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TIES TO BALLET IN OHIO
Photo: Ott Gangl
In 1968, Heinz Poll, along with his partner and lighting designer, Thomas Skelton, founded The Chamber Ballet, later to become Ohio Ballet. Under Heinz Poll’s leadership, the Ohio Ballet presented its subscription series in Akron and Cleveland, offering free outdoor summer performances throughout northeastern Ohio and toured to more than forty states as well as internationally. Heinz Poll was a major contributor to the arts in Northeast Ohio until he passed and the company folded in 2006.
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Heinz Poll originally trained in the Kurt Jooss, German Expressionism, style of modern dance. In his biography, he tells the story of how he went to Folkwang Conservatory to study acting, but the classes were full, so he decided to take up dancing. The rest is history. Later in his life, he studied the very strict Vaganova Technique of ballet in Paris, and danced, most notably in Chile.
He drew upon this eclectic training in his ballets, easily going from modern to ballet, always being careful not to cross the line into as he put it, "too much" . There is always a sense of restraint in his ballets, leaving some part of the dance up to the imagination of the viewer.
Ohio Ballet premiered Triptych on April 8, 1988, at EJ Thomas Hall in Akron. Ohio Ballet was the only company to perform this work and it was a staple in its repertory for years. Verb Ballets Associate Artistic Director, Richard Dickinson, MFA is former Ohio Ballet dancer and owns the licensing rights to five of Poll's ballets. He has set all five on Verb Ballets, helping to keep the legacy of Heinz Poll alive. This spring, he has staged Triptych to debut this summer. The ballet has not been seen in over thirty years.
The ballet set to Mendelsohn's Piano Concerto #2 starts off fiercely. The dance embodies the glowing romanticism of the music. In contrast, the second movement features a very difficult and luxurious adagio pas de deux. The second movement of Triptych was excerpted and performed with new costumes at the Joyce Theater as, Andante Sostenuto. The third movement brings everyone together for the energy of the bravura finale mirroring a classical ballet.
