By Tania Castroverde Moskalenko
Guest
Columnist
Miami,
FL, USA
Why
do you go away? So that you can come back. So that you can see the place you
came from with new eyes and extra colors.
– Terry Pratchett
Miami City Ballet was founded in
1985, the same year that, as a young woman, I left Miami, Florida. For 33 years,
the company and I have been on divergent but parallel paths, reaching, growing,
rising … building our palette.
Despite my departure and the
establishment of my career leading arts organizations in various parts of the
country, my roots always pulled me home toward South Florida. I
grew up in
Miami after arriving from Cuba at the age of six as a political refugee. In
Miami I learned to live life on the hyphen as a Cuban-American. In Miami I took
my first ballet lesson and fell in love with the Ballet. So, it was a great
privilege when, last summer, I was invited to join the Miami City Ballet as its
new Executive Director.
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| Tania Castroverde Moskalenko |
The
Miami City Ballet is at the top of its game. Since 2012, the company has been
under the artistic direction of Lourdes Lopez, a strong and talented
Cuban-American who danced with the New York City Ballet for 24 years under
George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. Lourdes’ artistic vision has garnered
rave reviews for the company both nationally and internationally. The company is
now considered alongside the top companies in the U.S., such as the New York
City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, and San Francisco Ballet.
This
past year has been a significant one for the company with tours to New York,
Chicago, and L.A., and festivals such as Les Étés de la Danse in Paris and
Spoleto in South Carolina. In June, the company performed at the Kennedy Center
in Washington, D.C., in Ballet Across
America, a weeklong festival with a spotlight on
women’s creativity and leadership in ballet. Our home season in Miami, Ft.
Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach, has had record attendance with Nutcracker surpassing
all attendance and revenue goals in our 33-year history.
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| Miami City Ballet - Heatscape |
We
recently launched the 2019-2020 season which features an array of timeless classics, modern works, and
sensational theatrical crowd-pleasers, with music ranging from classical scores
to Frank Sinatra. (View full season here.)
The new
season includes four exciting company premieres: George Balanchine’s Firebird, newly commissioned by MCB with original sets and
costume design by Anya Klepikov and video projections by Wendall Harrington; Rodeo:
Four Dance Episodes from Tony Award®-winning choreographer Justin Peck featuring
fifteen men, showcasing the power of MCB’s male dancers; Jerome Robbins’
I’m Old Fashioned with the grandeur
and glamour of the silver screen as the iconic stars Fred Astaire and Rita
Hayworth glide on a giant screen alongside the MCB dancers; and, Christopher
Wheeldon’s This Bitter Earth showcasing
the breathtaking music of Max Richter and Dinah Washington in an intimate,
soulful pas de deux.
The
season also includes Balanchine’s spirited Slaughter
on Tenth Avenue, a Broadway-infused ballet set in a 1930s speakeasy and Mercuric Tidings, a masterwork
programmed in honor of the late Paul Taylor. Also in the season are Twyla
Tharp’s Nine Sinatra Songs with costumes
by Oscar de la Renta, and Alexei
Ratmansky’s Symphonic Dances. The
season closes with the full-length spectacle of Petipa’s electrifying story ballet Don Quixote, and there is, of course, the return of Miami City
Ballet’s production of George
Balanchine’s The Nutcracker®.
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| Miami City Ballet - Midsummer Night's Dream |
In
addition to all of the performances and activities by the professional company,
Miami City Ballet has a premier classical ballet school that serves over 1,000
students annually. Approximately 800 students train year-round, with another
400 during the summer months. Fifty-five of our year-round students are in our
pre-professional division, a rigorous program for aspiring dance professionals.
To ensure that gifted students are able to pursue the training they need, MCB
School offers over $550,000 in tuition and housing scholarships to more than
130 students per year.
Our
community engagement programs aim to break down barriers and ensure that
everyone has access to great art. Each year we touch over 19,000 youth,
seniors, and other traditionally underserved people through a growing array of
initiatives.
The Ballet Bus program
breaks down two of the largest barriers to participation in the arts: the cost
of training and the challenges of transportation. The program provides not only
transportation and the full cost of tuition but also free dance attire, healthy
snacks, homework assistance, and mentoring for up to 10 years of support. Other
programs include Explore Dance which
brings MCB’s outstanding faculty into local classrooms; Behind the Ballet pre-performance talks; Ballet for Young People bringing free performances to more than
7,100 school children; and the Palm Beach
Summer Dance Camp offering free classes to public schoolchildren in disenfranchised communities
in the Palm Beaches.
None
of this work would be possible without the talented team of professionals
leading the areas of Development, Marketing, Finance, Production, Community
Engagement, and the MCB School. This past year, the Board of Trustees made a
commitment to continue strengthening the company by investing in its growth and
sustainability. Guided by a comprehensive strategic plan that focuses on four
distinct areas—artistic excellence, premiere training, community engagement,
and organizational strength—our leadership is determined that our company rise
to the next level with fiduciary and organizational capacity and responsibility.
It
is incredibly energizing to have come back to Miami and to be leading this
organization alongside another Cuban-American woman. Indeed, Miami City Ballet
is the only major US ballet company with both a female Artistic Director and
Executive Director. An important note since while
more women work in the nonprofit sector than any other industry, and they are
the majority of nonprofit employees, female CEO’s only account for 50% of small
nonprofits, 34% in medium nonprofits, and 14% in large nonprofits.
It
is an exciting time in Miami City Ballet’s history, and I am excited to see
this amazing company with new eyes and extra colors. Miami City Ballet’s
palette has been created from the diverse, vibrant, resilient, and inspired
communities that make up South Florida. We are a reflection of these
communities and we are proud to export these attributes to audiences across the
globe. As we continue to grow and strengthen, I invite you to join us next time
you’re in South Florida!
(Miami City Ballet production photo credit: Iziliaev)
Links:
Tania Castroverde Moskalenko is the Executive Director of the Miami City Ballet.