WINTER 2013 - Aspen Santa Fe Ballet

ASPEN SANTA FE BALLET
NEWSnewsnewsnewsnewsnewsnewsWINTER
2013
PHOTO: LOIS GREENFIELD
Dancer Sam Chittenden
retires after 15 years with ASFB!
Aspen Santa Fe Ballet
ASPEN
February 15 -16
ENCORE! March 16
SANTA FE
March 29-30

ASPEN SANTA FE BALLET
ASPEN SANTA FE BALLET
Bebe Schweppe, Founder
Tom Mossbrucker, Artistic Director
Jean-Philippe Malaty, Executive Director
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Judith Zee Steinberg, President
Jay R. Lerner, Vice President
Leigh Moiola, Vice President
Denise Jurgens, Treasurer
Michael Hauger, Asst. Treasurer
A. Charles Forte, Secretary
Rita Adler
Joyce Amico
Barbara Berger
Tony DiLucia
Nicholas DuBrul
Laurie Farber-Condon
John Galante
Betty Davis Gates
Barbara Gold
Helen Kalin Klanderud
Mona Look-Mazza
Jean-Philippe Malaty
Tom Mossbrucker
Melinda Payson
Esther Pearlstone
Kelley Purnell
Kelli Questrom
Teena Shaw
Sandy Soares
Billy Stolz
Bill Thornton
Sherry Wachs
Betty Weiss
Christine Aubale Gerschel, Special Liaison
Paul Taddune, Of Counsel
TRUSTEE EMERITUS
Bebe Schweppe
WINTER 2013 NEWS
04 Sponsor Profile - The Hotel Jerome
05 ASFB to Make Russian debut!
07 Sponsor Profile - Frias Properties
10 Final Performances for Veteran Dancer
12 In the Studio - If The Shoe Fits
14 Spotlight - Sadie Brown
NATIONAL COUNCIL
National Council Chair:
Esther Pearlstone
Rita and Jeffrey Adler
Joyce Amico and Charles Malkemus
Susan Beckerman
Linda Bedell
Barbara and Bruce Berger
Masako and Ron Berman
Scott Bickford
Rita and Irwin Blitt
Mark Bradley
Geri and Steve Briggs
Virginia Browning and Joseph Illick
Kay and Matthew Bucksbaum
Bunni and Paul Copaken
Susan Crown and Bill Kunkler
Marian L. Davis
Frannie Dittmer
Gayle Embrey
Zoe Eskin
Betsy Fifield
Tom Fox
Mary Ann Frenzel
Jessica and John Fullerton
Catherine Gildor
Mira and Donald Glen
Dolly Gray-Bussard
Frederick Haas and Daniel Meyer
Julia Hansen
Alexandra and Peter D'Arcy Harrison
Barbara and Peter Hearst
Lita Heller
Bobbie and Tat Hillman
Janie Hire
Angela and Henry Hite
Jessica Hite
Sharon and John Hoffman
Karen and Bayard Hollins
Peggy and Alan Hunt
Soledad and Robert Hurst
Laura and Michael Kaplan
Reenie Kinney and Scott Hicks
Carolyn Landis
Leonard A. Lauder
Bobette and Jay R. Lerner
Pamela Levy and Rick Crandall
Melony and Adam Lewis
Toby Devan Lewis
Margot and Robert Linton
Karen and Walter Loewenstern
Diane and Charles Lott
Ruth Ann Marshall and Patricia Houtz
Barbara Martell
Mona Look-Mazza and Tony Mazza
Mary McAlpin
Linda McCausland and Peter Nicklin
Sara and Bill Morgan
Charlotte Moss and Barry Friedberg
Stephanie and Michael Naidoff
Judith and Werner Neuman
David Newberger
Janet and Tom O’Connor
Margaret and Andy Paul
Melinda and Norman Payson
Amy and John Phelan
Carolyn and Bill Powers
Christina Price and Conner Browne
Carol Prins and John Hart
Kelli and Allen Questrom
Mara and Charles Robinson
Nancy and Richard Rogers
Ed Roth
Philip Rothblum
Mary and Patrick Scanlan
Gloria Scharlin
June and Paul Schorr
James Seitz
Deborah and Bob Sharpe
Teena and George Shaw
Lois Siegel
Harriet Silverman
Lin and Michael Simmonds
Joy and Chet Siuda
Sandy and Art Soares
Barbara and Gary Sorensen
Susan Sparks
Orli and Bill Staley
Vickie and Gaines B. Stanley, Jr.
Judith Steinberg and Paul Hoenmans
Kathy and Dick Stephenson
Jon Stryker and Slobodan Randjelović
Michiko and Gary Tarna
Jackie and Glenn Tilton
Tamara Tormohlen and Marc Breslin
Donna Treadwell
Sherry and Eddie Wachs
Karen and Ted Wachtmeister
Jay Webster
Nadia Wellisz
Carrie and Joe Wells
Marilyn Hodges Wilmerding
Ruth Winter
Stephanie and David Wirt
Tamara and Frank Woods
Tita and Gene Zeffren
Kevon Zehner and Ron Ritchhart
Rachel and Paul Zimmerman
PHOTO: SHAREN BRADFORD

PHOTO: JASON DEWEY
Dear Friends,
Aspen Santa Fe Ballet’s 17th season has only just begun but already shows
the promise of great milestones ahead. We look forward with excitement
and hope you will share in the spirit of celebration.
We are proud to announce that Aspen Santa Fe Ballet will make its debut
in Moscow at the invitation of the prestigious Vishnevskaya Opera Center,
performing at the Russian Academic Youth Theatre on Theatre Square
March 5th and 6th. We invite you to support this once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity for ASFB and hope you will join us for our send-off party
hosted by the Caribou Club, Aspen Sojourner, and Stoli Vodka (see page
6 for more details).
This winter, longtime dancer Sam Chittenden will retire after 15 seasons of
inspiring performances. We will miss Sam onstage, but he leaves behind
an indelible mark on ASFB, helping define the athleticism and joy of
movement the company is known for. Don’t miss his final performances in
Aspen and Santa Fe this March.
In our last newsletter we told you about our new dancer Peter Franc. Now
we proudly welcome another new dancer to the ranks of ASFB. Sadie
Brown grew up in Indiana and New Mexico and spent the last two seasons
dancing in Michigan. Peter and Sadie are part of the ever changing face
of Aspen Santa Fe Ballet. They along with last season’s newcomers, Craig
Black and Paul Busch, are continuing the legacy set by those before them.
The talent of these young artists is inspiring and we are anxious for you to
see this new generation of ASFB dancers in action onstage.
Our upcoming programs at home will present the premiere of our newest
work by legendary choreographer, Jiří Kylián. Return to a Strange Land is
one of Kylián's true masterpieces. More classical than other Kylián works
you may have seen, Return to a Strange Land was created in 1975 and is
danced en pointe. Also en pointe, and showing off our dancers' lighter
side, Trey McIntyre’s breezy Like A Samba, helped define the spirit of
ASFB when we performed it more than seven years ago. A reprise of last
summer’s hit, Last by Alejandro Cerrudo of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago,
will complete the program.
Why not escape the cold this winter, by joining Aspen Santa Fe Ballet on
tour? We invite you to come see us perform in New Orleans on February 23
or Scottsdale on March 22-23. If you can’t make it, please let your friends
know that ASFB will perform in their city!
As you browse through this newsletter, we think you will agree that we
have many things to celebrate and be thankful for this season. As always,
we thank you, our loyal patrons and audience members, for cheering us on
and supporting our efforts.
Sincerely,
Tom Mossbrucker
Jean-Philippe Malaty
3

Join Us Before or After
The Show in Aspen’s
Best Newest New Living Room
330 east main street aspen, co 81611 970.920.1000
www.hoteljerome.aubergeresorts.com

ASFB To
Make
Russian
Debut
Company
Will Perform in
Moscow on
March 5-6
This coming March, at the invitation of the Vishnevskaya Opera
Center, one of Moscow’s largest theatrical producers, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet
will make its debut in Russia. This prestigious engagement adds to the
already impressive list of international cities where ASFB has performed
including: Milan, Tel Aviv, Biarritz, Guatamala City, Thessoloniki, and Curitiba.
The two performances on March 5th and 6th will take place at the Russian
Academic Youth Theatre in Moscow. Built in 1821 on the Theatre
Square, to the left of the Bolshoi Theatre and symmetric with the Mally
Theatre, this house is one of the cultural centres of Moscow. The program
will feature ASFB’s signature style of work by today’s leading choreographers,
Jorma Elo, Alejandro Cerrudo and Jiři Kylián.
The Vishnevskaya Opera Center has gained a special place in the cultural
landscape of Moscow and Russia as a whole. The Centre has successfully
collaborated with such world-renowned institutions as the Arturo Toscanini
Foundation in Parma, the Paris Conservatory, the Curtis Institute of
Music in Philadelphia, the Academia alla Scala in Milan and the Center for
Performance Art in Tampa. One of the most important activities of the
Centre has been the organization of international projects, among them:
the Festival of Italian Culture in Russia, the Russian Festival in Rome, the
Italian Season in Russia, and tours in Russia by such renowned conductors
as Zubin Mehta, Myung-Wung Chung, and Riccardo Muti.
“Performances by the Aspen Santa Fe Ballet will be a momentous occasion
in the coming spring for Theater in Moscow” stated Julia Ivanova,
Galina Vishnevskaya Opera Centre’s head of public relations. “Honorary
critics from such theaters as the Stanislavski and Nemirovich-Danchenko
will be present at the performances. We are anxious to see how Russian
critics and spectators will react to the trends of western contemporary
ballet”.
Aspen Santa Fe Ballet is thrilled to make its debut in the birthplace of
classical ballet and the home of the world famous Bolshoi and Kirov Ballets.
It is a great honor to serve as a cultural ambassador and give the
Russian audiences a glimpse of American dance.
5

YOU'RE InVITEd!
ASPEN SANTA FE BALLET
★TO RUSSIA WITH LOVE★
Aspen Santa Fe Ballet send-off to Moscow celebration
THE CARIbOU CLUb
February 27th 4:30-6:30pm
Come celebrate and help send Aspen Santa Fe Ballet to Moscow!
★
Minimum donation of $250 required
RSVP:
Please contact Kaitlin Windle at
970-925-7175 ext.110
or
kaitlin@aspensantafeballet.com
Event Sponsors:
★
★ ★

PHOTO: LOIS GREENFIELD

ASPEN SANTA FE BALLET
P R E S E N T S
2013 WINTER SEASON
ASPEN
Aspen Santa Fe Ballet
February 15 - 16 | 7:30pm
SANTA FE
Aspen Santa Fe Ballet
March 29 - 30 | 7:30pm
PHOTO: ROSALIE O'CONNOR
PHOTO: SHAREN BRADFORD
PHOTO: SHAREN BRADFORD
ENCORE!
Aspen Santa Fe Ballet
March 16 | 7:30pm
Les Ballets Trockadero De Monte Carlo
April 15 | 7:30pm
PHOTO: LOIS GREENFIELD
PHOTO: SASCHA VAUGHN
Ticket Information:
All shows take place at
the Aspen District Theatre
Aspen Show Tickets
970-920-5770
or toll free
866-449-0464
www.aspenshowtix.com
Ticket Information:
All shows take place at The Lensic,
Santa Fe’s Performing Arts Center
Tickets Santa Fe at The Lensic
505-988-1234
www.ticketssantafe.org

ASPEN SANTA FE BALLET
2013 TOURING
Aspen, CO
February 15-16
Aspen District Theatre
Tickets: 970-920-5770
Beaver Creek, CO
February 19
Vilar Performing Arts Center
Tickets: 888-920-ARTS
New Orleans, LA
February 23
Mahalia Jackson Theater
Tickets: 504-522-0996
Moscow, Russia
March 5-6
Russian Debut!
Russian Academic Youth Theater
www.ramt.ru
Aspen, CO
March 16
Aspen District Theatre
Tickets: 970-920-5770
Scottsdale, AZ
March 22-23
Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts
Tickets: 480-499-TKTS
Santa Fe, NM
March 29-30
The Lensic Theater
Tickets: 505-988-1234
w w w . a s p e n s a n t a f e b a l l e t . c o m

10
Climbing Up;
Moving On
Veteran Dancer
Sam Chittenden
Will Retire from Dance
this March
by Stewart Oksenhorn
Sam Chittenden bouldering on one of the granite blocks on Independence Pass
In 1996, when Tom Mossbrucker, Jean-Philippe Malaty and
Bebe Schweppe created the fledgling Aspen Ballet Company, they
had little idea where they would tour, what their repertoire would be,
how they would work with choreographers.
Nor did they have an idea what the aesthetic of the company would
be - how the dancers would look, how the ensemble would move.
Toward the end of the company's second year of existence, Aspen
Ballet very quickly took on a distinctive look. In the fall of 1998, Sam
Chittenden was hired out of the University of Utah's dance program.
Chittenden had scant professional experience; he had only just started
dancing three years earlier. But Chittenden had a look - chiseled
would be the word - that would become a template for the company.
In the 15 years since, most descriptions of the Aspen company include
'athletic' among its adjectives. While much of dance is seen as
delicate, elegant and lithe, Aspen Santa Fe Ballet is more defined by
its athleticism, a quality that traces back to the arrival of Chittenden.
Chittenden will be retiring following performances in March in the
organization's two hometowns of Aspen (March 16) and Santa Fe
(March 29-30). But the impact he has had on the company isn't going
away; at this point, overt physicality is ingrained in the troupe's
persona.
“He's one of the main reasons why. What Sam brought, this extreme
physicality - he's become a role model for the other male dancers,”
Chittenden probably owes his physique to his passion for rock-climbing.
He grew up in Stillwater, Minnesota, some 30 miles west of the
Twin Cities - a landscape noticeably devoid of tall, sheer rock faces.
But his teenage years coincided with the rise of indoor climbing
walls, and Chittenden, who was also a pole-vaulter and a skier, gravitated
toward the sport. After graduating high school, Chittenden put
off college for a year to jump in a van with a buddy to travel the circuit
of climbing landmarks in the American West.
“It was the best,” Chittenden said. “Just dirt-bagging it, living off $50 a

week, hanging out in the sun. And the dirt. There was a nice freedom
about it. I'd love to do it again. ”
Along with the liberty came a sense of community that he would
encounter again as a dancer. “The climbing world is like the dance
world. There's a core community and if you do well, you end up seeing
the same people more often than not, following the warm weather,
the hotspots.”
For college, Chittenden opted for the Rocky Mountains. In his freshman
year at Colorado State, Chittenden dropped chemistry and
needed to pick up another class to keep his status as a full-time student.
His friend Ethan White, who had grown up in Glenwood Springs
and would become an Aspen Santa Fe Ballet dancer himself, suggested
an introductory level ballet class. The arts were hardly foreign
to Chittenden; he had spent much of
his time as a kid drawing and painting,
and in high school played guitar
in a hard rock band. In college, he
pursued graphic design. But the main
selling point for taking ballet was that
it would give him a boost as a climber:
“Ethan told me it would help my balance
and coordination,” Chittenden
said.
He found various things to enjoy
about the class - the novelty, the
physical challenge, the female-tomale
ratio - and showed promise. The
teacher, who also directed the Canyon
Concert Ballet, invited Chittenden
to be in a production of The Nutcracker.
Chittenden then took more
dance classes and appeared in more
performances. “I was going to school
full-time, and felt like I was dancing
full-time outside of school too,” he
said.
Chittenden transferred to the University of Utah, where he could
combine school and dance. A roommate in Utah was apprenticing
with Aspen Ballet, and mentioned that the company was holding auditions
in Utah for an opening in the troupe. With little expectation,
Chittenden tried out; he said that only when he was offered the position
did he first begin thinking about a career in dance.
Among the assets that set him apart had little to do with mental focus,
or even with ballet training. “That raw physicality - very much like
what you see in him now,” Mossbrucker said of his first impression of
Chittenden. “That's what dance is about, that's the essence of dance.
So even though he was untrained, he had what a dancer needs. A lot
of dancers take years to develop that; he had it naturally.”
Chittenden had little awareness that he might be setting a specific
aesthetic direction for the company. But he liked the fact that the
organization was young, that there was an excitement each time a
new dance was commissioned, as tours elevated from small Colorado
towns to New York City.
“I didn't have a conscious thought, 'I'm going to change this company,'”
he said. “But coming in early, you have a sense of ownership.
I felt like a part of something growing. I was able to influence it, but
have it influence me as well. Which is great - it enhances your sense of
place, your belonging, your comfort.”
According to Mossbrucker, choreographers fell in love with Chittenden
- not only his strength, but his skill as a partner and the unpretentious
way he moves. “He’s physical — but in such an unassuming,
good-natured, organic way,” Mossbrucker said.
In 2002, choreographer Nicolo Fonte, working off Chittenden's love
of rock-climbing, created The Same Wall for Aspen Santa Fe Ballet.
Around the same time, Chittenden was cast in the solo piece, Thierry
Malandain's Afternoon of a Faun, a work more sensual and provocative
than physical.
“To see him by himself, carrying this whole ballet, that's when people
understood Sam - as a dancer, as a person, as an artist,” Mossbrucker
said. “It highlighted his unique movement quality, but it also gave
him a chance to express himself in a powerful but quiet, inward way.
He was a different dancer after that.” Mossbrucker added that Jorma
Elo, the prominent Finnish choreographer, has made Chittenden central
to the handful of works he has created for Aspen Santa Fe Ballet.
For Chittenden, the real head-turner
was Life Forms, by Italian choreographer
Jacopo Godani. “That was outside
what we had been doing prior,”
he said. “The music was avant-garde,
difficult. Jacopo was intense. It was a
fun process and it made me a better
dancer. That was a shift in how I approached
things. I was finding out
what different movements I enjoyed;
what felt good to me.”
The Aspen company has always felt
right to Chittenden. He and his longtime
girlfriend, Katie Dehler, who
joined Aspen Santa Fe Ballet soon
after Chittenden and remains a company
dancer, thought occasionally
about moving on, possibly to Europe.
“There's an arc: You're excited, then
you get comfortable and think, What
else is out there? Should I explore
other options?” he said. “I came to the
conclusion this was the best fit, and recommitted to the idea of staying
here.”
There is an aspect of Chittenden, perhaps connected to his emphasis
on the physical, that focuses on the moment rather than future
plans. He says that, when he joined Aspen Ballet, he “was focused,
but not focused on a career path. I tend to focus on what I'm passionate
about and enjoy doing, not think, 'I'd like to do this as a job so I'll
focus on it.'”
So Chittenden — who is 36, and wants to make the decision to retire
before the decision is forced on him, by the company or by his
body — hasn’t made concrete plans for what is next. Part of him will
remain with the company. For the last six years he has been doing
the graphic design for Aspen Santa Fe Ballet; he plans to continue
that work and do other freelance design projects. He wants to devote
more time to climbing, and fix up the Carbondale house he and
Dehler bought last year.
And he will spend time reflecting on what these past 15 years have
meant.
“There will be things I miss and things I won't miss,” he said. “One of
the great things, and one of the hard things, is the amount of focus
and time and energy it takes. It's not a job you can leave at home. I'll
miss the physicality, but not the intensity; the difficulty of focusing on
other parts of my life.
“Gradually, I'll realize how much dance has become a part of me.”
ASFB NEWS WINTER 2013

12
If The
Shoe Fits
Is it Ballet if
it’s not
En Pointe?
By Lisa Traiger
Tiptoes and tutus. Many people still hold on to old-fashioned and
out-of-date ideas about what ballet is and how it should look. Tom
Mossbrucker, artistic director of Aspen Santa Fe Ballet, wants people
to understand that ballet is more than pointe shoes and pirouettes.
Ballet didn’t start out four hundred years ago with long legged women
wearing toe shoes and tights. At its beginnings in the French and
Italian royal courts of the Renaissance, both men and women wore
heeled shoes. It took more than a century before the precursor of the
pointe shoe evolved: a soft, heel-less slipper, darned at the toes, on
which a few very strong ballerinas would rise up and balance – momentarily–
en pointe.
These days many think that pointe dancing is de rigueur for ballet
companies. But not all ballets demand pointe work from the dancers.
Contemporary choreographers who have been trained in diverse
dance genres aside from ballet, including modern, jazz, tap and hip
hop, bring elements of these forms into the rigorous technique required
of ballet. And frequently they choreograph in flat shoes.
The upcoming ASFB program provides viewers with a strong sense
of Aspen Santa Fe Ballet’s contemporary brand of cutting edge ballets
featuring two works on pointe and one in slippers. Renowned

Czech-born choreographer Jiři Kylián made Return to a Strange Land
in 1975 in tribute to his mentor the Stuttgart Ballet’s director John
Cranko upon Cranko’s unexpected death. The work, though danced
en pointe to an aching piano score by Leos Janáček, is far from classical,
pushing the women into off-kilter balances, non-traditional lifts
and falls to the floor that are foreign in more traditional ballet technique.
Trey McIntyre’s sly and fun Like a Samba provides a more playful
approach to modern pointe work, allowing the women to swish
and pop their hips and shimmy their shoulders responding to the
earthy, sunny samba rhythms. Yet ASFB’s artistic director Tom Mossbrucker,
says, “I find many audience members who are surprised to
see the company dancing in slippers, but sometimes pointe shoes
pose their own limitations for contemporary dance.”
While ASFB’s repertory is divided about equally between pointe
shoes and ballet slippers, the choice is as often the choreographer’s
as it is the artistic director’s. Frequent ASFB choreographer Nicolo
Fonte (In Hidden Seconds, Left Unsaid and Where We Left Off) has
heard that ballet audiences often expect pointe work from the women
dancers. “We either have to all agree that the narrow definition of
ballet has to expand,” he says, “or it doesn’t and ballet stays within the
confines of the 18th and 19th centuries.”
If someone told Jorma Elo, another frequent ASFB choreographer,
that it’s not ballet if it isn’t en pointe, he might just laugh. “It would
be quite an unusual question for me,” says the Finnish-born resident
choreographer for Boston Ballet. “Ballet is dance, and dance (if you
look far back in history), dance evolved into pointe shoe technique,
but that’s just one way it branched out.” He continues, “For me dance
is so fused with multiple forms: street dancing or folk dancing or tap
dancing or aboriginal dancing -- it’s dance with shoes, tap shoes,
pointe shoes, bare feet.”
For ASFB, Elo has created three ballets: Pointeoff, Red Sweet and OVER
GLOW. He doesn’t know until he meets and observes the dancers in
class or rehearsal whether the work will be danced on pointe or in
slippers. His 2006 work Pointeoff was initially created in slippers, but
Malaty and Artistic Director Tom Mossbrucker asked for it to be revised
for pointe, according to Elo. “The look changed … the material
became sharper,” he says, but ultimately the piece was performed as
intended by Elo, in ballet slippers.
Fonte thinks his works tip slightly more into the pointe shoe direction
but he’s not so interested in labeling work as he is in creating
it. He says pointe shoes change how both the women and the men
move. “In particular, it really changes partnering – there are a lot of
things they can’t do en pointe and the women become taller for
their partners.” Elo and Fonte agree that pointe work creates a longer
line, desirable in classical ballet, and greater tension and sharpness
in the body. “When incorporated with a modern approach in the upper
body and a very classical line in the lower body it’s harder for the
dancers to accomplish,” Fonte observes, but also more interesting.
Choreographing for dancers in slippers dates back more than century,
of course. One of the most famous – and controversial -- slipper
ballets celebrates its 100th anniversary this year: Vaslav Nijinski’s Rite
of Spring, which, with its then primitive looking movement motifs
and driving, dissonant score, caused riots at its Paris premiere in
1913.
These days many choreographers who work with ballet dancers in
slippers still see their works as ballets. “If you want [the dancers] to
move more grounded, lower on the floor,” says Elo, slippers are the
way to go. “It’s harder to get a grip with pointe shoes and if you want
them to move fast” then flat shoes are better.
Samantha Klanac Campanile is in her 11th year with the company.
On the days that she spends eight or more hours in pointe shoes,
she goes home and ices her ankles and soaks in an Epsom salt bath.
While she generally feels more confident in slippers, there are a few
pointe ballets she absolutely loves. Trey McIntyre’s Like a Samba is
one of them. A signature company piece, the work is eye-catching
in the way it combines elements of pointe work with the grounded
and looser feel of the samba. “That’s what makes ‘Samba’ really fun,”
Campanile says, “the audience loves seeing girls in pointe shoes and
it’s fun to dance, but at the same time it’s not an uptight ballet: you
have to move your hips, and you play with the audience.”
This fusion of classical ballet technique with modern dance and world
dance forms is becoming more common. More choreographers and
ballet companies are willing to take their ballerinas off pointe if the
ballet calls for it. “Pointe shoes really change the quality of movement,”
Fonte says. “You have to be careful about using pointe shoes: it
has to not get in the way or it becomes more about the ballerina and
how delicate she is than about what the choreographer intended.”
He wants audiences to understand that it’s just as silly to call a very
contemporary work that leaves much of the classical technique and
lines behind a ballet as it is to expect ballet companies to close themselves
off from new creative voices simply because they want to work
with dancers in ballet slippers. In the end, Fonte finds the question
as funny as Elo does. “For me, I don’t care what you call it,” Fonte says.
“We don’t need such a narrow definition of ballet. If it’s good work,
the audience will like it.”
Lisa Traiger writes on dance and the performing arts from the Washington,
D.C. area.
Aspen Santa Fe Ballet will perform Jiří Kylián's Return to a
Strange Land and Trey McIntyre's Like a Samba as well as
Alejandro Cerrudo's Last in Aspen on February 15-16 and
March 16 and in Santa Fe on March 29-30
Get Tickets:
Aspen : 970-920-5770
Santa Fe: 505-988-1234
www.aspensantafeballet.com
ASFB NEWS WINTER 2013

Spotlight
Sadie Brown
by Gretchen Hayduk-Wroblewski
Sadie Brown, ASFB’s newest company member, arrived in
Aspen on the first day of the new year after something of a whirlwind
transition. One minute she was dancing in the final performance of
The Nutcracker for the Grand Rapids Ballet Company, and the next,
she was packing, saying goodbye to friends and driving straight
through to Aspen. The abrupt move may appear to have left no time
for adjusting, but Sadie says the idea of moving out here has been going
through her head for some time, so “it feels so good and so right
to be here.” Besides, as we found out from talking with her further,
she has a special affinity for cross-country road trips.
Q: How did you get started with dance?
SB: When I was three years old, my family and I were driving across
the country from California to Indiana, and according to my mom,
I just suddenly asked if I could take a ballet class. Apparently I kept
asking at every place we stopped, “is this where I’m going to take my
ballet class?” and she kept telling me we had to wait until we got to
Indiana. Once we got there, she enrolled me in a class at Evansville
Dance Theater--and I’ve been dancing ever since!
Q: Is this your first time in this part of the country?
SB: No. My mom’s side of the family is from the Santa Clara Pueblo in
northern New Mexico, so I grew up visiting relatives there in the summers.
Basically any time my brother and I had a break from school,
my family would make the long drive out to New Mexico, and it was
always wonderful to go there—I love how traditional the way of life
is and the sense of belonging to the land. I’m so excited to be living
out in the Southwest! I have such a strong connection with it that it
almost feels more like home than where I grew up.
14
Q: What is the most beautiful sight in the world to you?
SB: I’d have to say natural land—no cars, no roads, no telephone lines.
Just the natural beauty and the essence of the land.
Q: If you had a month of free time and an unlimited budget, what
“cause” would you like to spend it on?
SB: I’ve actually thought about this. I don’t know exactly where I’d
go, but I’ve always been interested in going abroad to help a community
that is in need. I guess I’d do whatever was needed: help build
houses, help teach kids, just help the community grow stronger. I’ve
thought this is even something I’d maybe like to do someday after
I’m retired.
Q: How do you see yourself fifty years from now?
SB: (Laughs) My friends and I have joked about this, and we say we’d
just be hanging out, doing nothing! Seriously, though, I would want
to be somewhere where I was happy, and I want to have kids and a
family.
Q: What is your favorite place on earth?
SB: Probably Barcelona. I was pretty young when I visited there, and
when I look back I remember how magical everything was: the colors,
the vivaciousness of the people, the mountains, the ocean, the city.
I especially remember the colors, with all of the flowers everywhere.
Q: Aside from dance, what is your passion?
SB: This sounds kind of corny, but honestly, just living life and being
happy—which helps with dance, too, if you really think about it.

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