American Ballet Theatre’s Studio Company made its Sedona debut at the Sedona Performing Arts Center on Wednesday, March 15, to a loud and enthusiastic reception by a packed house.

The performance also marked Sedona Ballet’s return to the stage for the first time since its 2019 presentation of “The Nutcracker.”

First Positions

“We started talking with ABT 10 years ago, and they wanted to come to Sedona then,” Winifred Muench, the founder and chairwoman of Sedona Ballet, said. At that time, she had just founded the nonprofit, initially known as Sedona Chamber Ballet, and they did not yet have the resources to bring the country’s foremost classical dance company to the red rocks.

ABT was persistent. They kept reaching out to Muench every few years, exploring the possibility of a Sedona show. Last July, they called again to let Muench know that the Studio Company, composed of ABT’s most promising young dancers, would be performing in Albuquerque, N.M., on a tour of the Southwest. ABT wanted to know if Sedona could fit them in. Muench decided to make it happen.

“I had to write a grant overnight,” Muench laughed, recalling that she was up until 5 a.m. doing the paperwork for an Arizona Community Foundation grant. ACF came through and provided $15,000 to support the visit. Mary Byrd, chairwoman emeritus of the Fine Art Museum of Sedona, donated another $5,000. Other donors stepped up to contribute as well.

“It just worked out this year,” Muench said. “This is such a gift. We got the money and that gave me the courage.”

By September, Sedona Ballet and ABT were in detailed talks about the visit. That was when Muench discovered that maintenance at SPAC had fallen behind during the COVID-19 pandemic, which presented additional difficulties.

“The high school doesn’t have a curtain anymore,” Muench said. “It’s been quite a challenge.”

SPAC is generally well-suited to ballet performances, she said, but “the main issue is it doesn’t have a sprung floor.”

Ballet Arizona loaned Sedona Ballet a new curtain and a portable sprung floor for the occasion. Muench credited Bonny Singer, who danced with the New York City Ballet under George Balanchine for a decade and now lives in Sedona, with ensuring that the stage at SPAC was built with Marley non-slip dance flooring, simplifying the conversion.

“The biggest problem is we don’t have crew,” Muench added. She did much of the setup for the performance herself, with the aid of a couple of students from Verde Valley School and a large number of volunteers from Sedona’s senior community.

A week before the performance, Sedona Ballet had sold 267 tickets for the show. By opening night, that number had risen to about 450.

Not only was turnout strong, with SPAC more crowded than at any recent event other than the opening night of the Sedona International Film Festival, the audience was also one of the youngest to be found at an arts event in Sedona.

“The Sedona Dance Project really got the youth out,” Muench commented.

Opening Acts

The evening’ s program opened with the “Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux,” with music originally composed by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky for choreography by Marius Petipa. The score was lost for decades before being rediscovered and later re-choreographed by Balanchine.

A slow beginning with strong lifts and emphasis on the ballerina evolved into a series of alternating solos by both of the dancers. Siegfried, danced by Takumi Miyake, seemed liberated by the change, soaring around the stage in a series of grands jetes. Odile, danced by Sylvie Squires, also appeared to prefer flying solo, if not quite as high as her partner.

From the pas de deux, the program made a rapid pace change to a short solo piece, the “Tatum Pole Boogie,” set to a jazz score by pianist Art Tatum. Performed by Brady Farrar, it was frisking and exuberant, fusing classical technique with modern style. Farrar was clearly enjoying himself and carried the audience along with his enthusiasm, with applause on the edge of breaking out the entire time.

Next, Finnian Carmeci and Kyra Coco took the stage in the pas de deux from Kenneth MacMillan’s “Concerto.” In a contrast to Farrar’s energy, the pas offered a deliberate, compelling grace in which color complemented movement as the orange-clad dancers remained poised before a backdrop of a sherbet sunset, forming portrait silhouettes.

The MacMillan composition gave way to “The Go-Between,” a new work choreographed by ABT company member Gemma Bond to a set of five keyboard sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti. It opened with a solo entrance by a ballerina on pointe, who was then joined by four of her fellows to begin awakening the four prone danseurs. As the tempo picked up in the second movement, the action became more lively. Playful, acrobatic and calisthenic, it conveyed an impression of interpersonal relationships being conducted through interpretive dance, with a 1930s feel in spite of the Scarlatti accompaniment. The piece also proved to be an excellent showcase for the rhythm and coordination of the Studio Company dancers.

Dancing on the Edge

Intermission was followed by another new work, “Knife’s Edge,” created by Houston Thomas for the Studio Company. This piece had no score in the conventional sense. Instead, the choreography was accompanied by drums, taps, cracks and other percussive sound effects. Speed, power and precision were its visual hallmarks, and the dancers’ gestures echoed and paired the sounds they accompanied, introducing an element of voguing into the ballet. Male and female dancers wore nearly identical costumes, with the emphasis being on form rather than formality.

Four dancers yielded to three, then two, then a series of solos, which were in turn succeeded by a rush of dynamic darts across the stage. Each section of the dance was separated by an interlude of subdued lighting, during which the dancers made silhouettes against the backdrop, and the composition ended with a single figure outlined against the light.

From 2023, the company dropped back to 1898 as Vince Pelegrin and Ayami Goto performed a brief excerpt from Petipa’s “Raymonda,” which was classically elegant and full of pointe work, then quickly returned to the present for Aleisha Walker’s “Do You Care?” The latter impressed the audience more with the athleticism of Alejandro Valera Outlaw’s performance than with its choreography, which made reference to puppetry and mime.

The program concluded with Hope Boykin’s “…if it ain’t BA-ROQUE,” set to a trio of vocal pieces composed by Agostino Steffani, George Frederic Handel and Antonio Vivaldi and sung by Cecilia Bartoli. Here the choreography did not exhibit a strong connection with the music; the music seemed to be more an excuse for the six dancers to play than a driving force behind their performance. The union between movement and music improved in the final section, which was performed to Bartoli’s famous rendition of the Vivaldi aria “Agitata da due venti” and allowed the dancers room for humor. Farrar and Carmeci delivered strong, crowd-pleasing solos, with Farrar again provoking laughter with his frolics.

Encore

With the success of the ABT visit behind her, Muench is now hoping to arrange for a guest performance by Ballet Arizona next spring.

“We are going to continue to bring this level of excellence once or twice a year,” Muench said. “The companies want to come here. They told me last night they want to come back.” There is also the possibility that ABT will collaborate with Sedona Ballet on a choreography workshop, which will give local dance fans the chance to see their creative process in action.

“Sedona is a city that is mildly amused by the arts,” Muench added. “I want it to be a city that really is animated by the arts.”