From the Artistic Director

Welcome to Ballet West’s fourth annual Choreographic Festival. This Festival is designed to showcase new, world premiere choreography for the ballet stage. It is a program where the choreographers and the audience are emersed in the creative process and given the opportunity to take chances both creatively and as an audience. Last year we had to cancel our planned festival due to the pandemic, so it is with great joy that we are now able to bring it back. Over the past few years we have been featuring Ballet West as well as companies from around the world. However, for this program I decided to keep things closer to home and bring the Choreographic Festival back to our earlier “new works program” model – Innovations. So, in the style of Innovations, we are presenting four world premieres by company Artists and one world premiere by a renowned guest choreographer. As with all the programs for this season, the show is presented succinctly without intermission – only the briefest of pauses between works. Making Festival ‘21 particularly noteworthy is three of the new creations have musical scores specifically commissioned for, or created incollaboration with the choreographers. We open the program with Matthew Neenan’s The Solo Year. Matthew’s is a unique and fascinating voice in American dance today. Classically trained, he is the co-founder of the contemporary ballet company Ballet X, and has choreographed for companies around the world. In 2014, he created The Sixth Beauty for Ballet West, which received wonderful notice both here in Salt Lake City and in New York City when I included it on our tour to The Joyce Theater later that year. This new creation is a look at relationships and feelings through a baroque prism. Filled with texture and filigree and modulating between highly stylized classical form and nuanced modern movement, Neenan elegantly explores the emotional challenges of this past year with this stunning work for two quartets of dancers who intricately weave a tapestry through dance. Next is the premiere of former Ballet West Demi Soloist Trevor Naumann’s Resist Much, Obey Little. The cerebral and visceral qualities of Trevor’s work make it so interesting to me. Movement appears to happen in a seeming random fashion but is actually strictly choreographed. For this work, Trevor collaborates again with composer Boaz Roberts whose almost improvisational jazz-infused score guides a work that deals with the challenges of humanity. The ballet is

certainly intellectual but also pure dance – quirky yet grounded, both funny and profound. Retiring Principal Artist Katherine Lawrence has been a backbone of the company since 2004 and now we are blessed to have her bring her knowledge and artistry to the Frederick Quinney Lawson Ballet West Academy as she transitions to Principal Faculty. As an intimate farewell, her peers have come together to create this gem of a solo, With Assurance. Co-choreographed by Principal Artists Emily Adams, Adrian Fry, Rex Tilton, and newly named Principal Katlyn Addison, and, with a specially composed score by Company Pianist Nicholas Maughan, the ballet is a loving tribute to a wonderful artist and person. That solo is followed by the world premiere of a meditative, dream-like pas de deux by Katlyn Addison. Eden is a deeply felt duet. A love affair. A story of two people and their journey throughout life. Katlyn has skillfully created a relationship that feels instantly recognizable but makes one ask what the dynamic is between the two dancers. This exploration movingly brings the audience in. Finally, we present the dynamic world premiere of The Thing with Feathers choreographed by Emily Adams and co-conceived with composer Katy Jarzebowski. Katy is an alumna of The Sundance Institute Music Film Program and this collaboration, one I have been working on for years, marks the first time Ballet West and Sundance have teamed up. The result of Emily and Katy’s collaboration is powerful. Emily has grown over the years into a sophisticated choreographer with a clear vision and voice. She propels dancers fearlessly through space with surprising formations and movements that are grounded in classical ballet. While this ballet is abstract on one level, it is also an answer to this past year. Taking from the line of the Emily Dickenson poem Hope Is the Thing with Feathers, its pulse comes from the musical score, which drives the action with an exciting cinematic edge. All the works in this year’s Choreographic Festival are products of this past year. After a year filled with challenges and sometimes despair, it is remarkable that these ballets are filled with so much heart, soul, and joy. This past year, when Ballet West strived to continue to produce our art – sometimes desperately so – this final program is a testament to the perseverance and tenacity of artists. It is a tribute to the triumph of the human spirit. We are grateful for our audiences who have stuck with us and who are excited for the future. Thank you for joining us. We hope you enjoy!

Adam Sklute

Since 2007, Adam Sklute has expanded Ballet West’s outlook, repertoire, and visibility with exciting Company and world premieres, increased touring, heightened public exposure, and greater focus on the Ballet West Academy. He began his career with The Joffrey Ballet, rising through the ranks from dancer to Associate Director. His stewardship of Ballet West has been marked by both financial growth and elevated artistry, and was the subject of The CW Network’s docu-drama, Breaking Pointe, which aired for two seasons. From September 2016 to October 2017, Sklute took on the dual position of CEO and Artistic Director overseeing both administrative and artistic operations of Ballet West. An internationally sought after teacher and adjudicator, Sklute has received numerous awards, including Utah’s Enlightened 50 (2014), The Bronze Minuteman Award for Outstanding Service to Utah and The Nation (2015), and most recently Utah Diversity Connection’s Business Award for outstanding commitment to diversity initiatives.