Darren Lee
As it faces a scaled-back future, Madison Ballet is celebrating the long career of outgoing artistic director W. Earle Smith with Rise, its last concert of the season.
The program, March 30 and 31 at the Overture Center, will feature selections from Smith’s 19 years at the company.
“We’re doing a bunch of excerpts from, I guess, my greatest hits,” says Smith, laughing. “These are either audience favorites or dancer favorites.”
The event will also mark a turning point for the ballet, as it readies for cuts in staff and dancers. There’s no timeline, but eventually the company will need to find better quarters than aging Westgate Mall, whose future is uncertain.
“In a nutshell, next season is pared down,” says Gretchen Bourg, the company’s general manager. “While we’ve been ending recent fiscal years in the black, we need to position ourselves financially so we can move when the time comes and build school enrollment so we rely less on ticket sales.”
To prepare, Madison Ballet will draw down expenditures and place the savings in assets. “A more modest season and some investment in our school will help build that cash reserve we’re going to need in the coming months,” she says, confirming that the Ballet will reduce its company of 15 dancers to four, with extended contracts. When asked for comment on the cuts, Smith responded, “Since I’m leaving, I’ll leave next season to others.”
Nevertheless, the Ballet will continue to dance. Rise features two selections from the original ballet Dracula, scored by local composer Michael Massey and choreographed by Smith. Other works choreographed by Smith include Groovy, Expression, Las Cuatro and Nuoto. Also included will be George Balanchine’s Valse Fantaisie and Christopher Wheeldon’s pas de deux from The American.
During his tenure, Smith created the School of Madison Ballet, established its first professional company and choreographed more than 25 new works for the troupe’s repertoire.
“Earle has contributed to the phenomenal growth of Madison Ballet, and his imprint will be felt for many years to come,” says Bourg.
Smith’s departure was a surprise when it was announced Nov. 30. “I’ve reached the point where — You know what? — I’ve done what I wanted to and it’s time to move on,” says Smith.
As the choreographer of the popular Nutcracker, which runs at Overture every holiday season, Smith’s artistic work has been viewed by than 200,000 people over the years, according to Bourg.
Smith, 55, is from Hawaii. He began dance training at Honolulu City Dance Center, later moving to the School of American Ballet in New York City and Pacific Northwest Ballet School in Seattle. But the young dancer also studied finance at the University of Texas at Arlington and Tarrant County College in Fort Worth, Texas. He came to Madison in 1998 to join Group Health Cooperative as a financial analyst.
Smith was tapped in 1999 to become the ballet’s artistic director, and he helped the organization weather financial difficulties in a post-recession slump. The company took aggressive action early in the recession, making painful cuts to staff and trimming its 2008-09 season. But the company continued to rely on a line of credit to maintain liquidity during summers, until The Nutcracker annually replenished funds to pay down the debt. That’s risky but not unusual for dance companies, given their seasonal nature.
Smith says he looks forward to teaching and choreographing around the country, but he will remain based in Madison. “I kind of want to stick with working with youth and families, and maybe even aging adults,” he says, adding that he might pursue work as an arts administrator.
As for the future of Madison Ballet, “Development is always a tough issue for any performing arts organization,” he says. “And Madison Ballet is understaffed, overworked. Development is really tough, and our board is small right now.”
Says Bourg: “As much as I’d like to see us have a glorious showy season like we had this year, we’ve got our hands full — and bare-bones staff — and I am relieved that the board is taking a conservative approach.”
