclose: “I thought, gee, that’s so good, I can’t get over it--he’s local.”

Hewitt laughs at his own knee-jerk reaction, which mirrors the stereotype that Southern California is still all desert when it comes to home-grown classical ballet.

But for Hewitt, such ah-ha moments kept coming. Last year, for instance, when he saw Inland Pacific Ballet’s “Giselle” at its home theater in Claremont, he started thinking that L.A. might be able to produce a major ballet company after all. And maybe it was time to give such quality ballet a bit of the Dance Kaleidoscope treatment.

That series, which has run every summer for more than a decade, showcases mostly local modern and world dance scene. But why not create a separate event for toe-shoe troupes?

This week marks the launching of BalletFest 2000, a gathering of five local troupes and a guest company from Northern California, plus a mini film festival. Organized with Cliff Harper, the director of the Luckman Fine Arts Complex at Cal State L.A. (one of Dance K’s main venues and the site of the arts high school), the festival will not only call more attention to ballet in the Southland, it will serve a Luckman audience that, according to Harper, always requests more ballet on questionnaires.

Hewitt and Harper chose the second act of Inland Pacific’s “Giselle” as the traditionalist anchor for the new ballet festival, and it wasn’t hard for them to decide what else would be included. Invitations were issued to companies the two considered the area’s most prominent: Los Angeles Chamber Ballet, Pasadena Dance Theatre, Francisco Martinez Dancetheatre (all from L.A. County), State Street Ballet (Santa Barbara) and Ballet Pacifica (Orange County). When Ballet Pacifica dropped out, it was replaced by Diablo Ballet, based in Walnut Creek, near San Francisco.

With a modest budget of $50,000, most of which came from the Luckman, the festival offered the companies from $2,000 to $4,000 (depending on size and need) to bring whatever works they had available to the event. Since those fees won’t cover most of the companies’ expenses, BalletFest bargained on the desire of the troupes to be seen in a festival context and to heighten the profile of local ballet.

“The money probably doesn’t go very far,” Hewitt admits, “but I don’t see anybody else in Los Angeles doing anything. You have to start somewhere.”

The mood surrounding this first BalletFest might best be described as “cautiously enthusiastic.”

“People have been saying, ‘Oh, that’s great--if it works,’ ” says Cynthia Young, artistic director of Pasadena Dance Theatre, which will contribute “Etudes” by Laurence Blake to the festival. The doubt, she says, is the result of so many failed ballet efforts in L.A.

“But,” Young adds, “I think using the energy of so many different companies in a festival will be great. You’re so busy running your company and your school, trying to stay ahead of the bills, you don’t have time to get together. I hope the camaraderie will read through in the performances.”

Pasadena Dance Theatre keeps afloat in a traditional way--with revenues from an annual “Nutcracker” that then finance a short fall and spring season.

Could the festival change attitudes about supporting local dance? “It might be a first step,” Young allows.

“I’d like to see things change in my lifetime,” Martinez says ruefully, on the phone from his Valley Glen home. “Just so I can see that the 30 years I’ve been doing this haven’t been for naught.”

Martinez has managed to keep a small company together intermittently over the years, subsisting mainly on grants for outreach programs. From September to July, his dancers perform in schools once or twice a week, only occasionally staging an evening concert.

“For the last four years, I haven’t been able to afford to use pointe work,” he says, citing the $50- to $80-a-pair cost of a pair of pointe shoes, which ballet companies are expected to provide. For BalletFest, his seven-member, all-female company will do “Miniatures,” based on the paintings of Modigliani.

Other recent, contemporary ballets in the festival include State Street Ballet’s “Carmen,” by Robert Sund; Diablo’s 1997 “Walk Before Talk,” by K.T. Niehoff; and the premiere of L.A. Chamber Ballet’s “Knockaround,” described as a ska ballet, with Joey Altruda’s 10-piece band and special guest ska-reggae guitarist Ernest Ranglin.

Despite a score that has roots in Jamaica, “Knockaround” may be the only ballet in the festival that specifically reflects its environment. According to Rogers, it features lots of explosive dancing, “affectionate” satire and costumes (by Charles Berliner) that look like “the Jetsons meet Frederick’s of Hollywood.”

The pristine formalism of Balanchine’s Neoclassicism is represented by Diablo Ballet’s staging of “Apollo,” which impressed San Francisco critics when it appeared there a few years ago. Inland Pacific presents Balanchine in a lighter mood with “Who Cares,” on the same program with its “Giselle” Act 2.

“The exposure in L.A. gives the dancers an edge,” Inland Pacific artistic director Victoria Koenig says. “And it’s definitely a morale builder to have anyone get behind us as a way of celebrating and bringing people together, because most of the time you pretty much feel like you’re in the trenches by yourself.”

Making Plans, Chasing Funding

BalletFest 2000 is optimistically subtitled “The Inauguration,” and no matter how it fares, Cliff Harper says, the Luckman is committed to the idea. The next step is finding more funding, perhaps from the corporate world, so that activities can be expanded. This year’s festival is held in conjunction with a summer dance program sponsored by the Cecchetti Society of America (“Cecchetti” refers to a ballet teaching method). Next year other kinds of workshops and professional-student interactions are planned.

The number of films screened may also expand. This year’s offerings are “Yuri Soliev: I’m Tired of Living in My Native Land” (2000), directed by Galina Mshankaya, about the Russian dancer who eventually committed suicide; and “Karen Kain: Dancing in the Moment” (1998), about the Canadian ballerina Rudolf Nureyev helped make a star. The latter was directed by Kain’s fellow Canadian ballerina, Veronica Tennant, who will introduce the film and give master classes during the week.

The Canadian connection is a natural one for Hewitt, who trained at Toronto’s National Ballet School of Canada, then danced with the National Ballet of Canada. But his major commitment since then has been to dance in Southern California.

“I think the reason a ballet festival is being held now is because Don wants to do it before he retires,” Raiford Rogers says. “He’s supported all kinds of dance more than anyone else here, through Kaleidoscope. But his love is very much ballet, and now he wants to extend that support to the ballet community.”

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BalletFest 2000, Luckman Theatre, Cal State L.A., Thursday-Saturday, 8 p.m., $20-$25; three-night passport, $48-$60. Film screenings, tonight at 8, $10. (323) 343-3500.