The following are only a few of the guest artists who have visited Skidmore College multiple times: Mme. Kirsten Simone, former prima ballerina of the Royal Danish Ballet, taught the unique style of Denmark’s August Bournonville and staged several of his ballets. Robert Battle, artistic director of the Alvin Ailey American Dance Company, has staged several of his own pieces for the modern dancers. From India, Shila Mehta, master Kathak dancer and teacher, has enhanced the training of the classical Indian dance students. Two renowned teachers came to campus for one weekend of master classes. In 1993, Savion Glover was obliged to teach his tap master classes in the gym to accommodate the number of dancers. The great jazz teacher Luigi taught dynamic master classes in 2002.
In 1996, the Skidmore Department of Dance began hosting companies in residence during the academic year. This initiative was led by Mary DiSanto-Rose, with financial assistance from the New York State Council on the Arts. The artists stayed on campus for several weeks during the winter break when they could focus on creating new work. Once classes resumed, guests taught technique and choreography classes, gave public performances and presented lecture demonstrations in area schools.
Skidmore dancers had the opportunity to perform with some of the visiting companies. Students appeared with the Pearson/Widrig Dance Theater in their homage to hurricane victims Katrina, Katrina: Love Letters to New Orleans. They also performed with David Gordon’s Pick Up Performance Company in Uncivil Wars, Collaborating with Brecht and Eisler. In 2011, Skidmore dancers joined with the José Limón Dance Company to perform in José Limón’s signature works Missa Brevis and There Is a Time.
DANCE PERFORMANCES
The performances of the Skidmore College Department of Dance are well known for the quality of the dancers and the choreography. Members of the Skidmore College community and regional dance fans regularly attend these sold-out performances in the Skidmore Dance Theater.
The major Winter and Spring Dance Concerts feature a representative array of faculty and guest artist works. The programs showcase either pieces of original choreography or staged classics in modern dance and ballet.
In addition to the works presented by the dance faculty, the modern dancers have performed classics from the Martha Graham and José Limón repertoire and pieces by current guest choreographers such as Robert Battle and Brian Brooks. Ballet dancers have appeared in original works by guests Dwight Rhoden, Peter Pucci and others and have performed excerpts from many of the great nineteenth-century ballets.
There are also informal demonstrations of the work accomplished in a variety of other classes, such as the showings of the classical Indian dance class and the site-specific events of the improvisation classes.
The Senior Dance Capstone course culminates with a series of fully produced performances. In this course, the senior dance majors choose to either choreograph a substantial original work for their peers or to perform a solo choreographed by a contemporary choreographer. Some of the choreographers who have allowed their work to be shown in this course are Lar Lubovich, Kraig Patterson, Leah Cox and Camille A. Brown.
There are two additional venues on campus that allow dance ever-expanding opportunities to collaborate with other artists: the Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery and the Helen Filene Ladd Concert Hall located in the Arthur Zankel Music Center.
The Tang opened in 2000 and has become a popular venue for both students and faculty to create site-specific dance events. For the museum’s grand opening celebration, pianist and former Skidmore College president David Porter and choreographers Mary DiSanto-Rose and Debra Fernandez presented A Cage/Satie Tang-O. The artwork of visiting artist Charles Martin and Skidmore’s Margo Mensing was featured along with this performance.
Debra Fernandez has since established a strong connection with the Tang through her successful collaborative projects with several of the Tang’s featured artists. For the 2002 installation “Elevatious Transcedualistic,” by artist Paul Henry Ramirez, she created Balls, a dance inspired by the color and movement of the artwork. Ms. Fernandez’s piece Mak3 premiered in 2004. A fascinating work, Mak3 embodied the Tang’s exhibit, “A Very Liquid Heaven,” by Skidmore physics professor Mary Crone Odekon and artist Margo Mensing. The 2007 work Partying was an avant-garde dance theater piece with dancers in business suits leading the audience throughout the museum as the choreography unfolded. Designer and artist Kim Vanyo created costumes that were inspired by the art exhibits for all of these projects.23
The Arthur Zankel Music Center opened in 2010. This award winning concert facility includes a stage with a sprung floor for dance performances and a full-size orchestra pit. A venue of this professional calibre has greatly enhanced the performing and collaborative possibilities for dance, particularly the opportunity for dancers and musicians to perform together.
Both modern dance and ballet have been well represented on the Zankel stage. The first music and dance event was a performance of two pieces by composer Richard Danielpour, who was the 2010 McCormack Visiting Artist-Scholar in Residence. Choreographer Rubén Graciani presented A Swing and a Miss to solo piano, and Debra Fernandez premiered Swan Song accompanied by the Hyperion String Quartet. During the fall of 2012, the chamber ensemble ACJW presented Igor Stravinsky’s narrated drama L’Histoire du Soldat with choreography by Rubén Graciani.
Later that spring, David Porter and Debra Fernandez reunited for an evening of music by John Cage. Artist Margo Mensing and student Brendan Gaffney (2012) created an interactive sound installation throughout the lobby. Keeping Company with Cage featured Porter at the prepared piano and Debra Fernandez’s choreography for a sophisticated cast of dancers with projected video.
Denise Warner Limoli and conductor Anthony Holland collaborated in 2011 on the first classical ballet produced on the Zankel stage with the full Skidmore Orchestra. Swan Lake, Act II was performed by a cast of fifty Skidmore dancers and the sixty-eight-member orchestra.
In April 2013, Professors Warner Limoli and Holland presented An Evening with the Ballets Russes. This program featured three ballets from the company’s historic repertoire: Les Sylphides, L’Apres Midi d’un Faune and Firebird. Dozens of dancers, a full symphony orchestra, a grand piano, costumes and scenery all came together in an elaborate production that celebrated the Zankel and the artistic collaboration among Skidmore’s dancers, musicians and designers.
SKIDMORE DANCERS ON TOUR
Rubén Graciani has been filming small groups of his dancers at various outdoor locations. His first dance for film, Rapture, was a duet shot on a lakeside dock and inside an apartment. The duet Complete This Work Which We Began was filmed in a quarry in Schuylerville, and Terra Arcana took place in the woods and waters of Lake George. The films challenge viewers to see the possibilities of dance in any location, not just on the stage.24
As the reputation of Skidmore’s Dance Department grows, the opportunities for dancers to perform off campus have increased. Mary DiSanto-Rose has cultivated a close relationship between Skidmore’s dancers and Jeanne Bresciani’s Isadora Duncan International Institute. Skidmore dancers have performed and traveled with Ms. Bresciani many times. In 2004 and 2009, Mary DiSanto-Rose and her students accompanied Jeanne Bresciani to Greece, where they studied and performed Duncan’s dances in Athens and among the temple ruins of Delphi. The Skidmore Duncan Dancers have also performed in New York City at the 92nd Street Y and at the Kaatsbaan International Dance Center in Tivoli, New York.25
Three Graces choreography by Isadora Duncan. Photo by Greg Carey.
Afloat Below the Surface choreography by Rubén Graciani. Photo by Steve J. Nealey.
In 2012, Skidmore dancers had the distinct honor of participating in the University Partners Showcase, a festival sponsored by the Martha Graham Dance Company at the Joyce Theater in New York City. Skidmore dancers performed “Steps in the Street” from Chronicle, Graham’s 1936 commentary on war. Mary Harney worked with representatives of the Martha Graham Dance Compa
ny and facilitated this prestigious opportunity.
Rubén Graciani took two Skidmore dancers to New York City to debut his new company, RG Dance Project, and showcase his duet Afloat Below the Surface at the Dance/NYC Raw Materials festival at New York University Tisch School for the Arts. They also performed at the Dance Now NYC festival at Joe’s Pub, where Afloat Below the Surface was voted audience favorite.
In 2012, the entire Spring Dance Concert was performed at Kaatsbaan International Dance Center. This program featured a large cast and included five diverse works by Duncan, Graham, Petipa and Skidmore faculty.
The Skidmore College Department of Dance continues to attract talented students and excellent faculty. Under the leadership of Isabel Brown, Mary DiSanto-Rose and Debra Fernandez, the current chair of dance, this small department in a liberal arts college has grown to national recognition. Skidmore College Department of Dance was recently identified as one of the top five dance schools in the country.26
Chapter 3
SARATOGA PERFORMING ARTS CENTER AND THE NEW YORK CITY BALLET COME TO TOWN
“HOW TO SUCCEED BY REALLY TRYING”27
Saratoga Springs had lost its luster by the 1950s. The city’s influential families and state and civic leaders agreed that something had to be done to reenergize the Capital District. In his editorials, Duane LaFleche of Albany’s Knickerbocker News suggested that bringing the performing arts to the region would attract tourism and rejuvenate the area.
The concept of building a center for the arts upstate was discussed. Several states had already built outdoor amphitheaters for their orchestras, such as Ravinia in Illinois, Tanglewood in Massachusetts and Aspen Music Festival in Colorado. An ideal location for New York’s amphitheater was identified in the State Reservation in Saratoga Springs.
The Saratoga Springs Committee was formed to begin planning this immense project. Inspired by members of the committee, notable racing patrons who made Saratoga their summer home hosted glamorous fundraising parties to spread the word and to generate excitement. Several Thoroughbred horse owners donated stud fees. Local citizens, waiters, teachers, shopkeepers and schoolchildren made small donations so they could be part of this venture. These combined efforts generated a sufficient initial sum to encourage Governor Nelson Rockefeller to release state monies. He was also able to secure additional funding from the Rockefeller family.28
The chairman of the Saratoga Springs Committee and first director of the Performing Arts Center, Inc., Newman E. Wait later had this to say about the enthusiasm of the people of Saratoga Springs:
As Chairman of the local committee, I am very proud to say that Saratoga residents have already pledged over a quarter-million dollars toward the construction of the Center. This is the best kind of evidence I know to indicate our belief and interest in this cultural venture. I want to thank everyone for their contributions, however great or small.29
The planning committee was responsible for choosing the architectural and construction firms, as well as the performers who would be in residence in the new arts center. One of the early planners from Saratoga Springs was Mr. Robert McKelvey, who worked for the New York State Commerce Department. McKelvey was a self-described balletomane and suggested adding ballet to the programming. He introduced the members of the planning committee to George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein of the New York City Ballet. Initially, the New York Philharmonic was invited to be the resident orchestra, but that orchestra declined. However, Maestro Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra accepted. The decision was soon made that the New York City Ballet and the Philadelphia Orchestra would be the two resident companies of the new eight-week arts festival in Saratoga Springs.
During the design process, Mr. Balanchine, Mr. Kirstein and Maestro Ormandy advised the architects from Vollmer Associates on the requirements for the stage and rehearsal facilities and for the auditorium’s acoustics. Groundbreaking began in June 1964, with Governor Nelson Rockefeller driving the tractor. One year later, the L.A. Swyer Construction Company began work building the impressive amphitheater and surrounding buildings.
The first executive director of the Saratoga Performing Arts Center was Richard P. Leach. He had previously established the Aspen Music Festival and had served as program director for Lincoln Center in New York City. Richard Leach was being considered for the executive directorship of the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., but he chose to accept the offer from Saratoga Springs. The founding committee had succeeded in securing three world-class partners for the new Saratoga Performing Arts Center: the Philadelphia Orchestra, the New York City Ballet and Mr. Richard Leach.30 In his speech during the groundbreaking ceremonies, Mr. Leach said:
I believe that in the long run this beautiful building will be justified only by the performances which take place in it. We are extremely proud of the performers who have agreed to take part in the first annual Saratoga Festival. The Philadelphia Orchestra and the New York City Ballet rank high among the great performing organizations, not merely of this country, but of the world.31
From the podium, Governor Nelson Rockefeller, who was a great supporter of the arts, was moved to say:
I can’t help but be impressed and feel strongly that in America, the things that are done, the things that are good, that are exciting, that are wonderful come from the individual creativity and responsibility of free citizens. I don’t think I have been on a platform with as many men and women who have contributed so much to the cultural, recreational, and dynamic growth of America as are gathered here today. These are people who have creativity, who have the willingness to accept responsibility, who are willing to give of their time in the service of the community, whether it’s in education, arts, or various phases of cultural life or recreation.32
Saratoga Performing Arts Center, aerial view. Photo provided by the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.
George Balanchine believed in the positive effect the performing arts could have on the region. Barbara Horgan, his personal assistant, said, “Balanchine’s intent was to bring our particular art form to the area, which he thought could and would have a renaissance.”33
Both George Balanchine and Eugene Ormandy sat on the original board of directors of the Saratoga Performing Arts Center along with a who’s who of Saratoga society, influential businessmen and New York State and civic leaders. The slate of officers of the board of directors included Mrs. Nelson Rockefeller, chairwoman; Gene Robb, president; Newman E. Wait Jr., treasurer; and Charles J. LaBelle, secretary.34
Lewis A. Swyer, owner of the construction company that built the facility and a great supporter of the arts, joined the board of directors in 1968. He then became president and chairman of the board, positions he held proudly from 1974 until his death in 1988.35
THE FESTIVAL OPENS AT THE SARATOGA PERFORMING ARTS CENTER
The New York City Ballet was now the first ballet company in the country to have a summer home, and what a home it was! The amphitheater had a seating capacity of 5,200 and the potential to accommodate thousands more on the lawn. The facility included spacious rehearsal studios and a stage with a state-of-the-art flooring system that was constructed for maximum resiliency. Without question, this would be the largest audience and the largest stage the New York City Ballet had ever experienced.
On July 8, 1966, at 8:30 p.m., the First Saratoga Festival opened with the New York City Ballet accompanied by its own orchestra in a performance of George Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. For four weeks, the local audience enjoyed one of the best ballet companies in the world as it performed ballets by one of the century’s greatest choreographers.
Dancer Robert Maiorano remembers Balanchine’s comment to the dancers prior to going to Saratoga for the first time: “We must educate the audience slowly, to bring them to us. That is what culture is for, to raise people up and bring them out of the doldrums.”36
The company roster included some very famous principal dancers. Ballerinas Suzanne Farrell, Meliss
a Hayden and Patricia McBride each had her individual style. Edward Villella, Jacques D’Amboise and Arthur Mitchell were famous American dancers who had appeared in film and on television. Audiences chose their favorites and tried to spot young, upcoming talents in the corps de ballet. However, the biggest star of all was a man who did not perform onstage: George Balanchine.
Opening night of the New York City Ballet at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. Program provided by the Saratoga Performing Arts Center archives.
Twenty-nine ballets were performed that first summer. Some entertained, while others challenged the audience. Most of the ballets were choreographed by George Balanchine or Jerome Robbins, the two ballet masters of the New York City Ballet. Other works by Anthony Tudor, Merce Cunningham, John Taras and Edward Villella were included in the company’s diverse repertoire. Lincoln Kirstein explained one of Balanchine’s theories that was evident to the audience in his choreography: “Balanchine knew that the twentieth century needed its own tempi, which were jazzy and syncopated, and that asymmetrical rhythm was deep in the motor dynamism of advanced industrial societies.”37
Saratoga’s audiences were treated to a great range of musical styles in the ballets performed during the first season. The excellent New York City Ballet Orchestra was led by musical director and principal conductor Robert Irving and by assistant conductor Hugo Fiorato. Maestro Irving had been conductor for Britain’s Royal Ballet before he joined New York City Ballet. According to Lincoln Kirstein, Irving “eventually turned into a real New Yorker, and later in Saratoga, he was a passionate racer of horses!”38 The spontaneous relationship created among musicians, dancers and the audience was described by Kirstein: “Our audiences in New York and in Saratoga have, over the years, accustomed themselves to our insistence on making them listen hard at the same moments when they look with attention. A minimum of visual adornment and emphasis on unfamiliar rhythms and sonorities demand a concentration which is willing to accept a certain didactic tyranny.”39
Dance in Saratoga Springs Page 3