ACB Builds Ballet in L.A. with a Radical Twist

The American Contemporary Ballet (ACB), a young company that is courageously taking the road less traveled, is making their mark in developing the flowering Los Angeles Ballet scene.   Since their arrival from New York in 2011, Lincoln Jones, Artistic director and choreographer, a native of SoCal, and Theresa Farrell, Executive Director and dancer, found creative and innovative solutions for the future of ballet in their now adopted Los Angeles.

Interviewing Jones, Farrell and Cara Hansvick, dancer with ACB, I was educated on the creativity, grit and culture they have brought to this spread-out city where traffic marks all plans, TV and Film is king, and culture has often taken a back seat to cost and time.  Despite challenges, these creative, smart and enthusiastic young artisans unfold their vision and accomplishments, and leave me hopeful for the future of dance, music and art in this vibrant yet chaotic city.   My questions were many, but whittled them down for brevity sake:

JD: Theresa, what makes your company unique for L.A?

TF: Approaching L.A. is entirely different than anywhere else.  There was an excitement about this city.  There wasn’t a built-in dance audience like there was in New York, so we knew just coming in [we had to ask], ‘How do we raise the funds, raise awareness and bring in an audience?’

We saw that there was a very robust classical music scene here with the L.A Phil, L.A. Opera, and chamber groups.  We saw it was thriving, and because ACB exemplifies dance as a musical art form, it made sense to build our public from the music audience.  That’s when we collaborated with the Da Camara Society, known for its high-quality chamber music performances in historic and non-traditional L.A. Sites. And so, we’d present chamber music, on its own… and added Ballet!  And we thought, with the music audience, these are people who are curious about the classical arts.  Now let’s educate them about dance.  And so, we started by educating an ‘adult’ audience which quickly grew outside of just the music community…it grew to the architectural community because we perform in their venues, and then art people in general.  Then it kept growing beyond that.

JD:  Lincoln, what makes ACB thrive in this not-so-common approach to dance.  It’s so unique to the city.

LJ: It’s not only unique to L.A. but I’m pretty sure, to the world.  The fact that it’s always live music, with a non-proscenium spaces the format of the shows, the material, the immersive productions, and a classical approach makes it one of a kind, as far as I know.  The lack of proscenium is important for me…it can make the performance feel very immediate and three dimensional for the audience.  Part of it was also that I wanted to get away from the suspension of disbelief, where there’s a curtain which separates the audience from the artists and harkens to the idea of illusion.  I wanted the audience to see the dancers not as characters, but as musical performers.

JD:  Tell me about the music, since It’s such a big part of your presentation.  As a child, were you highly educated in music?

LJ: As a child I wasn’t educated in anything… I didn’t pay attention in school.  No, I started ballet when I was 20 but quickly I glommed onto George Balanchine.  Then I recognized that, ‘you cannot do this if you don’t have a background in music.’  So, I started studying.  I went very intensely into learning musical instruments, music theory, history, and composition. Dance as dance, is a musical art.  I fell in love with it.  The live music made it more immediate, more alive, and the audience was part of the same world. It’s been a constant part of my life now, and as long as I keep going, it will always be a part of my life.

JD: And, what mission did you begin with for the company, and is that changing?

LJ:  The mission really started as an entirely selfish one.  I thought about how I would want to spend my nights. I wanted it to be about music, I wanted it to be a social experience, and I wanted to be able to do it a lot.  I wanted to spend my life seeing ballet… a lot.    So, I wanted to instantly produce year-round, to be able to have that available almost every night.  With shorter programs it’s not such a commitment.   It’s got to be accessible time, location and presentation-wise.

I may have had an advantage starting late – I was able to see the art form as an adult, from the outside in, so I think I still see it a lot like our audience does.  With a regular theater, when the production is over, you often leave and don’t have a way to discuss the experience.   I think if you see something you like, the first thing you want to do is share it with people.  It’s important to me and it’s been important to our audiences too.  We do shorter programs, one, to one-and-a-half hours.  Then the audience all comes together afterwards …there’s wine, you talk with the dancers, directors, the audience.  When you go home it helps to have shared ideas with other people.

ACB is really modeled on an 18th century salon version of the artistic experience where the audience knew the artists, and it was all part of the social evening.  Also, the audience was very knowledgeable in the art which is why we do these educational programs.

Many companies do Ed programs for children, but it’s also important to do education for adults.  Not just the basics of ballet, but here’s what it means, here is the history, here’s why it’s being done this way. Here’s how you can see it with a more detailed eye. It’s about being a practitioner and a critic.

In L.A. – and everywhere, really – people know a lot about film and TV…People look at movies and TV and they can differentiate between the cinematography and the acting, from the writing and the art direction.   I didn’t think ballet could become a part of people’s lives unless they were able to do the same thing.  So ACB has a 360-degree approach to making ballet a part of their life and giving it a basic strength.

JD: Cara, since you’ve been a dancer with the company, how do you, as a performer value your experience with this company?

CH:  It’s such a special experience when I’m performing here. I fell in love with the shows we do.  They’re so rewarding as a performer, and being close to the audience, you actually feel the community.  It feels more real when the audience reacts.  You’re definitely part of a whole…I feel less like I’m not just dancing; I’m actually providing the service of sharing this gift…I never knew ballet could be like this.  It creates a different perspective.

JD:  Theresa, how do you manage to fund such a unique and worthwhile endeavor?  And what are you and Lincoln’s goals for the future?

TF: How we get our funding is primarily from individual donors.  We do have grant support but a lot of it is individual fund raising from our membership, which starts at $500 all the way up to our $50,000+ underwriters.   So, we have that individual donor base and the generous mentorships of incredible individuals like Jennifer Farro, President of KCRW.  Also, our immersive productions do very well with ticket sales.  Next season we’re doing 25 performances of the Nutcracker…and that really underwrites a large part of the season, and the higher ticket prices as well.

We’re also going to be opening a school that will feed into the company and develop the next generation of dancers. That’s now in the works.  The goal is to be training the top talent on the West Coast and attracting talent from all over the country.  Dancers will come to train in the school and then work into the company.

In addition, we will also have weekend classes for the community.  Getting people to experience dance through ACB’s unique approach further enhances enjoyment of the arts.  So, we will have classes for the public.  But our key focus will be to train top talent that can then go into the company once they graduate and can handle the varied repertoire we do here.

Our goal is to have a large enough roster of dancers so we are not limited and can provide performances most nights of the week.

LJ: Our audience is very divers in terms of age, occupation, both men and women, and come from all different backgrounds.  I think that’s very important.  In L.A, I don’t think you can survive just counting on the ballet audience, but what you can count on is the ‘culturally curious’.  You mentioned that this could be done in New York, Russia, anywhere…but it’s really my priority to make something for the people of L.A. and drawing people to L.A.   I want it to be something that’s accessible most nights throughout the year.

We already have quite an extensive performance schedule, 70 performances per year so far, and I want to pick that up. We’re working on building our own space, because we could create a venue which would be really conducive to the kind of work we’re doing.   We’ve moved around to different locations, which has taught me what works and exactly what we want to do with the space.  I also want the company to be big enough to do the Balanchine repertoire, able to do ballet on that scale, actually do ballet on any scale.  The kind of company where, if you really want to dance, this is the company you want to be in.

JD: It is very exciting to see the growth of American Contemporary Ballet. ACB’s contribution will be a unique and important gift to the Los Angeles community.

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Next Programs:

DANCING SCHOOL II:  Sunday, July 14, 2019 from 4:00pm-5:00pm,

CONVERSATION II:  Sunday. July 14, 2019 5:30-6:30pm

DEATH AND THE MAIDEN: August 1 (premiere/opening night), 2, 3, 4, 8, 9, 10, 11, 2019

Featured image: American Contemporary Ballet – Cara Hansvick and Michael Armond in rehearsal – Photo by Anastasia Petukhova