Los Angeles Ballet: LAB

Dance Channel TV premieres LA's brand new company, Los Angeles Ballet. Get an inside look with the Artistic Directors and exclusive footage of the company during their successful first season.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• Balanchine
• Ballet
• California
• Colleen Neary
• Corina Gill
• dance
• Dance Channel TV
• Kenwa Li Newell
• LA Ballet
• Lewis S
• dancing
• los
• angeles
• ballet
• company
• in
• la
• school

[lukebccb]

@RegularJesus: The "old" LAB and Ballet Pacifica are the examples of trying to become "internationally reknowned by "adding instant prestige"...... instead both companies ended up out of existence.

Hopefully Neary's and Christensen's LAB will avoid the "instant success" model and follow the "organic growth" model.......

[lukebccb]

@RegularJesus: On the contrary I hope that Neary and Christensen follow an "organic" approach of developing and growing Los Angeles Ballet so that the company will have a SOLID foundation of economics and audience following. All the non-NYC ballet companies that have become successful - Miami Ballet is an excellent example - have followed the "organic" growth of their companies and are on solid footings.

[lukebccb]

@RegularJesus: I'm not sure if you just glanced at my postings or if you have a comprehension problem but I do NOT have an "old axe to grind"..... on the contrary I'm rooting for the success of LAB.

If you had read - or didn't comprehend - my postings, I was pointing out that I hope the present LAB doesn't make the stupid mistakes of the past "LAB" as well as Ballet Pacifica of trying to be achieve the "instant 'big-league' ballet company".by "artificially" making LAB "prestigious".

(cont.)

[RegularJesus]

This lukebccb character certainly wants to draw out a 30 year old axe to grind it up up against the new LAB. I was fortuately to watch Thordal and Colleen on the stage at PNB and I wish them all the best. There are many ballet companies in LA, but LAB is focusing on fundamental Balanchine works and I think that's fantastic. If they can grow LAB the same way Francia and Kent grew PNB, then LA audiences will enjoy dance for years and years to come.

[lukebccb]

For over 40 years Ballet Pacifica had been a small BUT FINANCIALLY STABLE company. Then the Board of Directors came up with grandiose plans to turn Pacifica into a big prestigious company. Instead in less than 4 years the board drove Ballet Pacifica out of existence because of THEIR plans to turn Pacifica into a "prestige company".

I hope the people of the existing Los Angeles Ballet understand what I've been trying to get at.

[lukebccb]

The Board tried to fix finances by finding new (BIGGER) funding sources by stating Ballet Pacifica would be tranformed overnite into a big 30-40 dancer national ballet company thru the donations of big corporate sponsorship.......

The "big money" never materialized and Pacifica's finances only worsened. Ballet Pacifica shut down operations in 2007 after 45 years of existence.

(cont.)

[lukebccb]

This led to disagreements with the artistic director, Molly Lynch, which led to Lynch's departing Ballet Pacifica. With the departure of Lynch, the donors and supporters of Ballet Pacifica, which became donors and supporters of Pacifica because of Lynch, began to abandon Pacifica. Donor money began to disappear and of course the result was financial trouble for Pacifica.

(cont.)



[lukebccb]

Ballet Pacifica had been a smallish company of around 16 or so dancers and had been in existence for over 40 years. It concentrated on contemporary works and was very creative.

Thoughout it's first 40 years of existence it stayed small, dynamic AND MOST IMPORANTLY, *financially sound*. But in the turn of the millenia the Board of Directors wanted to grow the company beyond "small regional" to "national" thru classical works.

(cont.)

[lukebccb]

Folks should also google "Ballet Pacifica" and read the OC Register and LA Times article on what happened to that now gone ballet company. It was a Orange Co. regional troupe that was in financial trouble but didn't need to die but due to grandiose plans to "rescucitate it" instead of helping it survive instead led to the demise of Ballet Pacifica.

[lukebccb]

Oh, and the "old" Los Angeles Ballet tried to make a comeback in 1995 but the person, by the name of John Clifford, who founded the original and was trying to restart it was way overly grandiose in his ambitions on the restart and was apparently pretty slippery and slimey in his dealings with trying to get the company restarted and as a result it turned into an absolute failure.

Google "John CLifford Los Angeles Ballet" on the whole fiasco.