DANCE

Home > DANCE > Houston Ballet's Ben Stevenson Academy 2010 Summer Intensive Showcase

• Tweet
• Outlook
• ICAL
• PRINT
• Email
• Feedback

• RSS

• Official Website
• Add to My Favorites

Houston Ballet's Ben Stevenson Academy 2010 Summer Intensive Showcase

Presented by Houston Ballet at San Jacinto College South: Marie Spence Flickinger Fine Arts Building

July 29-July 30, 2010

Add Review/Comment
Comment on Facebook

Houston Ballet's Ben Stevenson Academy will welcome over 100 dancers ages 9-20 from 32 states and 13 countries to its 2010 Summer Intensive Program in Houston from June 21 through July 30. The culmination of the 2010 Summer Intensive Showcase – a fully staged performance by the young artists with scenery, costumes and lights in a state-of-the-art-venue – will be held on Thursday, July 29 and Friday, July 30 at 8:00 p.m., in the Proscenium Theater at San Jacinto Community College-South, 13735 Beamer Road, Houston, Texas. The performance is open to the public and tickets, which will be sold at the door, are $10 for adults and $5 for students. For more information, call (713) 535-3210.

On Friday, July 23 at 7:00 p.m., at Pershing Middle School (located near the intersection of Bellaire Boulevard and Stella Link Road), the American Festival for the Arts (AFA) and Houston Ballet's Academy will collaborate in a unique program, the World Premieres Concert,  bringing together young composers, choreographers and dancers to create short world-premiere works featuring music written by AFA composers and choreographed and danced by academy summer intensive artists. The performance is open to the public and there is no cost for tickets.

For six weeks, the aspiring dancers in the summer intensive program will engage in ballet technique including classical variations, pas de deux and repertory, as well as classes in character dance, modern dance, musical theater and jazz. Study in Pilates, body conditioning and classes in dancer health are also included. The students have a rigorous schedule, attending classes six days a week from 9:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.

This marks the fourth year that unique classes in costume design and stage design are being offered to upper-level students by Houston Ballet administrative and production staff in order to introduce them to career fields directly related to the dance world.

For the first time, the summer intensive program will offer a screening room program. Participants will create and submit amateur dance videos in hopes that they will be selected for screening at the University of St. Thomas during the summer program. "The goal of this program is to encourage students to think about the arts of dance and film making intersect and complement each other," comments Shelly Power associate director of the academy. "It's an exciting addition to our career courses."

The summer intensive program provides the highest quality training with lessons by Houston Ballet artistic staff members, academy instructors, and Houston Ballet dancers. Principal dancers Mimi Hassenboehler and Connor Walsh along with first soloist Kelly Myernick and corps de ballet member Aria Alexander will be working with academy students throughout the program. Houston Ballet Artistic Director Stanton Welch directs classes on technique, as well as choreographs and prepares students for the end–of–session performances that showcase what they have learned.

At the performances at San Jacinto Community College South, students will perform selected works from the 2010 American Festival for the Arts World Premieres Concert. Through the Academy's Choreographic Workshop with the AFA, upper-level students have the chance to explore the techniques and challenges of creating, rehearsing and performing short pieces of original choreography set to original music scores composed by students attending this summer's Arts Music Conservatory.

The academy's choreographic workshop provides promising choreographers with the opportunity to develop their talents by creating dances pieces that are fresh and genuine. Successful stories include alumnus Garrett Smith, who won a fellowship from the New York Choreographic Institute and has gone on to create works for Houston Ballet II that have been performed internationally.

"It is a rare opportunity for a young choreographer to get a group of trained dancers and create a work especially for them. It's a wonderful learning experience for the dancers because they have the chance to use what they have learned during the summer session in a performance setting," says Ms. Power.

AFA's Executive and Artistic Director Michael Remson commented, "For young composers, this is a truly outstanding opportunity. This unique collaboration has premiered more than fifty new short ballets. These young artists are given a clean slate from which to work and the results have never failed to impress. For high school age composers, you would be hard pressed to find another opportunity like this anywhere in the United States."

Upper-level summer intensive students are also invited to audition for Houston Ballet II program, which is the academy's top level and pre-professional division of dancers. Houston Ballet II provides students with the opportunity to dance leading roles in varied repertoire throughout the season, as well as allow the dancers to develop technically and artistically by actual performance experience. Houston Ballet II has toured in Texas, nationally and internationally. In recent seasons Houston Ballet II has traveled to California (to the Festival Ballet Theatre's Protégé & Stars Invitational Dance Festival), Mexico (to the Seminario Internacional de Critica de Danza Dance Festival in Monterrey in October 2006), Budapest (International Youth Festival in October 2008), OKMozart Festival in Bartlesville, Oklahoma (June 2009) and to New York’s prestigious City Center for Music & Dance (January 2007).

Houston Ballet's Academy is the official school of Houston Ballet. The academy has become one of the nation's premiere classical ballet training institutions, and has produced many professional ballet dancers. Approximately 50% of Houston Ballet's dancers trained at Houston Ballet's Academy. Graduates of the academy have danced with numerous leading companies including American Ballet Theatre, The Australian Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, San Francisco Ballet, and Pacific Northwest Ballet.

Pictured:  Students perform "The Kingdom of the Shades" from La Bayadére at the Ben Stevenson Academy Summer Intensive Showcase.  Detail of a photo by Bruce Bennett.