Sarasota Ballet of Florida
When 17th-century poet Richard Barnfield penned the line “Fortune is full of fresh variety,” he could have been envisioning the Sarasota Ballet of Florida. Now 15 years old, the company possesses a startlingly diverse repertoire, including Swan Lake, Carmina Burana, La Boutique Fantasque and Anne Frank.
“We’re very versatile,” acknowledges Artistic Director Robert de Warren. “In a small city there’s no built-in ballet audience like in New York or Boston, and in America, the ballet audience is the smallest of all. I have to bring in works that bring in an audience.”
De Warren’s strategy appears to be working. His Ca d’Zan: A Fantasy has proved so popular with local audiences it’s been brought back twice since the 2003 première. Inspired by the elaborate Venetian palace Ca d’Zan, circus magnate John Ringling’s Sarasota home, the ballet features a Circus Sarasota trapeze artist, a white stallion, clowns and acrobats.
Company members seem to relish the mix. Originally from Romania, Adrian Ciobanu, 32, joined SBF a decade ago. Although he officially retired from the company to teach and now directs the dance school, he will reprise his role as Juan Peron in Eva Peron—A Dance Portrait this season. The variety, he says, “is very good. It’s more interesting.” Ciobanu also likes the big productions SBF mounts and lauds the quality of the training that is based on the Vaganova syllabus.
In addition to solid technique, de Warren looks for dancers with acting skills. “I’m no lover of the abstract,” he says. “We do theatrical interpretation. It must be well acted, as well as danced. I want dancers who are expressive. You get very intense performances that way.” SBF dancers receive some basic training in acting, but it’s “in rehearsals where we really teach them, polish them,” he adds.
The former director of the ballet at La Scala in Milan, Italy, de Warren danced with London’s Royal Ballet. And while his 1994 appointment brought welcome international flavor to the young Sarasota company, his early years in Florida proved challenging as he and the dancers labored to make needed improvements. Still, he adds, “The first year, we did our first production of a full-length ballet, Swan Lake. There’s nothing like the challenge of a Petipa ballet to get your standards up.” Today, he says, “[there’s a] very high level even though we’re a small company.”
Small is good, says principal dancer Lauren Strongin, 21. A native of Arizona, she portrays Anne Frank in the ballet of the same name by James Buckley this season. Strongin joined SBF four seasons ago, after returning from a four-year stint in Germany, where she studied at the Stuttgart Ballet’s John Cranko School. “At a smaller company,” she says, “I have more opportunities to perform and get experience. At a bigger company, at age 21, I don’t think I’d be a principal. A smaller company can be more beneficial. The artistic director can give equal opportunities to everyone. [Dancers] can push themselves. They can grow. I think if you work hard, you’ll be rewarded with what you deserve. It’s important to have that experience.”
Besides, she adds, “I’ve never lived by the beach. That’s nice.”
Susan Chitwood, a former apprentice with Virginia Ballet Theater, has an MS in journalism from Columbia University in New York City.
