P ainting the Town Silver:

A RetrospectiveSETTING THE STAGE Ballet and Portland go way back. In 1932, during the Great Depression, Bill Christensen arrived in Port-land. Small schools of dance had been established a decade earlier, but ballet had not yet emerged as a prominent art form. According to Carol Shults and Martha Ullman West’s article on the development of ballet in Portland, “Dancin’ in the Rain,” within just two years of his arrival, Christensen had formed Repertory Ballet School and brought ballet into greater focus in the public eye at the Rose Festival. However, it was not until 1954 that former dancers Jacqueline Martin Schumacher (of Repertory Ballet School) and Nicholas Vasilieff founded Portland Ballet Society. Fast forward to 1989, a new chapter on the Portland art scene. Two companies, Ballet Oregon and Pacific Ballet Theatre (from Portland Ballet Society), vied for the same audience. Seeing the advantages of combining forces, they merged and Oregon Ballet Theatre (OBT) was born, with James Canfield at the helm as Artistic Director. Carol Shults [Former Dance Historian and Instructor] Linda Besant [Dance Historian and Archivist], Niel DePonte [Music Director and Conductor] and Kasandra Gruener [Director of Education Outreach] have dedi-cated their talents and energy to OBT for years and have witnessed its evolution over time. Recently, I chatted with them about OBT’s first 25 years, and presented here are excerpts from our conversations.

By Samantha Edington

OBT shines in the Portland community as it leaps into its 25th year.

ON BALLET IN PORTLAND CAROL SHULTS: It’s a part of the cultural heritage of our community. We go back all the way into the ’30s with the Christensen brothers coming here. Mothers brought their sewing machines in and made the costumes right there. Everybody contributed—in every way they could—which was usually not money; it was [with] time and skills. So, I think there is still that very personal sense, that “it’s my ballet company.”

LINDA BESANT: Every city that matures to a certain level of culture deserves a classical dance company because it just taps into some of the finest expression for western civilization. We need a district where young visual artists can express themselves. In the dance world, OBT is one com-ponent of creating a full dance culture. It’s very symbiotic, I think. One

way in which the company has served Portland understanding ballet is by having this really high-standard school here. I know both James [Canfield] and Christopher [Stowell] wanted very much for the public to understand that these are athlete artists capable of feats of athleticism beyond anybody’s imagination, but also capable of artistry. That wedding of music and athleti-cism and artistry, for me, just goes in deeper than any other art form.

NIEL DePONTE: Nobody is spoiled by having too much money for the arts in Portland. There is never going to be a lackadaisical attitude that you don’t have to try or work hard to make money. I think people are in it for the art. That should be a source of civic pride, and people should recognize that they should be proud about what we are able to do here in Portland. It’s quite remarkable in my view, and it always has been the 25 years I’ve been here.

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KASANDRA GRUENER: I think Portland has a vibrancy that can support dance. It has kind of a fresh look at things, and a company like Oregon Ballet Theatre has the opportunity to capitalize on that, to work with that—fresh, trying new things, to be strong, to be bold, to be adventurous.

ON OUTREACHCS: In the lectures before each performance [Performance Perspectives] we would always have guests, they still do, with a choreogra-pher, a designer; somebody comes and talks about the problems of it and some of the

details. It is just a quantum leap that people make when they get into [the performance]. And [they] love it so much—having a notion of the artist’s intention. Dance art, music art, whatever it is, to have a notion of where they’re coming from. It’s so helpful. And we’re all al-lowed as the audience to interpret however we like, but we can do that better when we have some information. I don’t think it constrains you; I think it frees you.

LB: We’ve always worked on breaking the wall and opening people’s experiences so that

they would be here for the beauty and wonder of this. James Canfield had the idea of OBT Exposed in 1995, where we work in the park during the summer, and that’s a huge deal. He also had the idea to build this studio with a glass wall so that people could sit out here and watch. OBT performed in Pioneer Square during a program called ArtQuake [1994], which was an end-of-summer arts festival that went up and down the town. There were about 13,000 people crammed in there, and they did a ballet called Neon Glass. People really saw [contem-

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RETROSPECTIVE

porary] ballet; that opened it up. And then when Christopher Stowell’s Swan Lake pre-miered in 1996, huge audiences came, and that opened people’s eyes to the beauty of classical ballet.

ND: I think once you have the experience, you can find very easily that you love it—whether you love the movement on stage, the beauty of the movement, the beauty of the dancers, the beauty of the music or the beauty of all those things working together. There’s a special affinity, I think, for the big story ballets: the ballets like Giselle, the

Tchaikovsky ballets—Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty or Swan Lake.

KG: Last year we worked with about 7,000 children. They had an opportunity to try it out [dance], to observe dance, to question it, wonder about it. That idea of getting people thinking about dance creates an op-portunity for changing the viewpoint about it. I think we open the eyes of one individual at a time, and Oregon Ballet Theatre across these many years [has used] distinctive cho-reographic approaches, distinctive work that has been shown for the public.

ON OBT AESTHETIC AND CHARACTER CS: There were wonderful things in the early years: wonderful performances, great artists pouring their hearts out on stage and reaching the audience. In 25 years, we have had many generations of dancers. Canfield’s Nutcracker is something that was my probably my favor-ite project I was ever involved in. It took you to a dream world. It did that; it did a beauti-ful job of that. Then when Christopher came in, Giselle stands out; and the Balanchine that he brought stands out to me. We did Emeralds during his tenure and that takes me to Heaven. It even then had an organic feel because we had some [Balanchine] from the very beginning.

LB: James took classically trained dancers, and they [both artistic directors] also all had a be-lief that it was important to keep the classics alive—The Nutcracker, Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake—a solid foundation, and that it was im-portant to keep alive the important works of the 1900s. But they also really [saw] the im-portance of using classical dancers to create contemporary art. Niel would say that, in the part of programming that had to do with con-temporary art, James’ particular calling was to either create himself or to bring in choreogra-phers that express the angst of our time using classical dancers. Christopher had a real gift in telling the classical stories in a way that is fresh and engaging for the entire three hours for con-temporary audiences.

ND: I know that James Canfield wanted to be a bit more cutting edge and wanted to do rock and roll music with dance, and more con-temporary popular music and dance. I think Christopher Stowell was more of a classicist. He really enjoyed interesting 20th-century music, but not music that was too edgy. I think the musical offerings of the ballet are many and var-ied. Everyone on board is striving to create the highest art that we possibly can, given whatever financial restraints there may be.

KG: As a company, we have always respond[ed] to changes in the economy while maintain-ing the aesthetic that’s driving at that point in time. And that has changed over time. In the beginning years it was more of a wilder scene versus in the middle years, when it was more neoclassical ballet. It is a company that is con-stantly chang[ing]…. The dancers are always striving to be at the highest level of skills and highest level of production values.... I defi-nitely feel those have been the positive forces that that have been holding the company all these years.