Photo Courtesy of Ballet Palm Beach
Founder of Ballet Palm Beach Colleen Smith is looking forward to the 2022-2023 season.
The company will perform Snow White starting Oct. 26 at the Kravis Center. When selecting the repertoire for the season, Smith’s first step is always looking for the strongest stories.
Ballet Palm Beach’s family friendly production of Snow White will be based on the Grimm's Fairy Tales version.
“It’s truly to bring to life this great fairytale with fabulous medieval music which a contemporary composer combined together,” Smith said.
Along with Snow White, students of Palm Beach County will view another piece based on all the great hits by Glenn Miller such as “Moonlight Serenade” and “Tuxedo Junction.”
From the Nutcracker to Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night Dream to the biblical story of Queen Esther, this year’s repertoire includes a story for everyone. Queen Esther was slated for the 2020 season but due to the audience’s interest will be repurposed for this year.
Photo Courtesy of Ballet Palm Beach
Smith’s love for dance and the performing arts started when she began performing herself. Growing up, she would have to go to Miami to view any performances because there were no performing arts centers in Palm Beach County.
She does recall as a young dancer, viewing a production of Taming of the Shrew in New York that blew her away.
It was the lack of arts in her neighboring area that prompted Smith to start the academy and then expand to Ballet Palm Beach, a professional ballet company.
“We were doing a lot of student productions and I needed an outlet for my students to begin having the chance to be in professional scale productions. We have to be contributing to our community with our performances and our outreach programs,” she said.
One of those outreach programs, Ballet By The Book takes children’s literary classics from the page to the stage as dance productions. Smith thought of the idea while driving to the studio one day. In the program, she interprets children’s literature through choreography and presents it at libraries and schools.
As an avid reader herself, Smith believes the program is a great way for children to be intrigued by art.
“I think that reading for children is incredibly important. They must read. If they don’t read, the world is really closed off to them. The program is showing them what can happen with your imagination if you read,” she said.
Ballet Palm Beach’s company also shares the process of creating costumes with the kids explaining the colors they chose based on the story. Smith enjoys helping them make the connection between inspiration and creating art. She recalls it’s interesting that they can follow that concept even at four years old, sitting on their parent’s lap at the library.
She notes her strength as a choreographer is creating an era and feeling for each work.
“I’m fascinated by words turning into movement,” she said.
Her process as a choreographer adapting these works begins with studying the stories themselves. For instance with The Great Gatsby, she utilized music from the 1920s and incorporated songs mentioned in the book. Smith chose to set the tone of The Great Gatsby dance through the costumes and color palette used during that time. Although other choreographers tend to write down their plans before stepping into the studio, Smith prefers to work with the dancers in person and the ideas for movement begin.
Photo Courtesy of Ballet Palm Beach
Her biggest piece of advice for first time choreographers is “don’t doubt yourself. The dancers are your clay. Don’t be intimated by that.”
Smith is grateful to have been the recipient of the 2020 Frank Prize for Arts Education. The most rewarding part of her career is the dancers and students she works with.
Everyone is welcome to join the school at Ballet Palm Beach. Upon reaching the last level in the academy, trainees are given the opportunity to audition for the professional company.
Smith always looks for natural ability and the dancer's willingness to work. She admits that while someone can be gifted if they’re closed off to new information then unfortunately nobody can work with them.
"I always look for dancers that are very good performers. You can be a wonderful technician but if you are not a storyteller then it falls flat,” she said.
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