WS Chronicle

By John Railey

Somewhere out there in East Winston is a girl or boy with dreams of making it on the ballet stage. There are older adults who may be in need of the healing effects of ballet. A new effort plans to help them all – and will enhance existing efforts to make the arts an economic driver in East Winston.

Triad International Ballet, a new professional ballet company based in Greensboro but serving the entire Piedmont Triad, has joined with The Center for the Study of Economic Mobility (CSEM) at Winston-Salem State University, My Brothers’ and Sisters’ Keeper in Winston-Salem (MBSK-WS) and the Guiding Institute for Developmental Education (GIDE) in the effort. The initiative begins this month with free ballet classes for local residents at the Winston Lake Family YMCA, part of the Y’s transformation to a community resource center. Classes are open to all age groups.

“I get goosebumps every time I drive up to the Y,” Alexia Maas, the executive director of the Triad Ballet, said in a recent interview. “We’re on a talent hunt. One of the kids here may go on to join our Company one day; one of them might be a scholarship recipient for our pre-professional ballet school; or join us on one of our international exchange programs.  And we’re looking for more than one to join us on stage at this year’s Christmas for the City event in Winston-Salem. I know there’s talent out there, and we’re going to find it.”

Indeed. CSEM stresses “making the invisible visible” as it taps into that talent. City leaders emphasize the arts as an economic driver downtown, but there is just as much talent in East Winston.

CSEM already supports the Royal Curtain Drama Guild (RCDG), which puts on plays in East Winston and has its own talent agency to help its artists procure work. Triad Ballet’s initiative will be a fine complement to that work.  Joel Hurt, the choreographer for the RCDG, has signed up to take the ballet classes at the Winston Lake Y. Stephanie Hurt, the founding director of the RCDG, said: “Collaboration is key. We have to work together. Utopia for me would be no competition for performing arts in Winston-Salem.”

Bill McClain, the executive director of GIDE, said, “This is really to attract kids who don’t have these types of opportunities.”

The new initiative grew from conversations among Maas, McClain, CSEM Associate Director Alvin Atkinson, and Natalya Davison, Triad Ballet’s artistic director. 

Triad Ballet grew out of a longstanding arts institution, Artistic Motion School of Arts, which is a school and amateur performing arts company founded by Davison. She has been training dancers there for more than 20 years. Triad Ballet, founded by Davison, Maas, and treasurer and operations manager Lynn Angermeier, is a means to take this work to a new level and expand its reach, as well as provide stable employment for dancers in the Triad. As part of their initiative in East Winston, they are also planning ways to bring their ballet performances to a wider audience in Winston-Salem to generate interest in their work and bring the arts to people who otherwise might not be able to experience it. 

Even if the Winston-Salem effort doesn’t produce the next Misty Copeland, the great Black ballerina, Maas said, it can still transform lives, perhaps just by helping youth through hard passages. Maas, who was a professional ballerina when she was in her 20s, said she learned the dedication, discipline and focus in dance studios to succeed as a business leader and international corporate lawyer.

Davison said: “There is something about being immersed in the ‘extraordinary’ that changes your world. Ballet and its history have so much ‘extraordinary’ that it reaches far beyond the stage.”

Davison and Geneviève Basu, a dancer and soloist with Triad Ballet, will teach the classes at the Winston Lake Y, and will be joined periodically by other senior members of the Company and faculty as guest teachers, thereby bringing the highest caliber of teaching to this local community.  “These kids deserve the very best we have,” said Maas.

Triad Ballet’s outreach will also extend to older adults, including those with dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.  Maas’s mother died of dementia. “Music and dance remained her connecting thread to the world even after the disease progressed,” Maas said. Triad Ballet is planning to do in-person and video performances at some of Winston-Salem’s nursing homes.

Triad Ballet’s commitment to Winston-Salem, especially to the program at the Y, is strong. “We’re not just coming to town to perform and disappear again until next season,” Maas said. “We want to be an integral part of the community and we want to bring ballet to those parts of the community that don’t normally get to see it. We want to be here with you, week after week. We’re not going to turn away. There’s no end date on this – we’ll be here for as long as there’s local interest in us and at least one child out there who wants to study ballet with us. I’m pretty confident this will always be so.”

To learn more about this initiative, go to www.triadinternationalballet.org.

John Railey, raileyjb@gmail.com, is the writer-in-residence for CSEM, www.wssu.edu/csem.