Jumping Twice as High: The Sarasota Ballet Celebrates 30 Years

By Sylvia Whitman | Photos by Matthew Holler
September 1, 2020

The Sarasota Ballet has long been preparing for a memorable 30th Anniversary Season. First up were eight summer performances at the Joyce Theater in New York, followed by an appearance at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in the Berkshires. Then you know what happened. “It was going to be a great start, but things changed,” says director Iain Webb. As arts venues closed during the coronavirus lockdown, The Sarasota Ballet took care of its dancers, maintaining salaries and health insurance through the end of annual contracts. Then Webb and his team began reconfiguring plans. The 20-21 season is still going to be memorable—just in a different way. 

Dry Run Summer

The Sarasota Ballet enrolls scores of young dancers in summer programs. It considered going all virtual, but a poll revealed that most families still wanted children to come in person. So, in a collaborative process with parents, the education crew split the program into studio mornings and Zoom afternoons. With health and safety the first priority, the team taped off 6×12 feet areas for each dancer in every studio, cleaned daily, and required everyone in the building to wear a mask. “If you can imagine, for a dancer, breathing through a mask,” says Webb, shaking his head. “But as the medical profession says, your lungs are going to be much stronger at the end of it.” The summer session culminated in the usual big finale, often a child’s first chance to be on stage or perform a solo.

“I have to tell you, to see these young dancers, with masks on—it was heartbreaking in a way, and yet it was so inspiring,” says Webb. The tots had sprinkled glitter on their face masks. “They loved it. It was great to see, after all the care that we had put into it, that there was that moment of enjoyment there. That’s what it’s about.”

The small classes, social distancing, and cleaning protocols of the summer paved the way for the reopening this month of the Margaret Barbieri Conservatory—a full-time, pre-professional program for 11-18-year-olds—and The Sarasota Ballet School. 

Behind-the-Scenes Fall

But the three full-company performances on the original 30th anniversary schedule cannot happen in pandemic mode—because of too large gatherings of audience members and too close communions of dancers. “When you look at the scenario of dance, it’s not a case of somebody in the center of the stage or in the car park just singing,” says Webb. “You can’t do distanced partnering. We’re physically touching each other.”

Webb considered the “usual” (these days) live stream of some kind of performance. But what if … video cameras started rolling sooner, from the dancers’ first moment back in the studio? Imagine a sort of rehearsal reality show with a dozen principals as they learn steps and feel the music together. “I think it will be interesting for people to understand what goes on behind the scenes to produce a ballet,” says Webb. 

To limit physical contact, the “digital fall season” will feature thematically linked dances rather than a full ballet. “There are a couple of solos, a couple of pas de deux; there’s a great pas de trois,” says Webb. Instead of seeing just a finished product, viewers will follow the sometimes messy process, although it will culminate in a polished performance, complete with costumes and, in the end, no masks. “It will be a full experience for the audience and for the dancers themselves. I’m trying to give them something different,” says Webb. 

His team is working on the logistics of this “fly-on-the-wall” fall. “I’m not known for making my job easy,” says Webb. Likely the digital season release dates will follow the ballet’s original fall performance schedule, with the first production “opening” on October 23. To honor agreements with copyright holders, ticket numbers will likely match the audience size of a theatre, with subscribers getting first dibs, before single ticket sales. Videos will be available only through private links, over a period of 3-5 days, to allow flexibility in viewing.

“It’s a big undertaking, really different from what anybody else is doing,” says Webb. “But I figured that would be a way of saying to our donors, to our subscribers, this is your company.” 

Full Swing Spring

At this point, Webb says he’s looking to bring the rest of the company back into full swing in January. Expect an extraordinary gala—perhaps outdoors. “Then we’ll be doing the program we announced”—four full montage programs, including such pieces as Peter Darrell’s Othello, George Balanchine’s Serenade, and Agnes de Mille’s Fall River Legend. Challenges lie ahead. Normally the company would be rehearsing something for March in September. And travel restrictions have complicated flying in répétiteurs from abroad.

But Webb feels an urgency to get the company back performing—not just for The Sarasota Ballet’s audiences but for the dancers, some of whom will have been sidelined for almost a year before they return to the stage. “You’ve got to understand dancers’ careers. Some of them start very young, like the ones at our school who move into the conservatory and then to a company. So, you train and train and train. Your actual career, though it can be absolutely fantastic, is short. That’s the life of a dancer.” Actors, by contrast, can age into different roles. But dancers—“we have one small window,” says Webb. He doesn’t want anyone to miss theirs. 

In his role as nurturer-in-chief, he has to make sure every member of the company is ready to deliver a performance of a lifetime. Webb anticipates one of the hardest jobs this year will be pacing his dancers. “They’re going to want to come in, and they’re going to want to go full steam ahead.” 

The Big Picture

Webb says he’s already looking at next season. Despite pandemic setbacks and budget cuts, he’s bullish about the future of The Sarasota Ballet. Location is one reason, our “amazing city, one of the major cultural cities of Florida.” He points to the great variety of arts organizations that make Sarasota so much more than a beach town. People retire here for the arts—but younger people come here for that reason, too, he says, “like the young families who are moving so that their children can take part in the conservatory, with their dream of joining the company.” In spite of Covid-19, “the arts are what keeps Sarasota breathing.”

Webb says The Sarasota Ballet will emerge from this crisis year as a stronger organization even more deeply connected to its community. He teases his dancers about the aerobic fitness they’re developing behind their masks: “I’ve told the guys they’re going to jump twice as high because they’re going to have all that power in their lungs.” He believes arts appreciation will grow stronger, too. 

“When you’ve gone through some difficult thing, to see something beautiful or hear some music coming through the dancer’s body—the audience is just going to be holding their breath,” he says. “We’ll get through this. The world will get through this. I’m convinced there’s going to be an amazing spotlight at the end of the tunnel, and The Sarasota Ballet will be dancing there.”

For updated information on The Sarasota Ballet’s 30th anniversary season, visit the website: 

sarasotaballet.org/30th-anniversary-season-overview.