Ballet Theatre Company seeking dancers
West Hartford outfit creating resident troupe, eyeing a mix of genders, races and body types
Ballet Theatre Company is creating a resident company of dancers. Even better, it is paying them.
While the name Ballet Theatre Company may sound like it already is a company of dancers of some kind, it has operated for over 20 years as a ballet school that produces a range of dance shows featuring notable professional dancers as guest artists.
Having a standing company means the dancers are “readily available” for projects, “not contracted each time,” says BTC Artistic Director and General Manager Stephanie Dattellas. “It means we can do more work. We have the opportunity to travel, and to expand our season.”
The company will be known as BTC’S Professional Dancers in Residence and will have eight to 10 dancers. They will be offered a 32- to 34-week contract at “a fair wage,” according to a BTC press release, plus “a biweekly stipend and shoe allowance.” The contract is for dancing, but the dancers in the company will also have opportunities to teach at BTC.
Dattellas says the resident company is being financed by the company “through a very generous patron.”
Auditions are being held Aug. 27 from 1:30 to 5 p.m. The audition notice reads: “Interested dancers with a strong ballet background (including pointe work for women) with experience performing classical, neoclassical and contemporary repertoire should send their resume, headshot, full-body dance photo, updated performance reel and copy of COVID-19 vaccine card to BTC Ballet Mistress Emily Silva at emily.silva@dancebtc.org.”
Dattellas says dancers in most small companies are unpaid. “I could have established a resident company when I started here, and not paid them, but I wanted to do the morally and ethically correct thing. I’m tired of artists dancing for free.”
Dattellas says she is looking for “strong classically trained dancers with a propensity for modern dance, who can be role models to our students.”
She also wants to use the company to confront “the stigma that ballet dancers have to be a certain size or weight. We are not interested in that. Body image is a big thing in ballet. We are interested in diversity and good nutrition.
“We are looking for good people. We’re not interested in divas and drama queens.
“I’m hoping we get a good turnout in terms of gender and race. We need to get the word out.”
Dattellas will lead the new
company along with two new “artistic advisors,” Maria Terezia Balogh and Paul Mejia, a married couple who have worked with some of the great ballet names of the 20th century, from George Balanchine to Maria Tallchief to Jerome Robbins.
Dattellas says Balogh and Mejia “recently joined us. They had moved to Connecticut and Maria called looking for studio space during COVID for their son, who’s with the New York City Ballet. I said, ‘We have this incredible opportunity. Do you want to come in on it?’ ”
Dattellas says Balogh will teach and coach the dancers, while Mejia will “be my aide and an advisor to me on choreography, as well as develop his own work.”
Ballet Theatre Company has been around since 1999, but has grown in leaps and bounds since Dattellas became its artistic director and general manager in 2017. Under her leadership, BTC has been performing full-length ballets (including “Sleeping Beauty” in 2018 and “Cinderella” in 2019) as well as continuing with its annual production of “The Nutcracker.” Dattellas also created the “Dancing For A Cause” series of benefit performances, which has raised money for such causes as the Bridge Family Center and the victims of the Las Vegas shooting. This year, BTC produced a full-length video production of a “Snow White” ballet scored
with music by Tchaikovsky, Offenbach, Delibe and Minkus and filmed at such picturesque locations as the Wadsworth Mansion, Hilltop Farm and Topsmead State Forest.
Before COVID-19 hit, BTC expanded its studio space to 2,200 square feet “to support larger programs,” Dattellas says. “Even before social distancing, we were running out of room. Now it’s more like a theater space. We can have more students.” A new development director joined the team in June.
Ballet Theatre Company will announce its upcoming season in September. It will include “The Nutcracker” and other live events as well as virtual livestream options. BTC did several livestreams during the pandemic and “discovered an audience beyond Hartford,” Dattellas says.
Her goal is to have three full-length ballets each season once the resident company is up and running. There’s a classic holiday film she would like to adapt, perhaps as a collaboration with another local performance troupe.
The new resident company will be a part of all that, but Dattella will also continue to enlist guest performers from other professional companies.
“When I hopped on,” Dattellas says of joining BTC four years ago,” I looked at the things that we could improve. There weren’t many ballet companies in the area putting on a whole season — that was my first goal. Then, we focused on growing our staff. Now here we are.”