Rachelle Butler Retires from the Stage

Butler (center) as the Dewdrop in Madison Ballet's 2013 Nutcracker © SKepecs

CulturalOyster: How old are you now, at retirement?

Butler: I am retiring at 29, two months before my 30th birthday.

CulturalOyster: How old were you when you started ballet and where did you start?

Butler: I did pre ballet and level one when I was four to six years old.  But then I

Butler, age 4 or 5

stopped to pursue sports and other interests.  I began dancing again when I was 11, taking jazz classes at A Step Above, which was a Madison school directed by Melanie Kuzma.  Eventually I joined “A Step Beyond Competition Team” there, for which a requirement was to take ballet, and I fell in love.

CulturalOyster: What, or who (or both) inspired you to fall in love with ballet, to stick it out and make a career out of it?

Butler (right) at age 11, with sister Vanessa: their
first jazz performance! 

Butler: Having to work hard and really push myself throughout my training and career definitely made everything worthwhile. In addition, I was inspired by the support of my family.  When I got hired at Sacramento Ballet in 2007 my sister Vanessa moved there with me in order to supplement my income with her own so I could afford to dance.  I was also inspired by Artistic Director of Madison Ballet W. Earle Smith, who every time I doubted myself found a way to remind me of my love of ballet. Although sometimes it seemed like pulling teeth for him I'm sure, he was always there for me and continues to be there. In addition, the wonderful friends I've made throughout my career have helped me through thick and thin.

CulturalOyster: Where has your career in ballet taken you — where have you danced, as a student and as a professional? 

Butler: My career in ballet has taken me all over the US. I began my training in Madison at A Step Above, and then I met Earle and joined the Wisconsin Dance Ensemble studio company, which later became Madison Ballet.  I continued my training at The Rock School of the Pennsylvania Ballet, Miami City Ballet School and Ballet Chicago.  As I mentioned, I started my professional career at Sacramento Ballet, which increased my work ethic and ability to keep pushing even when I was exhausted. Finally I ended up at Madison Ballet, coming full circle to work with Earle again and to dance with some of the most giving and caring dancers I’ve ever known.

CulturalOyster: Tell me a little about a few of your very favorite career highlights – they don’t have to be “favorite roles.”

Butler: There have been countless great moments during my career. I've enjoyed

Butler, rehearsing the Mina
role in Smith's Dracula, with Matt Linzer
© SKepecs 

dancing a lot of amazing roles. At Madison Ballet I loved doing Mina, the lead female role in Earle’s Dracula: A Rock Ballet – and also dancing with Jason Gomez as the young lovers couple in Earle’s jazz ballet piece, “Expressions.”  I’ve done multiple principal roles in Balanchine ballets, during my training at all the places I already named and later, as a professional.

Some other great moments don't have to do with my roles but rather the pride I take in helping train two of the most wonderful Madison Ballet students, now company members, Annika Reikersdorfer and McKenna Collins.  I’ve also loved watching one of my best friends, Shannon Quirk, blossom into a rather exceptional artist, if I say so myself.  All of these experiences have allowed me to take my final bow with, not a feeling of sadness but, a feeling of utter appreciation for having been given these opportunities.

CulturalOyster: Retirement from the stage is a big step. How do you feel about it?

Butler: I am retiring from the stage with a sense of enlightenment, a feeling of joy and

Butler in Smith's "Expressions"
© Kat Stiennon

appreciation. Without all of the teachers, dancers, artistic directors, managers, registrars, family and friends who’ve been there for me along the way I couldn't have had the career, or the life I've led so far.  As dancers we live in a world that’s not just endless good days – there are days of loneliness, days when just making it through class is tough enough, days when you feel like you've not only let yourself down but everyone around you as well.  But I wouldn't change a single one!  The tough days are the ones you grow the most from, and I wouldn't give that up for anything in the world. So, to say it in one word, I feel grateful.

CulturalOyster: What’s next for you?

Butler: I plan to continue teaching and be a part of the Madison Ballet and Madison arts community.  I was born and raised here, and I hope to be a part of the growth of the arts here.  I have every faith that Madison Ballet will once again thrive, and I hope to be able to be part of that and give to others at least a fraction of what has been given to me.

                                                                                                  

                                                                                                   ------ interview by SK

Jason Gomez Retires from the Stage

Gomez and Luksik in Madison Ballet's Nutcracker 2014  © Natalie Armstrong

CulturalOyster: How old are you now, at retirement?

I am 32 years old.

Gomez: How old were you when you started, and where did you start?

I took my first dance class ever at age 15 with a performance group that did musical

Gomez in his first Nutcracker

revues called The Rising Stars of Texas, in San Antonio .  I got my first taste of "real" ballet at age 19 with a pre-professional company in Tallahassee, Florida called Pas de Vie ballet.  Charles Hagan and Natalia Botha, both former dancers with Pittsburgh Ballet Theater, started this company and it was under them that I learned the ropes of ballet life and saw and performed in my first Nutcracker -- and it's through them that I received my first job.

CulturalOyster: What, or who, or both, inspired you to fall in love with ballet, to stick it out and make a career out if it?

Gomez: My love and passion for ballet was fostered with Pas de Vie ballet, though I was still in school at Florida State University completing my Music degree and following a pre-med curriculum.  After college, I got a job with a psychiatrist back in my hometown, San Antonio. My mom worked for Dr. Escamilla, and he was the one who had guided me on my pre-med track in high school.  While I was working for him, I got news that a local ballet company was in need of men and I should send a video.  Dr. Escamila met with me and encouraged me to pursue dance if it was a passion.  He's a musician as well as a doctor, and he's in a band, so he understood.  He told me not fully pursuing music was something he regretted, and that if I worked hard enough medicine would always be there for me to enter into at any age. That gave me the push to send my video and take my first professional job.

CulturalOyster: Where has your career in ballet taken you – where have you danced, as a student and as a professional? 

Gomez: I love that I had the opportunity to travel with ballet.  Through Pas de Vie ballet in Florida, I made connections and got training at Nutmeg Conservatory in Connecticut.  I also spent some summers with The Joffrey Workshop in San Antonio.  I danced professionally with Ballet San Antonio before they became a full-time company, and then with Ballet Quad Cities in Iowa, where I danced six seasons.  After leaving BQC I joined Missouri Ballet Theatre in St. Louis, under Adam Sage.  I spent two seasons there.  Then I auditioned here in Madison and joined Madison Ballet in 2014.

CulturalOyster: Tell me a little about a few of your very favorite career highlights.  They don’t all have to be “favorite roles!” 

Gomez: I have so many memories.  One of my favorite roles was Oberon, in Adam Sage's A Midsummer Night's Dream.  Also, getting to dance Madison Ballet's principal male Nutcracker role with Molly Luksik at Overture Hall, with the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra – because that was largest venue I've danced in, I didn't often have

Gomez soaring at Ballet Quad Cities

live music in the Nutcrackers of my career, and I enjoyed the partnership I had with Molly.  Offstage, I will always remember all the laughs.  At Ballet Quad Cities I had to rehearse the Arabian pas [in Nutcracker] with one of my good friends (we were like brother and sister) and we could not look at each with the passion that’s needed for Arabian.  We spent the first few weeks of rehearsal just giggling uncontrollably, much to the frustration of our director.  Also, I'll never forget laughing every year in Iowa when we'd learn Russian for Nutcracker and we’d all have to watch a video of me tripping in those abominable puffy trepak pants.  

CulturalOyster: Retirement from the stage is a big step.  How do you feel about it?

Gomez: There a mixed emotions with retiring from full-time dance.  I feel fulfilled with a lot of the experiences and opportunities I've had over the years, and I've known for a few years that this transition was coming because I have another career that I've wanted to pursue since the age of five, that I've put on hold.  Of course, the dancer in me can't

Gomez dancing with Shannon Quirk at Madison Ballet
© SKepecs

imagine not taking class everyday, and the same dread that comes over me in the summers – that question of “how will I stay in shape?” – is creeping into my head now.  Dance is physically demanding and truly does encompass all aspects of your life. With age you grow as an artist, but the physical demands become steeper, and I am wanting more than the "dancer lifestyle" that's easy to accommodate in your younger years.  I'm ready to let that go and follow another dream. 

CulturalOyster: What’s next for you?

Gomez: Though I thought I'd want to pursue medicine in a medical school, over the years I've gained a huge appreciation for and love of nursing.  I plan to go to nursing school and hopefully to continue on to become a nurse practitioner.  I'm already signed up for prerequisites I need for a masters program at Ohio State.  It’s a good school for nursing with a perfect program for someone like me who has no previous nursing degree or experience but already has a bachelors’ degree.  It just so happens too that we want to move closer to my husband's family, who also live in Ohio.  I have an new flame burning, a drive, that excites me and I feel blessed to know it and have opportunity to pursue it.

At Madison Ballet 2016  © SKepecs

                                                                                                       ------ interview by SK

Madison Ballet's Repertory I: Ephemeral

Ollenburg and Quirk in "Zero Hour" © Kat Stiennon 2016

by Susan Kepecs

Dance is an ephemeral art.  Thanks to today’s technology we can record and recreate it better than ever before, but dancers never step in the same proverbial river twice.  The same choreography will look distinct on different dancers, and, because the instrument of dance is the human body, with all its physical and emotional fluctuations, a single dancer will bring something different to the same piece every time s/he performs it.  By extension, Madison Ballet’s Repertory I concert, which ran last weekend (Feb. 5-6) at the Bartell (I went to the Saturday afternoon show), was a transient moment, never to repeat.

Tibetan Buddhist sand mandalas also are ephemeral – have you ever seen monks painstakingly creating with tiny grains of colored sand the most gorgeous hallucinations, only to destroy them later in a ritual meant to underscore the impermanence of all things?  Well, ballet companies can be ephemeral, too.  The name “Madison Ballet” has been around a long time.  Under its current artistic director, W. Earle Smith, it began, in 2004, as a student “studio company,” attached to the School of Madison Ballet and fronted in performance by one-night-stand guest artists, usually retired principals from major ballet organizations.  In 2007 Madison Ballet went to a pickup model, bringing in casts of professional dancers for three paid weeks prior to performances.  But the outfit we know as Madison Ballet today, with professional dancers (some of whom come up through the School) on season contract – the holy grail, since having dancers in residence for months on end is the only way to build a unified company and provide time for choreography to seep into everyones’ bones – is only four years old.

In those four years the company’s been transformed; today any mid-sized, thriving city (which ours is, theoretically) would count an organization like this among its high cultural treasures. So it came as a shock when, two weeks ago, out of the blue, the powers that be delivered a cold shot, canceling the season post-Repertory I. Three more shows had been slotted for spring – a tour for Smith’s sexy steampunk rock n’ roll ballet Dracula, an updated version of his family-oriented Peter Pan, and the now-traditional season finale for this company, the Balanchine-based Repertory II program. 

Financial malfunctions are clearly the culprit, though much of the story remains mysterious.  But it’ll be a long time, if ever, before Madison Ballet steps again in any similar river – and fifteen beautiful, hardworking young dancers are left out in the street, pondering the impermanence of all things and wondering where their next jobs will come from. 

In the face of all this adversity, Rep I, miraculously, went on without a hitch.  The program began with the exquisite Shannon Quirk performing the very neoclassical “Adagio de Quatres, Fourth Movement,” which Smith choreographed on and for her in 2013.  This dance, settled deep in her bones, appeared unpremeditated, natural, transcendant – a light, sweeping ode to attitude turns adorned with sublimely expressive arms.  Music made visible; woman, dancing. 

“On the Surface,” a new work created for Madison Ballet by Chicago and New York-based urban contemporary choreographer Jacqueline Stewart, was a much better fit for this company than her offering last year, the quirky “Jiffy Pop,” which she originally made in 2010 for Chicago’s contemporary dance troupe Thodos.  “Surface” – a play on all sorts of surface tensions – featured eight dancers (Cyrus Bridwell, Elizabeth Cohen, McKenna Collins, Jason Gomez, Abigail Henninger, Kelanie Murphy, Jordan Nelson, and Phillip Ollenburg) in simple black dance clothes.  Their angular, spiky moves were amplified under high-contrast, gold-toned light.  Cohen, partnered by Bridwell, slid stiff-legged, on pointe, across the floor.  Ollenburg lifted Henninger, long legs scissoring like a skimming waterbug, dangerously overhead.  Collins and Gomez stalked each other in a bright spotlight to an electronic tango.  The whole piece, drawn directly from the contemporary idiom, was less avant-garde than I expected, more like works from Hubbard Street Dance Chicago’s earlier repertory than “Jiffy Pop.”    

Like Stewart, General McArthur Hambrick, whose résumé spans the worlds of ballet, Broadway, and gospel, had a piece in last year’s Rep I.  His new work, “Zero Hour,” also a premiere, looked surprisingly similar to Stewart’s, on the surface – dancers in simple black dancewear, high-contrast, gold-toned lighting, and an eclectic electronic score.  But “Zero,” like the previous piece Hambrick set on Madison Ballet, “Am I My Brother’s Keeper,” told an abstract story steeped in mystery and edged with revelation.  “Zero”’s large cast – Bridwell, Collins, Henninger, Murphy, Nelson, Ollenburg, Quirk, Rachelle Butler, Joe LaChance, Annika Reikersdorfer, and Jackson Warring – plus its sequences of big, unison movements – gave it a palpable sense of power.  The dancers moved in lockstep, then in circular swarms; one at a time, Bridwell and Reikersdorfer were lifted to the top of the hive, then dropped to the ground.  With a shout (though it seemed muted – more emphatic delivery would have heightened the drama) the swarm broke apart, revealing freedom: rock n’ roll, festooned with leaps and cartwheels. 

A pair of new works by Smith, “Jux I” (for five women) and “Jux II” (for the company’s six men), ended the program.  Each was built on repeated sequences and featured dancers in plain white dance clothes.  “Jux I,” a pretty, allegro piece to a difficult, rhythmically layered contemporary classical score, was Balanchine-esque, recalling the master’s penchant for the flexed wrists, entwined arms, jutting hips, and sixth position prances that appear in dances like Apollo and The Four Temperaments.  “Jux I” demanded tight corps work, and Cohen, Collins, Murphy, Reikersdorfer, and Kristin Hammer were marvelously meticulous, popping in and out of synch like jazz musicians wildly improvising.

Jux I             © Kat Stiennon 2016

The music for “Jux II” was gentler, allowing the men, with their longer limbs, more leeway. The choreography was more substantive, its corps work punctuated by solos.  As in “Jux I,” repeated patterns were done in and out of synch.  A little judicious editing would have helped – by the end I’d had time to memorize some of the steps.  But in the big picture, that barely mattered.  There wasn’t a lot of bravura – what was lovable about this dance was its ebb and flow, its surprising playfulness, and the indelible image of six men waltzing.  Jordan Nelson, dancing solo, free and easy, swept left, then right, then flew into a series of turns.   Phillip Ollenburg, agile and strong, stole the show, flinging himself boldly into arabesque turns or riding the rhythm on strings of little brisés. Music made visible.  Man, dancing. 

Ephemeral.