Texture Contemporary Ballet ready for 5th season
Sometimes dreams are uncovered in unexpected ways.
Dancers Alan Obuzor and Kelsey Bartman used to kid around as friends that they should start a dance company together. Once Mr. Obuzor actually did as a platform to continue dancing after sustaining a serious injury, Ms. Bartman realized it was no joke.
Throughout the rehearsal process of the first show, which brought together dancers from other companies who were off for the summer, she thought to herself, “This is going to be something awesome,” she recalls. Rather than taking a job with a small group in St. Louis, she accepted Mr. Obuzor’s invitation to stay in Pittsburgh and serve as associate artistic director for his fledgling company.
That group has since grown into Texture Contemporary Ballet, known across the region — and beyond — for taking classical ballet and tilting it on its axis in innovative ways. Tonight it will open its fifth season with “Strength & Grace” for a four-day run at the New Hazlett Theater on the North Side.
In a time when groups with decades of dance under their belts are struggling to survive, a young company that’s able to establish a signature style, an audience and the funds to support it for five years is no small feat. Texture also has done some touring, including gigs at such prestigious places as the annual Jacob’s Pillow dance festival and the Ailey Citigroup Theater (home to the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater) in New York City.
“Those are things I didn’t think I’d ever do in my lifetime, let alone with a company that I helped start,” Ms. Bartman says.
But she and Mr. Obuzor credit some of these early successes to Pittsburgh’s appetite for the arts.
“I feel like Pittsburgh is a really good place to have a company like this. Some of it comes from a lot of talented dancers in Pittsburgh who want to dance and be a part of it. It also comes from an audience in Pittsburgh that appreciates a professional-level ballet that also has some contemporary stuff,” Mr. Obuzor says. “They help us and we help push them artistically, and it helps build a following.”
The process has come with its share of growing pains, particularly on the administrative side. But together the pair has learned how to shoulder the responsibilities of both choreographer and business person, plus put in place a team that helps with fundraising, marketing and other development-oriented tasks. Texture also now has about seven resident dancers that it pays per project. (Although doing other jobs on the side to make ends meet still is “a juggling act for a lot of us,” Mr. Obuzor says.)
Accolades and administrative duties aside, what keeps them all going is a pure passion for creating dance.
“We’re really silly, but we’re also really serious about what we do,” Ms. Bartman says. “We just want to have a lot of fun with this thing that we love so much.”
This week at the New Hazlett, audiences will be treated to new works, as well as the revival of Mr. Obuzor’s piece “Feel of Fire” (with Pierri, Meyers and Piazzolla music) that he choreographed in 2006 for Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre. Ms. Bartman collaborated with her sister Krysta, a singer and costume designer, on a new ballet that reflects on women in the United States during World War II. It’s set to contemporary songs arranged by Ben Hardt that have been transformed to have the swinging sounds of the 1940s. The program also includes premieres by Gabriel Gaffney Smith to Bach and Darren McArthur to original electronic music by slowdanger’s Taylor Knight.