by Patti Connor
Staff Writer
Patrons of The Florida Ballet who attended the company’s July performance at the Florida Theatre had the opportunity to experience firsthand something a little different.
Although audiences traditionally are able to watch the orchestra warm up before a performance, rehearsals of the dancers generally take place far from the glare of the kleig lights behind the shroud of a heavy velvet curtain.
In a departure artistic director Laurie Byrd calls “the first that she knows of,” the company staged an elaborate pas du deux — equal footing — where musicians and dancers actually performed on stage in unison.
“As far as I know, we’re the only company to do this,” she said.
They had been discussing staging a similar performance for some time. From the perspective of the audience, it’s interesting to see the two strike every pose — and note — together.
“We first started talking about doing something like this about 18 months ago. For our first performance we decided to just do something basic. For example, you always see musicians warm up but you never see dancers warm up. We thought it would be exciting for the audience to be able to see the two arts groups together,” said Byrd. “Since they are performing in conjunction with one another, [the audience could] see them move in and out of those relationships while still maintaining that sense of interrelating.”
That sense of coordinated interrelating remained consistent throughout, all the way to the bows at the end.
“Again, we wanted to carry out the differences. You see the male dancer and the female musician do the traditional dancers’ bow, and then you see the male musician and the female dancer do the traditional musicians’ bow.”
According to Byrd, the performance was extremely well-received.
“It was interesting, I think, for them to be able to see all the subtle things such as the ballerina as she bends toward the violinist, while he in turn makes eye contact with her,” she said. “One of the people who came backstage afterwards to congratulate us was Preston Haskell, who is a former president of the symphony board. He was very excited about it.”
The two groups hope to have an opportunity to tour together in the future.
“A lot of the musicians were out of town, so we were a little limited in how much we actually were able to collaborate. As we were able to do only about five rehearsals together, we decided to play it fairly conservative,” she said.
As with any fledgling performance that departs from the tried and true, a few glitches remained.
“We didn’t realize that with the microphones on the floor you could actually hear the dancers’ foot falls. We can’t do the hanging microphones like you see above the orchestra pit because when the dancers are lifted, they could end up bumping them. We’ll probably end up going with the wireless,” she said.
Dancers at The Florida Ballet are accustomed to performing in less-than-traditional venues. In fact, they actively seek them. Now entering their third year of outdoor performances of “The Nutcracker” at World Golf Village, they performed recently at the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, in conjunction with the museum’s featured exhibit by the artist Toulouse-Lautrec. For the performance, the Cummer brought in a special wooden platform that was installed temporarily in its gardens bordering the river.
“Even though we weren’t able to do the performance en pointe,” said Byrd, “with the wonderful setting by the river, it still was quite lovely.”
A lifelong dancer who studied at the ballet school of the Metropolitan Opera House, the Joffrey Ballet and the Royal Academy of Dancing in London, Byrd established The Florida Ballet in 1978, along with her husband, Michael, a Jacksonville native who planned originally to be an aerospace engineer and then became a dancer instead.
In response to numerous requests from young dancers in search of a training forum to prepare them for a professional career, the couple in 1980 established The Florida Ballet Training Center. The center partners with agencies such as Cathedral Arts Project to identify talented students from the inner city.
In 1981, the company moved to its current location at 123 E. Forsyth St. With the economy in a state of flux, they are waiting to see what’s going to happen.
“Right now we’re just sort of treading water,” said Byrd. “As soon as the economy starts looking a little shaky, people immediately start cutting back on the arts. Then, once they cutback they realize that arts groups are a big stimulus for commerce, as well as an important part of the community. What they overlook is that, as a non-profit organization, the price we charge for our tickets is only a fraction of our operating expenses. In order for us to be accessible to the community, we must continue to have that support.”