Local Ballet Company Makes Giant Leap

Long known for its annual holiday production of “The Nutcracker” showcasing young dancers from schools countywide, Channel Islands Ballet is growing up.

Now, instead of picking a Sugar Plum Fairy or Nutcracker Prince from the ranks of the county’s older dancers, the troupe may opt for professional dancers from Italy or Latvia to play the parts.

With 10 veteran dancers and a full-time artistic director, the reconfigured troupe opened its second season this month as a professional company, showcasing a world premiere performance and signaling a giant leap for the county’s first professional dance company.

“We want to develop an audience in Ventura County,” said artistic director Yves de Bouteiller. “It’s there, but right now they don’t realize they have a professional ballet company right next door. When they think of ballet, they think of their daughters and nieces wearing tutus.”

It’s an image the dancers grapple with as they struggle to gain a presence in the arts community and build a company from the ground up. Although the troupe has not completely severed ties with young dancers--local girls and boys will make their regular appearances in “The Nutcracker” in the lesser roles--the focus has shifted.

“Now the young dancers can see what they can become,” De Bouteiller said. “Before, if you wanted a career in dance you had to move to San Francisco or Seattle. Now dancers can live in Ventura.”

Parents of local dancers like the fact that their children can work next to professional artists, said Suzanne Drace, member and former president of the Channel Islands Ballet board of directors.

“Parents cited time and time again the exposure to professional dancers, and the ability for their children to train alongside professional dancers, as very inspirational,” she said.

Much of the company’s progress can be tied to De Bouteiller, a French-born choreographer and former artistic director of Ballet Wisconsin.

For its first 16 years, Channel Islands Ballet was affiliated with various dance schools, whose students would perform the annual “Nutcracker” production.

But in 1998, the company’s 13-member board commissioned De Bouteiller to do the choreography, and he brought eight professional dancers with him from Ballet Wisconsin for the weeklong stint.

The following year, the Wisconsin dancers returned to perform “The Nutcracker” and a spring production as well. Finally, last year, De Bouteiller agreed to relocate. Dancers from established troupes across the country soon followed.

The company opened its latest season with seven professional dancers and three apprentices. Some come from as close as Malibu, others are from Austria, Venezuela, Italy and Latvia. They have danced with companies that include the Joffrey Ballet, the New York City Ballet and Ballet Internationale in Indianapolis.

Over the last year the company has taken shape. The organization rented 400,000 square feet for a permanent dance studio at Cal State University’s Channel Islands campus in Camarillo. A special floor was installed this year to ease the wear on the dancers’ bodies as they rehearse six to eight hours each day.

The first general manager was hired two weeks ago, and the operating budget has jumped from $120,000 in 1998 to $385,000 this year, as the company tries to attract more experienced dancers. On average, a dancer earns $600 a week for the 30-week season.

Next year the company hopes to begin touring.

“There comes a point in the life of a dancer when it doesn’t matter the name of a company, it’s the artistic direction that counts,” said Harald Uwe Kern, an Austrian native who has danced with the Joffrey Ballet, as well as companies in Vienna and Switzerland. Last year, he left his position as a principal dancer at Ballet Internationale to join De Bouteiller.

Latvian-born Erlands Zieminch, a former New York City Ballet dancer, joined Channel Islands Ballet this summer along with his partner, Sara Viale of Italy. Most recently, both danced with Ballet Internationale.

“If I wanted to be in a big company and do the same thing every year, I could have stayed in New York,” Zieminch said. “But it’s about artistic direction and growth. Everyone wants to put something of himself into the work.”

Channel Islands Ballet will conclude its first performance of the season at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza at 7:30 p.m. today and 2:30 p.m. Sunday, performing “Pas de Six de la Vivandiere,” “The Firebird” and the world premiere of “Sacred Light in Dark Secret.”