Some Things Never Die: Decades of Columbia City Ballet's Dracula

by Susan Lenz

In the spring of 1994, William Starrett came to my little frame shop with an order for Columbia City Ballet. Easily, he talked me into exchanging my services for performance tickets. I took my six year old son to the next performance: The Ballet Tara. It was not critically acclaimed, but we didn’t know any better. We loved it and very much looked forward to the next season’s opening show, Dracula: Ballet with a Bite.  

We loved Dracula too. My son left the Koger Center asking for dance lessons. He wanted nothing more than to be on the stage with the Undead. Looking back, I can now see that even a six-year-old boy might feel the attraction of half-clad female vampires using their sexuality to lure men into rolling around on the floor of hot red and passionate purple stage set. What’s not to like when the contract-required long hair of the female cast is part of the choreography? Alluringly slung in full head tosses? The seduction hasn’t changed since Dracula debuted in 1991. 

Yet, much else has. And change is necessary. This is the twenty-second time Dracula has been part of Columbia City Ballet’s season (since 1991, there were a couple years when Dracula’s Revenge or Frankenstein was done instead of the original cult classic.) There is a constant need to update costumes, props, and sets. Every year demands a physically grueling number of rehearsals to introduce new dancers to their parts and ease seasoned dancers into new roles. Over the years, additional music has enhanced the original ASCAP award-winning score by the late composer Thomas E. Samanski. 

Jason Cobb, Office and Educational Outreach Manager, showing off a package of Dracula fangs.)

Even the fangs have changed. Early productions required dancers to visit Tom Hoffman, the company dentist, for full mouth impressions. Nowadays, thermoplastic fangs come in tiny coffin boxes from Dracula House. This year’s show will feature a new Gothic chair fashioned after a set designer’s recent trip visiting Eastern European castles. There’s a new character too: Renfield, Dracula’s weird, fly-eating minion.

Katie Heaton and Amanda Summey, members of the Undead.

Obviously, the cast has changed every year. In 1991 Gillian Murphy, now principal at American Ballet Theater in New York City, danced as a senior apprentice. William Starrett portrayed the protagonist, Jonathan Harker, but would later become Count Dracula before retiring.

In 1994, I left my younger son at home. He had just turned four and was in pre-kindergarten with Amanda Summey, one of this year’s Undead. By 1996, my elder son did appear in Dracula. He was one of the children in an idyllic picnic scene with Bonnie Boiter-Jolley, now a soloist with the Ballet and a Maiden of Darkness who is featured on this year’s advertisement poster.

Over the years, and now decades, I’ve seen Dracula: Ballet with a Bite dozens of times. It’s part of my never-dying Halloween tradition. I always look forward to the same campy, sexy fun as well as the updates and transitions that keep the production fresh.

For tickets to the show, please visit http://www.kogercenterforthearts.com

7:00 PM Friday, October 27, 2017
7:00 PM Saturday, October 28, 2017

There is masquerade “Gala with a Bite” ball after Friday’s performance. This ticketed event will be held at City Market Place, 705 B Gervais Street. Tickets can be ordered atbrownpapertickets.com/event/2962339 or by calling (803) 799-7605. On Saturday, there is a 6:00 PM pre-show lecture in the Koger Center Ballroom with Artistic Director William Starrett. During Saturday’s intermission, over $100 in prizes will be awarded through a costume competition for audience members. Dracula: Ballet with a Bite is also scheduled for Charleston’s Sottile Theater at 7:00 PM on Halloween night.

A Place for Every Dancer: Civic Ballet

By: Susan Lenz

When my husband Steve Dingman finished his PhD, he accepted a job here in Columbia. We moved in January 1987 and shortly thereafter, I got pregnant and we bought a house. We considered this the beginning of our "real lives" as tax-paying adults and felt the thrill of doing cultural things like attending the ballet. We'd never seen the Nutcracker and were excited to attend a Thanksgiving weekend performance at the Township Auditorium. Columbia City Ballet, a civic company, had guest dancer William Starrett performing the role of the Cavalier Prince. Little did we know that the local dance scene was about to change radically.

By the next year, Columbia City Ballet became a professional company under the direction of William Starrett. Instead of amateurs performing almost all the roles (hiring guest professionals only as needed, generally for leading male parts requiring complicated partnering), a professional troupe was hired. Paid dancers replaced local high school students. Ideally, this meant Columbia's audiences could expect a higher level of technical ability and better quality. It also meant that local student dancers had fewer opportunities to perform. That's when Ann Brodie's Carolina Ballet was founded, a civic company to continue the tradition of training pre-professional dancers. 

Ann Brodie's Carolina Ballet is still mounting the Nutcracker at the Township Auditorium over every Thanksgiving weekend. This is their 30th year. All 163 dancers who auditioned last August were cast. Co-artistic director John Whitehead said, "It is our duty and responsibility to find a place for everyone. We make the dancers look good because they make the production look good." Over the years, several have gone from being mice to Sugar Plum Fairy. A civic company provides a unique training ground with performing opportunities. When I asked about the difficulties of casting, John explained that age, ability, and height are important factors. Plus, there are only so many costumes and dancers in particular scenes. (For example, there are only twenty Bon-Bon outfits.)

Rehearsals for this year's show have been underway for weeks. The dancers come from a variety of different ballet schools and programs. Older dancers rehearse every weekday evening after their regular ballet class plus Saturdays and Sundays. Younger dancers come on the weekends from 2 to 5:30. There are guest performers too, including Chris Beattie, a character actor who has been the Rat King for twenty-three years. Miss Libby's Dance School in Sumter sends tap dancing soldiers for the battle scene. The second act opens to the angelic voices of Capella Pueri, St. Peter's Catholic School choir under the direction of Andrew Kotylo. Neil Casey conducts The Columbia Festival Orchestra throughout the show.

I asked John Whitehead if he ever tired of this annual production. Confidently, he said no. He finds personal revitalization in the energy of the kids. I asked his co-artistic director Mimi Worrell if she had ever been Clara, the most coveted role for a young girl. No. Her first part was as a Party Girl. Over the years, she has danced just about every other role either as an amateur in a civic show or for pay in a professional company.

Over the years, I've seen plenty of Nutcracker productions, with choreography as different as George Balanchine's to Septime Webre's and companies as far away as Pacific Northwest and London's Royal Ballet. Yet, the one I know the best is still Ann Brodie's at Carolina Ballet. I will always love seeing young dancers living their dream and growing up on stage from part to part. 

Tickets are available by calling (803) 576-2350 or visiting www.ticketmaster.com

Dates and times for the production are:

• Friday, November 24, 2017 - 7:30pm

• Saturday, November 25, 2017 - 7:30pm

• Sunday, November 26, 2017 - 3:00pm

Audition Hopes and Dreams in Columbia Dance

By: Susan Lenz

Columbia City Ballet is busy rehearsing both Emanuel: Love is the Answer for their October 20th performance at Charleston Music Hall and for Dracula: Ballet with a Bite that will be staged in multiple locations in the southeast.  Columbia Classical Ballet is busy rehearsing Imagine: Ballet Rocks for its October 13th show here at the Koger Center and for another weekend in West Virginia. These are busy, professional companies. 

And behind the scenes they are both also getting ready for the annual holiday tradition called Nutcracker. Most ballet companies in the United States depend on this one production to "pay the bills" for the rest of the season. This one show is a mainstay in Columbia's dance scene, and there's good reason for it.

In an online Christmas eve 2014 Time Magazine article, Sarah Begley and Julia Lull explain the relatively recent Nutcracker phenomena. Ten years after San Francisco Ballet first brought the full-length ballet to America in 1944, New York City Ballet's George Balachine cast thirty-five children in his iconic choreography. Ever since, children have been part of the visual and financial equation. As the article points out, "when your kid's in the show, you've gotta see it—and you probably have to reserve tickets for the whole extended family, too. That means whether you have a young star or just a young audience member, if you're only going to see one ballet per year, it will probably be The Nutcracker."

Music commentator Miles Hoffman once told NPR, "for thousands and thousands of children [The Nutcracker has] been their first exposure both to ballet and to classical music."  That is certainly the case here in Columbia. Over the years, I've personally watched young dancers grow up through the available roles, from mouse to bon-bon to party girl to a dancing flower blossom. Hopes and dreams hang on auditions. 

So, recently I went to Lancaster, one of eight locations where Columbia City Ballet Artistic Director William Starrett and staff cast children for their company's Nutcracker tour. I met fourteen-year-old Joey Effren, who has been on-pointe for four years. She's hoping to become a snowflake in her third appearance in the annual show. Eleven-year-old Grayson Knox auditioned on-pointe for the first time. She hopes to be in the party scene. It was eight-year-old Carmela Tiedt's first audition for CCB. She's seen the Charlotte Ballet's Nutcracker for the past several years. In two weeks, Carmela and the others will receive their audition results in the mail. If cast, the letter will include a twice-per-week over five-weeks rehearsal schedule. Columbia City Ballet sends a ballet mistress to teach all the parts and steps to every location. They also bring all of the costuming, from town to town and cast to cast. The logistics are mind-boggling. Little Carmela is hoping there are mouse ears and a tail in her future.

Columbia Classical Ballet isn't holding open auditions this year. They cast children from their official training site, Pavlovich Ballet School. Artistic Director Radenko Pavlovich said that past open auditions became "a nightmare" because of conflicting rehearsal schedules, family vacations, school commitments, and outside activities. Besides, Columbia Classical Ballet's professional dancers are having to learn two completely different Nutcracker choreographies. They have their own show, but are also dancing the major roles for a production with Charleston Ballet in Charleston, West Virginia. That cast will include local children who are learning directions and staging before the professional company arrives. Nutcracker is far more complicated that the fairy-tale picture it paints on stage.

As audience members, we are lucky here in Columbia because we have a variety of opportunities to see the production. My advice is to see the show more than once. This is an excellent chance to compare the two professional companies and to see hopes and dreams danced out on stage. Below is a listing of dates and ticket information.

But there's more!

I haven't mentioned the civic company here in town. Ann Brodie's Carolina Ballet is a pre-professional civic ballet company that annually presents The Nutcracker at the Township Auditorium over Thanksgiving weekend. Most roles, even the major parts, are danced by local talent. Casting happened in late August. They are already well into rehearsals and I'll blog about this upcoming show at a later time!

Columbia City Ballet's Nutcracker performances at the Koger Center:

3:00 PM Saturday, December 9, 2017
7:30 PM Saturday, December 9, 2017
3:00 PM Sunday, December 10, 2017
3:00 PM Saturday, December 16, 2017
7:30 PM Saturday, December 16, 2017
3:00 PM Sunday, December 17, 2017

Columbia Classical Ballet's Nutcracker performances at the Koger Center:

7:30 PM Friday, December 1, 2017
3:00 PM Saturday, December 2, 2017
7:30 PM Saturday, December 2, 2017
3:00 PM Sunday, December 3, 2017

Tickets to either company's complete season are available on the Koger Center website:

www.kogercenterforthearts.com