Ballet Fantastique
Encyclopedia
Ballet Fantastique is a 501(c)3 nonprofit chamber
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...

 ballet company
Ballet company
A ballet company is a group of dancers who perform ballet, plus managerial and support staff. Most major ballet companies employ dancers on a year-round basis, except in the United States, where contracts for part of the year are the norm...

 based in Eugene, Oregon
Eugene, Oregon
Eugene is the second largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon and the seat of Lane County. It is located at the south end of the Willamette Valley, at the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers, about east of the Oregon Coast.As of the 2010 U.S...

, and co-directed by mother-daughter team Donna and Hannah Bontrager. Ballet Fantastique was founded in October 2000 and currently has three components: A professional chamber ballet company, a pre-professional academy in the Russian Vaganova method of training, and a busy outreach wing (bringing dance to a range of audiences both in-school and in-theater).

Chamber Company

The Ballet Fantastique Chamber Company is composed of 7-12 professional artists and attracts dancers from across the country. The company performs a number of concerts every year at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts
Hult Center for the Performing Arts
The Hult Center for the Performing Arts is a performing arts facility in Eugene, Oregon, that opened in 1982.It is located adjacent to the Eugene Hilton and the Eugene Community Conference Center, which were also completed in 1982, as part of the same urban renewal project.The Hult Center and the...

 and other Northwest theaters. Ballet Fantastique also tours, and has performed with Ballet Rogue in Medford, Oregon, at the internationally-recognized Oregon Shakespeare Festival
Oregon Shakespeare Festival
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival is a regional repertory theatre in Ashland, Oregon, United States. The festival annually produces eleven plays on three stages during a season that lasts from February to October...

 in Ashland, Oregon
Ashland, Oregon
Ashland is a city in Jackson County, Oregon, United States, near Interstate 5 and the California border, and located in the south end of the Rogue Valley. It was named after Ashland County, Ohio, point of origin of Abel Helman and other founders, and secondarily for Ashland, Kentucky, where other...

, and for the Eugene Celebration
Eugene Celebration
The Eugene Celebration is an annual community celebration and civic event held in downtown Eugene, Oregon, United States. Featuring bands and performers from throughout the Pacific Northwest, the three-day festival is held in early September and attracts more than 40,000 attendees each year...

, to name just a few.

Ballet Fantastique concerts often feature collaborations with live artists and musicians. Projections of local gallery paintings were used as backdrops for the performance Danse en Rouge: Variations in Red at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts, which also included the Trio Voronezh
Trio Voronezh
Trio Voronezh is a folk music band. This band, renowned for its conventional usage of Russian musical instruments and folk melodies,is composed of three male members, Vladimir Volokhin on the domra, Sergei Teleshev on the bayan, and Valerie Petrukhin on the double-bass balalaika.-Origin:The trio...

 and classical guitarist John Jarvie. In 2009, Ballet Fantastique collaborated with composer Jeremy Schropp and a 25-part orchestra in Visions d’Amour: 10 Ballets in Paris for the world premiere of his ballet inspired by Vincent Van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...

, “Night at the Café Terrace." Other notable collaborations include the Oregon Mozart Players
Oregon Mozart Players
Oregon Mozart Players is a professional chamber orchestra based in Eugene, Oregon, United States. The orchestra presents five concert sets in a typical season, in addition to numerous small ensemble performances and recitals by guest artists. Orchestral repertoire ranges from the Baroque period to...

, the Karin Clarke Gallery, and the Eugene Symphony
Eugene Symphony
The Eugene Symphony is an American orchestra based in Eugene, Oregon. Its home venue is the Silva Concert Hall at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts.Approximately 27,000 people attend Eugene Symphony's classical and pops concert performances each year....

. As a “chamber” ballet company, Ballet Fantastique produces its concerts in the smaller, more intimate Soreng Theater at the Hult Center.

Academy of Ballet Fantastique

The Academy of Ballet Fantastique teaches ballet classes for dancers ages 4–24, and also offers a separate Adult Ballet Program. The academy admits students of any race, color, and national or ethnic origin.

In the Professional Training Division, dancers age 9 and up study the Vaganova Method of training in limited class sizes of six students or fewer. Artistic Director Donna Marisa Bontrager works directly with every Professional Division student in his or her training.

The Young Dancer Program at The Academy of Ballet Fantastique is for dancers age 4-8, and follows a progressive training approach as well, while introducing young children to creative movement, music education, and fundamentals of ballet.

Students participate in professional performances with the company, and may audition for company positions and apprenticeships upon graduation. Academy of Ballet Fantastique coaches are experienced in the Vaganova method of training as well as in pedagogy
Pedagogy
Pedagogy is the study of being a teacher or the process of teaching. The term generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction....

 and professional performance.

Outreach

Ballet Fantastique’s busy outreach programming includes scholarships for dancers in financial need, free tickets for youth to attend concerts, and in-school integrated arts residencies and school assembly performances.

History

Ballet Fantastique became an Oregon non-profit in 2003 and earned 501(c)(3) non-profit status in 2004. The organization was established to bring dance training, performance opportunities and performances to the Lane County
Lane County, Oregon
-National protected areas:*Oregon Islands National Wildlife Refuge *Siuslaw National Forest *Umpqua National Forest *Willamette National Forest -Government:...

 area. The company’s first performance at the Hult Center was Danse Renaissance in June 2003. On October 30, 2010, Ballet Fantastique opened its City Center for Dance at 960 Oak Street, funded largely by a grant from the Meyer Memorial Trust.

Company repertoire

Classical ballets:
  • The Sleeping Beauty
  • Cinderella
    Cinderella (Prokofiev)
    Cinderella is a ballet, Op. 87, composed by Sergei Prokofiev to a scenario by Nikolai Volkov. It is one of his most popular and melodious compositions, and has inspired a great many choreographers since its inception. The piece was composed between 1940 and 1944. Part way through writing it he...

  • Don Quixote
    Don Quixote (ballet)
    Don Quixote is a ballet originally staged in four acts and eight scenes, based on an episode taken from the famous novel Don Quixote de la Mancha by Miguel de Cervantes. It was originally choreographed by Marius Petipa to the music of Ludwig Minkus and was first presented by the Ballet of the...

  • Le Corsaire
    Le Corsaire
    Le Corsaire is a ballet typically presented in three acts, with a libretto originally created by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges loosely based on the poem The Corsair by Lord Byron. Originally choreographed by Joseph Mazilier to the music of Adolphe Adam, it was first presented by the ballet of...

  • The Nutcracker
    The Nutcracker
    The Nutcracker is a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto is adapted from E.T.A. Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King". It was given its première at the Mariinsky Theatre in St...

  • Paquita
    Paquita
    Paquita is a ballet in two acts and three scenes, with libretto by Joseph Mazilier and Paul Foucher. Originally choreographed by Joseph Mazilier to the music of Edouard Deldevez. First presented by at the Salle Le Peletier by the Paris Opera Ballet on 1 April 1846...

  • Giselle
    Giselle
    Giselle is a ballet in two acts with a libretto by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges and Théophile Gautier, music by Adolphe Adam, and choreography by Jean Coralli and Jules Perrot. The librettist took his inspiration from a poem by Heinrich Heine...

  • Les Sylphides
    Les Sylphides
    Les Sylphides is a short, non-narrative ballet blanc. Its original choreography was by Michel Fokine, with music by Frédéric Chopin orchestrated by Alexander Glazunov. Glazunov had already set some of the music in 1892 as a purely orchestral suite, under the title Chopiniana, Op. 46...

  • La Sylphide
    La Sylphide
    La Sylphide is one of the world's oldest surviving romantic ballets. There were two versions of the ballet; the version choreographed by the Danish balletmaster August Bournonville is the only version known to have survived....

  • La Bayadere
    La Bayadère
    La Bayadère is a ballet, originally staged in four acts and seven tableaux by French choreographer Marius Petipa to the music of Ludwig Minkus. La Bayadère was first performed by the Imperial Ballet at the Imperial Bolshoi Kamenny Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, on...

  • Le Corsaire
    Le Corsaire
    Le Corsaire is a ballet typically presented in three acts, with a libretto originally created by Jules-Henri Vernoy de Saint-Georges loosely based on the poem The Corsair by Lord Byron. Originally choreographed by Joseph Mazilier to the music of Adolphe Adam, it was first presented by the ballet of...

  • Swan Lake
    Swan Lake
    Swan Lake ballet, op. 20, by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, composed 1875–1876. The scenario, initially in four acts, was fashioned from Russian folk tales and tells the story of Odette, a princess turned into a swan by an evil sorcerer's curse. The choreographer of the original production was Julius Reisinger...

  • Fairy Doll
  • The Little Humpbacked Horse


Selected list of new works created and choreographed by Donna and Hannah Bontrager for Ballet Fantastique:
Title Music Premiere
Tango Para Abel, St. Margaret's Tears, Illumination, Misterioso, Magie Noire, Viheula, and Jaco y Paco Incendio, the Latin world guitar fusion band from L.A. October 22, 2011
As You Like It
As You Like It
As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 or early 1600 and first published in the folio of 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has been suggested as a possibility...

: A Wild West Ballet
(full-length ballet; two acts with prologue)
Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...

, Hershy Kay
Hershy Kay
Hershy Kay was an American composer, arranger, and orchestrator. He is most noteworthy for the orchestrations of several Broadway shows, and for the ballets he arranged for George Balanchine's New York City Ballet....

, George Gershwin
George Gershwin
George Gershwin was an American composer and pianist. Gershwin's compositions spanned both popular and classical genres, and his most popular melodies are widely known...

, Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach
Jacques Offenbach was a Prussian-born French composer, cellist and impresario. He is remembered for his nearly 100 operettas of the 1850s–1870s and his uncompleted opera The Tales of Hoffmann. He was a powerful influence on later composers of the operetta genre, particularly Johann Strauss, Jr....

, Leroy Anderson, John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa
John Philip Sousa was an American composer and conductor of the late Romantic era, known particularly for American military and patriotic marches. Because of his mastery of march composition, he is known as "The March King" or the "American March King" due to his British counterpart Kenneth J....

, Ferde Grofé
Ferde Grofé
Ferde Grofé was a prominent American composer, arranger and pianist. During the 1920s and 1930s, he went by the name Ferdie Grofé.-Early life:...

, traditional saloon music, and original compositions for honkytonk piano by Jeremy DeKyle Schropp
April 16, 2011
Tango Forte Dublex Inc. January 29, 2011
Sunday Table Pink Martini
Pink Martini
Pink Martini is a 13-member "little orchestra" from Portland, Oregon, formed in 1994 by pianist Thomas M. Lauderdale. They draw inspiration from music from all over the world – crossing genres of classical, jazz and old-fashioned pop.-History:...

January 29, 2011
Libertango Astor Piazzolla
Ástor Piazzolla
Ástor Pantaleón Piazzolla was an Argentine tango composer and bandoneón player. His oeuvre revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz and classical music...

January 29, 2011
Gaucho, De Ushuaia a la Quiaca, Pampa Gustavo Santaolalla
Gustavo Santaolalla
Gustavo Alfredo Santaolalla is an Argentine musician, film composer and producer. He has won two Academy Awards for Best Original Score in two consecutive years, for Brokeback Mountain in 2005 and Babel in 2006.-Life and career:...

January 29, 2011
Juan Loco Rodrigo y Gabriela January 29, 2011
Jongo--No. 3 Suite Brasileira Lorenzo Fernandez
Lorenzo Fernández
Lorenzo Fernández , nicknamed El Gallego , was a Spanish-born Uruguayan footballer. During his career, he played for Capurro, River Plate, Montevideo Wanderers FC and C.A. Peñarol...

January 29, 2011
Cinquenta Anos de Soledad Original score Charles Gurke January 29, 2011
Dime Amor Enrique Cardenas, arranged and sung by Jessie Marquez January 29, 2011
Mi Confesion Gotan Project
Gotan Project
Gotan Project is a musical group based in Paris, consisting of musicians Philippe Cohen Solal , Eduardo Makaroff , and Christoph H. Müller .-History:...

January 29, 2011
Girl from Ipanema Stan Getz
Stan Getz
Stanley Getz was an American jazz saxophone player. Getz was known as "The Sound" because of his warm, lyrical tone, his prime influence being the wispy, mellow timbre of his idol, Lester Young. Coming to prominence in the late 1940s with Woody Herman's big band, Getz is described by critic Scott...

 and Joao Gilberto
João Gilberto
João Gilberto Prado Pereira de Oliveira, known as João Gilberto , is a Brazilian singer and guitarist. His seminal recordings, including many songs by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes, established the new musical genre of Bossa nova in the late 1950s.-Biography:From an early age, music...

January 29, 2011
Folk Suite Traditional Irish and Celtic folk medleys November 20, 2010
Desperation, Obsession, and Passion John Corigliano
John Corigliano
John Corigliano is an American composer of classical music and a teacher of music. He is a distinguished professor of music at Lehman College in the City University of New York.-Biography:...

, music from The Red Violin
The Red Violin
The Red Violin is a 1998 Canadian drama film directed by François Girard. It spans three centuries and five countries as it tells the story of a mysterious violin and its many owners...

, with art by Adam Grosowsky from the Karin Clarke Gallery, suite of variations
November 20, 2010
Orion Metallica
Metallica
Metallica is an American heavy metal band from Los Angeles, California. Formed in 1981 when James Hetfield responded to an advertisement that drummer Lars Ulrich had posted in a local newspaper. The current line-up features long-time lead guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo ...

, played by the Scorched Earth Orchestra
November 20, 2010
Bulgarska Tantsova Suita Original score Jeremy DeKyle Schropp, suite of variations November 20, 2010
Christmas Adagio Concerto Grosso in G Major, Op. 6, No. 8, Arcangelo Corelli
Arcangelo Corelli
Arcangelo Corelli was an Italian violinist and composer of Baroque music.-Biography:Corelli was born at Fusignano, in the current-day province of Ravenna, although at the time it was in the province of Ferrara. Little is known about his early life...

November 20, 2010
Tales of Beatrix Potter (one-act ballet) John Lanchbery
John Lanchbery
John Arthur Lanchbery OBE was an English, later Australian, composer and conductor, famous for his ballet arrangements.-Life:...

April 30, 2010
Love at the Cafe Terrace (25-minute ballet) An original score (world premiere) by Eugene-based composer Jeremy DeKyle Schropp, with art by Rob Adams 2009
Pourquoi me Reveiller, Je Crois Entendre Encore, Song to the Moon, Apres un Reve Jules Massenet
Jules Massenet
Jules Émile Frédéric Massenet was a French composer best known for his operas. His compositions were very popular in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and he ranks as one of the greatest melodists of his era. Soon after his death, Massenet's style went out of fashion, and many of his operas...

, from the opera Werther
Werther
Werther is an opera in four acts by Jules Massenet to a French libretto by Édouard Blau, Paul Milliet and Georges Hartmann based on the German epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe....

; Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet
Georges Bizet formally Alexandre César Léopold Bizet, was a French composer, mainly of operas. In a career cut short by his early death, he achieved few successes before his final work, Carmen, became one of the most popular and frequently performed works in the entire opera repertory.During a...

, from the opera The Pearl Fishers; Antonín Dvořák
Antonín Dvorák
Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...

, from the opera Rusalka
Rusalka
In Slavic mythology, a rusalka was a female ghost, water nymph, succubus, or mermaid-like demon that dwelled in a waterway....

; Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...

2009
La Vie en Rose
La vie en rose
"La Vie en Rose" was the signature song of French singer Édith Piaf.-Signature song of Édith Piaf:Édith Piaf first popularized La Vie en Rose in 1946. The lyrics were written by Piaf and the melody of the song by "Louiguy" . Initially, Piaf's peers and her songwriting team did not think the song...

, Je Suis une Enfant, Milord, Ma Jeunesse, Ta Tienne
Edith Piaf
Édith Piaf
Édith Piaf , born Édith Giovanna Gassion, was a French singer and cultural icon who became widely regarded as France's greatest popular singer. Her singing reflected her life, with her specialty being ballads...

; Carla Bruni
Carla Bruni
Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is an Italian-French songwriter, singer, actress, and former model...

2009
Lagrima and Adelita Guitar meditations with classical guitarist John Jarvie 2009
Argentinian Dance and Besame Mucho Trio Voronezh
Trio Voronezh
Trio Voronezh is a folk music band. This band, renowned for its conventional usage of Russian musical instruments and folk melodies,is composed of three male members, Vladimir Volokhin on the domra, Sergei Teleshev on the bayan, and Valerie Petrukhin on the double-bass balalaika.-Origin:The trio...

2009
Russian Ragtime, Waltz for Nicky and Strauss Polka Trio Voronezh, suite of variations 2009
New York Tango Trio Voronezh 2009
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Breakfast at Tiffany's
Breakfast at Tiffany's is a 1961 romantic comedy film starring Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard, and featuring Patricia Neal, Buddy Ebsen, Martin Balsam, and Mickey Rooney. The film was directed by Blake Edwards and released by Paramount Pictures...

Henry Mancini, Suite of variations 2008
Carnival of the Animals Commissioned by Eugene Symphony
Eugene Symphony
The Eugene Symphony is an American orchestra based in Eugene, Oregon. Its home venue is the Silva Concert Hall at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts.Approximately 27,000 people attend Eugene Symphony's classical and pops concert performances each year....

2008
Four Novelettes Commissioned by and performed with the Oregon Mozart Players
Oregon Mozart Players
Oregon Mozart Players is a professional chamber orchestra based in Eugene, Oregon, United States. The orchestra presents five concert sets in a typical season, in addition to numerous small ensemble performances and recitals by guest artists. Orchestral repertoire ranges from the Baroque period to...

2008
Daphnis and Chloe
Daphnis and Chloe
Daphnis and Chloe is the only known work of the 2nd century AD Greek novelist and romancer Longus.-Setting and style:It is set on the isle of Lesbos during the 2nd century AD, which is also assumed to be the author's home. Its style is rhetorical and pastoral; its shepherds and shepherdesses are...

Commissioned by Eugene Symphony
Eugene Symphony
The Eugene Symphony is an American orchestra based in Eugene, Oregon. Its home venue is the Silva Concert Hall at the Hult Center for the Performing Arts.Approximately 27,000 people attend Eugene Symphony's classical and pops concert performances each year....

2008
La Soledad Pink Martini, with art by Adam Grosowsky from the Karin Clarke Gallery 2007
La Musica Notturna Delle Strade Di Madrid No. 6, Op. 30 Luigi Boccherini
Luigi Boccherini
Luigi Rodolfo Boccherini was an Italian classical era composer and cellist whose music retained a courtly and galante style while he matured somewhat apart from the major European musical centers. Boccherini is most widely known for one particular minuet from his String Quintet in E, Op. 11, No...

2007 and 2010
Brazil Pink Martini 2005
Goldilocks & the Three Bears Hérold-Lanchbery, La Fille Mal Gardee
La Fille Mal Gardée
La Fille mal gardée is a comic ballet presented in two acts, inspired by Pierre-Antoine Baudouin's 1789 painting, La réprimande/Une jeune fille querellée par sa mère...

2005
Puss in Boots, Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf Tchaikovsky, Petipa
Marius Petipa
Victor Marius Alphonse Petipa was a French ballet dancer, teacher and choreographer. Petipa is considered to be the most influential ballet master and choreographer of ballet that has ever lived....

, The Sleeping Beauty
2005
Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly
Madama Butterfly is an opera in three acts by Giacomo Puccini, with an Italian libretto by Luigi Illica and Giuseppe Giacosa. Puccini based his opera in part on the short story "Madame Butterfly" by John Luther Long, which was dramatized by David Belasco...

Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Puccini
Giacomo Antonio Domenico Michele Secondo Maria Puccini was an Italian composer whose operas, including La bohème, Tosca, Madama Butterfly, and Turandot, are among the most frequently performed in the standard repertoire...

2004
The Cakewalk Ballet Louis Moreau Gottschalk
Louis Moreau Gottschalk
Louis Moreau Gottschalk was an American composer and pianist, best known as a virtuoso performer of his own romantic piano works...

, Kay
2005
Casta Diva Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Bellini
Vincenzo Salvatore Carmelo Francesco Bellini was an Italian opera composer. His greatest works are I Capuleti ed i Montecchi , La sonnambula , Norma , Beatrice di Tenda , and I puritani...

 (from the opera Norma
Norma
Norma is a popular girl's name. Norma may also refer to:In science and technology:*Norma , of the southern sky*Cygnus Arm, also known as the Norma Arm, a spiral arm in the Milky Way galaxy*555 Norma, a minor planet...

)
2003
Handel
HANDEL
HANDEL was the code-name for the UK's National Attack Warning System in the Cold War. It consisted of a small console consisting of two microphones, lights and gauges. The reason behind this was to provide a back-up if anything failed....

's Water Music
Water Music (Handel)
The Water Music is a collection of orchestral movements, often considered three suites, composed by George Frideric Handel. It premiered on 17 July 1717 after King George I had requested a concert on the River Thames...

George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel
George Frideric Handel was a German-British Baroque composer, famous for his operas, oratorios, anthems and organ concertos. Handel was born in 1685, in a family indifferent to music...

2003
Chopin Waltz
Waltz
The waltz is a ballroom and folk dance in time, performed primarily in closed position.- History :There are several references to a sliding or gliding dance,- a waltz, from the 16th century including the representations of the printer H.S. Beheim...

es
Frederic Chopin
Frédéric Chopin
Frédéric François Chopin was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist. He is considered one of the great masters of Romantic music and has been called "the poet of the piano"....

2003

External links

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