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ARB presents:
Magic, Mischief, Mayhem
...and Love
A Midsummer Night's Dream
"This is a choreographer who knows how to tell a story" --Anne Levin, The Times
Photo: Eduardo Patino
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| Greetings! |
The American Repertory Ballet and ARB's Princeton Ballet School have a busy March: The company is busy preparing A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Kirk Peterson's Roses and Clover for their performance at Raritan Valley Community College on March 20th. Thanks to everyone who came out to the In-Studio Sneak Peek on Feb. 27th! Click HERE for tickets. Graham Lustig and Bat Abbit are both creating new works for the 25th Annual Gala & Performance on March 27th.
The Gala is ARB's most important fundraising event, and this year will take on even greater significance and necessity. As you may have heard, The Board of Trustees of the American Repertory Ballet and ARB's Princeton Ballet School recently announced that the Gala will prematurely close ARB's 2009-2010 season. The announcement follows a difficult year for the organization financially in the wake of the economic downturn and significant decline of contributed income and ticket sales.
The Board is committed to restructuring the organization and preserving
the Company, the School and Outreach activities, ensuring that ARB's
56-year legacy of dance education and performance continues to thrive
in the coming season and beyond.ARB's Princeton Ballet School, the official school of the American Repertory Ballet, and ARB's extensive educational programming, including its acclaimed DANCE POWER program, will be minimally impacted by the cancellations - the School Production of The Sleeping Beauty and DANCE POWER's Waiting-in-the-Wings Performances will be performed as scheduled.
The Dance with the Dancers Gala will be vital to ensuring the future success of the organization and will help soften the financial impact of the shortened season for the dancers.Can't make the Gala? You can still help by bidding on an item in this year's online auction which is now live! Some exciting auction items include walk-on roles in Graham Lustig's The Nutcracker and a weekend spa getaway in Boca Raton. Items will continue to be added, so check back regularly. Click HERE to place your bids and click HERE to purchase tickets for the Gala and Performance. Below, I sit down with our two Gala honorees and Peggy Petteway and Kristin Scott (if you missed my profiles on the two other honorees, Bat Abbit and Jennifer Cavanaugh, go to our Newletter Archive site).
PBS students are beginning to gear up for this year's school show of The Sleeping Beauty, and School Director, Mary Pat Robertson just returned from a weekend in NYC where she was one of 20 school directors invited as a guest of the School of American Ballet (the official ballet school of the New York City Ballet). It provided a great opportunity for her to meet and compare notes with other leaders in ballet school instruction.
Read on for more...
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2010 ARB Events Calendar -- Save the Dates!
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 March 19, 2010 - 11:00am
Dance Alive - Ballet Rocks!
an Educational Matinee for children K - 5th Grade
Raritan Valley Community College
Tickets: $7 and $10, Call: 908.725.3420
Abbit's Jump Frog Jump! from ARB's Education and Outreach Program. Photo by Eduardo Patino
March 20, 2010 - 8:00pm
Graham Lustig's A Midsummer Night's Dream and Kirk Peterson's Roses and Clover
Raritan Valley Community College
Tickets: $25 and $30, Call: 908.725.3420 or visit: www.rvccarts.orgMarch 27, 2010 - 7:00pm
Dance with the Dancers: ARB's 25th Annual Gala & Performance
featuring highlights from the company's repertory and appearances by ARB's Princeton Ballet School and DANCE POWER students
Patriot's Theater at the War Memorial, Trenton, NJ
Get your tickets now!April 26, 2010
Waiting-in-the-Wings: DANCE POWER's Culminating Performance
New Brunswick High School, New Brunswick, NJ
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| ARB's Princeton Ballet Presents... |
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May 8, 2010 00pm and 7:00pm
Patriots Theater at the War Memorial
Trenton, NJ
Tickets will be available through ARB's Princeton Ballet School to the parents of students in the show beginning March 21. Tickets go on sale to the general public beginning April 12. Check our website on March 19 for details.
Pictured above: ARB's Princeton Ballet School's 2007 production of The Sleeping Beauty with PBS alums Samantha Gullace (now a trainee with the Joffrey Ballet) as the Lilac Fairy; Meagan Salvadore and Rachel Schatz (apprentices with ARB); Erin Keegan (a trainee at Miami City Ballet) and Angelica Generosa (on merit scholarship at the School of American Ballet)
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Miss a Newsletter?
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Visit our
Newsletter Archive
to view past newsletters and sign up for our mailing list
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Register Now for Summer Intensive
Juniors and Intermediates
June 28th-July 30th
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 Photo by Diane Bladecki
ARB's Princeton Ballet School's Summer Intensive Juniors (for dancers ages 9+)
And Summer Intensive Intermediates (for dancers ages 11-14) offers a summer of fun and focused study. Register for one week or for all five weeks!
Call: 609.921.7758 or visit
www.arballet.org
for more information
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From the Archives
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Catherine Biewener, Linda Edwards, Bebe Neuwirth and Penny Kingan in Corelli Concerto.
Bebe Neuwirth will be starring in The Addams Family Musical opposite Nathan Lane. Previews start this month.
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| Online Auction |
Help support ARB by bidding on our great auction items such as Walk on Performance Roles, Weekend spa Get-a-ways, and much much more...
Click HERE to go to the Auction Home Page.
Don't forget to bookmark the page, and go back to see updates and keep track of who's got the winning bid! | |
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Spotlight on Peggy Petteway and Kristin Scott
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This month I sat down with Peggy Petteway and Kristin Scott, two of the honorees at ARB's 25th Annual Gala and Performance on March 27th. 
Peggy Petteway, a dancer known for her artistry and nuanced interpretations of dramatic roles, was instantly humble, "I feel a little weird about this whole gala thing, being honored and all..." But for anyone who has seen her perform, her modesty is unwarranted.
For Petteway, like many young dancers, dance was love at first sight. After attending a production of Coppélia, she knew she wanted to be on stage. So, she started diligently taking classes near her home in Orlando, Florida, then continued her studies while in college at Florida State.
Pictured: Peggy Petteway Photo: Valerie Ford
Petteway powered through her studies and graduated summa cum laude in three years. Her prodigious talent was immediately noticed, and she started her professional career straight out of school. She joined a company in Tampa then returned to Orlando where she joined Southern Ballet Theatre (now Orlando Ballet). She spent some time dancing with North Carolina Dance Theater, where she overlapped with fellow ARB company members Bat Abbit and Jennifer Cavanaugh, then relocated to the northeast to dance with the prestigious Pennsylvania Ballet Company.
Still, Petteway didn't feel at home in a dance company until she was introduced to Graham Lustig and the American Repertory Ballet through Pennsylvania Ballet's Maiqui Mañosa. She joined ARB in August 1999 and has built her career here "because it has been such a good fit." "The kind of artist Graham attracts," she explains, "means that the company is built to be a true company of artists, not a collection of individuals. We're all working towards the same goal and are supportive of each other. It's an environment that inspires and allows you, as an artist, to take risks."
Though Petteway glows on stage, she admits that her favorite part of being a professional dancer is the rehearsal process. She loves the exploration involved in making new works, interpreting roles and discovering characters, as she is now doing with the role of Hermia in Lustig's A Midsummer Night's Dream, which the company will be performing March 20th at the Raritan Valley Community College Theatre.
"I especially love working with Graham on his story ballets. The way he tells a story, the way he elicits performance qualities from his dancers...it's just an amazing thing to experience. He absolutely embodies each and every role. He has a way of being specific and engaging in his direction without being rigid. It allows us, as dancers, to understand our intentions, then really dig deeply into the characters and make them real."
The way Lustig directs his dancers has taught Petteway a lot about how to work with and teach others, which she does as a faculty member of ARB's Princeton Ballet School. She enjoys channeling Lustig's directing style when she instructs children and shows them how to embody a role. Petteway teaches ballet technique at the School throughout the year and at the School's acclaimed Summer Intensive program. She also serves as the children's rehearsal director for company works that involve the School's students.
Though the company has no hierarchy per se (one of the things that Petteway truly appreciates), she has been featured in many ballets during her time at ARB. Some of her favorite pieces over the last eleven years include Val Caniparoli's Lambarena, Dominique Dumais's -a part between parts-, and Lustig's Shrew. "Oh, Graham's Shrew is so much fun," she gushes.
But, she holds a special place in her heart for Kirk Peterson's Eyes that Gently Touch. It was during the setting of this piece in 1999 that she and former company member Sean Mahoney were first paired as dancing partners. Both were also, at the time, commuting from Pennsylvania. So they began carpooling, and the rest, as they say, is history. Petteway and Mahoney married in 2001, and though Sean left the company soon thereafter, the two reunite from time to time to perform. They came together to perform at last year's Gala to honor Lustig, and this year, Mahoney used his break with the Paul Taylor Dance Company to partner Petteway in Lustig's Nutcracker at the Patriots Theatre at the War Memorial in the Arabian pas de deux. "It was actually less romantic than it seemed," Petteway confides. "While we originated the role together, we hadn't done it in about ten years...and I've had many (dancing) partners since him. The dance has evolved, so we had to rediscover it together again."
Pictured: Petteway and Mahoney in this year's Nutcracker. Photo: Leighton Chen
Many dancers have superstitions and pre-performance rituals, but Peggy is infamous amongst the ARB dancers for being quite committed to hers. When I asked her about this, she got very serious. "You can't put shoes on the table or play music in the dressing room...it's bad luck." She also brings an arsenal of meaningful items to her dressing room for each performance. Whatever she is doing, it seems to be working -- her stage presence is magnetic. In her honor, Lustig has created a new work, where Petteway will be partnered by six company men, for the Gala performance.
 Kristin Scott, a Fort Wayne, Indiana native, found her way into dance via gymnastics, originally enrolling in ballet at the age of eight to help improve her gracefulness in the sport. Because her gymnastics training had given her a solid technical background, her dance teachers immediately saw promise and gave her a good part in The Nutcracker -- which is when she fell for performing. In fact, within a few years, Scott had given up gymnastics to focus on dance.
Pictured: Kristin Scott Photo by: Valerie Ford
"I never set out to be a professional dancer," she explains, "but I never wanted to give it up, so I kept dancing." Scott went to college at Indiana University, studied art therapy and focused on her ballet training. After graduating, she auditioned for ARB, after having spent a summer as a merit scholarship student at ARB's Princeton Ballet School Summer Intensive, and became a trainee in 2000. As a trainee, she knew she had to prove herself -- which she did. Lustig was duly impressed by her power and energy and promoted her to full company member the following year. "I love the repertory this company performs. It's such a great mix. And we've had some amazing performance opportunities - like the run at the Joyce (Theater in New York)."
Like Petteway, Scott relishes the collaborative process of creating new work. "There's nothing better than having a piece made for you," which Dominique Dumais did for Scott in - a part between parts -, "it's a challenging but rewarding experience." Like any dancer, Scott's career has not been without a few bumps. In 2004, she tore a major ligament in her knee while leaping over her partner's head, and in 2009, it happened again, causing her to miss last season's Nutcracker run. But Scott continues to bounce back stronger and with more maturity as a performer each time, and we look forward to her return this season as she takes on the humorous character, Helena, in Lustig's Midsummer Night's Dream. For the Gala, Scott will perform the romantic pas de deux from Lustig's Cinderella, a favorite role of hers which she first performed in 2006.
 In addition to her time with the company, Scott has devoted her energies to humanitarian efforts in the community. Most notably, she produces dance performances to support the aid work she does in Africa. "It started from my desire to use my talent to help others, and to inspire others to do the same." In 2007, she planned to spend seven-weeks of her summer break from the company to go to Nairobi with the International Global Volunteer Network. To help fund her trip, she organized fellow ARB dancers to do an independent project. In two weeks they put together a performance that included 7 new pieces and raised $6000, which was used to pay for mattresses, teachers' salaries, firewood, school supplies and medical bills in Kenya. "It was a great opportunity for emerging choreographers to work out their ideas, and it was for a good cause," explains Scott. With Lustig's blessing, she has continued to produce these fundraising concerts in collaboration with her fellow ARB dancers, and each year her efforts raise more money and go to more directed projects in Africa. Recently, she has focused her efforts on providing clean water to communities and has helped build two new water wells. To learn more about Scott's efforts, visit her COME UNITY site.
Pictured: Scott with some students at 'The Center' in Ongata-Rongai, Kenya in 2009. 'The Center' is a day program for orphans and vulnerable children, many who have been affected by the HIV/AIDS crisis.
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Sincerely,
Christine Chen Marketing Director and Newsletter Editor |
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