© Rachael King Johnson 'SpringScape' reviews ABT Studio Company reviews

The Studio Company is a troupe of twelve gifted young dancers with an average age of eighteen years old. Serving as ABT's reservoir of new artists, the Studio Company dancers usually spend one or two seasons with the young company before being invited into the main company or moving on to other notable troupes. Under John Meehan's eye, the dancers test their mettle in a variety of ABT's repertoire, new acquisitions (such as William Forsythe's The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude) and new commissions from emerging choreographers. These dancers receive attention and guidance to help their transition from academy to survival in a major company.

As the first day of rehearsals drew closer, I changed my music selection three times, each time rejecting a concept and plans for a ballet. I finally settled on Benjamin Britten's Simple Symphony, despite numerous warnings against using the score. Less than a week before my first rehearsal, I was staying with a friend in London who tried to console me into believing that a ballet would actually appear. I am grateful that friends are there when you need them. © Rachael King Johnson
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I flew to New York from London, October 18^th with nothing but fear in my heart. After haggling with the hotel reception over my lost reservation, I met my costume designer, Dennis Ballard, for the first time. Our meeting was productive in that we started to be acquainted with each other, but I was still quite unclear as to the content and shape of my ballet. When I actually started to choreograph, I began with the least intimidating section, the Second Movement pizzicato. Then I proceeded to the Third, then Fourth Movements. The First Movement proved a challenge, as I needed to state the themes for the rest of the ballet while not looking too deliberate. By leaving the First Movement until the end of the creation, the dancers were unable to form premature interpretations of the ballet.

John Meehan achieved a major coup in receiving a three-week residency for the ABT Studio Company at the White Oak Plantation near Jacksonville, Florida. My entire ballet was created on the plantation, or paradise as I came to know it. The White Oak Plantation was the brainchild of Howard Gilman, a philanthropist who inherited his family's paper production industry. Mr. Gilman dedicated 6,500 acres of forest in Florida to create the plantation and support a variety of causes. He later bought an additional 1,000 acres across the St. Mary's River in Georgia to preserve the riverfront.
 

Now run by the Howard Gilman Foundation, the White Oak Plantation serves two main functions. Significant acreage has been dedicated to research and reproduction of endangered species. We were taken on two wildlife tours and shown three species of rhinoceros, various antelope, cheetahs, a tiger, a komodo dragon, giraffes, and many other fascinating animals. The plantation is involved in a complex scheme to control and expand the North American gene pools of the species it houses. Many animals are sent back to reproductive and release programs in their native lands.

The second function of the White Oak Plantation is as a conference centre. Cabins and cottages are scattered throughout the forest. The facility is available for hire, but often the Howard Gilman Foundation awards residencies to support the creation of new work, such as my ballet SpringScape. Mikhail Baryshnikov's White Oak Dance Company was supported by Mr. Gilman.

The dance studio, dedicated to Mr. Baryshnikov, is a large room with ample floor space bordering two sides of the dance floor. A large library of art and dance books lines one of the walls. Fresh fruit and snacks were always available and I often hid behind a cup of lemon tea during rehearsals. For three weeks I resided in a three-bedroom cottage with its own swimming pool. Most of the time I had the cottage to myself, so I was able to listen to music as much as I wanted (a luxury when you spend your life on the road). The dancers shared a lodge complete with a heated pool, an unheated pool, a hot tub and a misty lake. After rehearsals I would steal out and canoe on the lake. It was most definitely paradise.

In off hours, a variety of activities were available, including horseback riding, skeet shooting, archery, billiards, an arcade, a movie theatre and two bowling lanes. I found inspiration among the bowlers. One of the girls always did a funny little jump before releasing the ball, while I moved into arabesque on plié to gently let go. I combined both techniques to create one of the steps in my ballet, which appears in the First and Third Movements.
 

Weekdays could be quite heavy for the dancers, with six hours of rehearsals for a variety of ballets, including the creation of my piece. Therefore, weekends were for serious fun. One Sunday, four of the boys took me kayaking on the St. Mary's River. Two of them raced ahead to get the small, easy-to-manoeuver boats, while I ended up being stuck with a massive two-person titanic that sapped all my strength as I tried to drag it over the water. The St. Mary's River is a wide channel of dark murky water. Alligators patrol its depths and remain hidden most of the time. Partway into our little voyage, the two boys with the easy-to-manoeuver kayaks started to splash each other. When one noticed that his boat was filling up with the flying water, he had the bright idea to pull the plug from the bottom of the kayak to drain the water. Apparently it was a momentary success — until the water rushed back in at a constant and alarming rate. The poor unfortunate dancer started to rock frantically in his kayak, but we thought he was crying wolf. Somehow in the kafuffle, the other boy unplugged his kayak in sympathy and sloshed over to rescue his colleague, who was treading water by this point. With one kayak visible only by the bow, a rescue attempt was made that resulted in two upturned kayaks and two splashing boys. Both boys had left their lifejackets in the back of their boats: lifejackets are unfashionable, you know. It was my turn to take over, and I was thankful for my directorial skills as I ordered kayaks here and there. Then I was pleased to drag not only my heavy kayak, but also another in tow, back to the dock. I will never forget my ABT kayak adventure on the St. Mary's River.

At the end of our three-week residency, the dancers gave an informal performance for the staff of the White Oak Plantation. It was my first chance to see my ballet before an audience, and I feel that it was important in helping the dancers start to understand and develop their interpretations of my work. Throughout our collaboration, I spoke with the dancers only about musical phrasing, technical requirements and qualities of movement, in addition to the general atmosphere of each section. I was interested in seeing their involvement in the meaning of the work and wanted to foster their exploration. This was a new way of working for me, as I often speak at length about each step. I found that the dancers avoided trite and common interpretations, and I would like to believe that they related at various levels to both the music and the choreography.

After returning to New York November 8^th, we attended three performances of the main ABT company at City Center. I felt odd being surrounded by so many people and facing external stimuli after our three weeks in paradise. We rehearsed a week and a half before the out-of-town premiere in Mount Holyoke, Massachusetts. My biggest hurdle in this period was getting accustomed to the heating system at the ABT studios. It suddenly bursts into a series of gun shot sounds that deafen all in the room and make it impossible for one's voice to be heard. It's charming, really.

Time flew by, and I found myself in Massachusetts at a women's collage. I knew it was reality and not a dream when I saw a team of athletic ladies lurching through the hallway with elastic bands tied around their ankles. The collage has a dance department with its own theatre. However, the theatre was a converted swimming pool, complete with bleachers overhead on the stage right side. A sprung floor was in place and the audience sat on wooden stairs. It worked quite well and created an intimate space that served the college's population.
 

My favorite accessories were the ceiling fans left over from watery days. In the premiere performance of my ballet, Caitlin Seither, my soloist, stood in just the right place for the fan to lightly lift her skirt. We watched her following solo thinking of Marilyn Monroe. The effect would prove impossible to recreate in subsequent performances.

Following the Mount Holyoke performances, the ABT Studio Company returned home while I made a brief trip to Boston to visit a few classmates in Boston Ballet and then continued back to New York. Almost two weeks later, the Studio Company performed a completely different repertoire, with the exception of my ballet, at the new Skirball Theatre at New York University. The three other ballets needed to be brought up to performance level, and I continued to improve and change parts of my choreography. I would have continued to change steps had John Meehan not announced that I was officially done my choreography. We took four days off over American Thanksgiving (a huge celebration that was new to me — in Canada, Thanksgiving is more than a month earlier and less of an occasion), before the last studio rehearsals and move to the theatre.

The Skirball Theatre opened in October of this year, and it was an honour for the Studio Company to perform there in its first season. The auditorium has beautiful sightlines and proportions, but the lighting capabilities still have some bugs to be worked out. In the days leading up to the New York premiere, my major concern was over the lighting design of the ballet. We eventually were not left in the dark, but it took a long time to bring out the colours of the rose and periwinkle costumes.

I have been lucky to have an exceptionally supportive family. My parents and sister drove eight hours from the Toronto area to New York City to see the three performances. My aunt also surprised me by arriving with my parents. I usually discuss most of the ideas that go into each ballet with my family; however, this time they arrived knowing almost nothing of the work. One day I called home from the White Oak Plantation feeling a little frustrated. As I began to complain, my mum said that she was starting to worry that rehearsals were going too well. I usually have one up day followed by one down day. I find it funny that my mum was glad to hear that I was struggling a little.
 

The premiere went very well. All the dancers gave beautiful performances in the four ballets on the bill. Besides SpringScape, the company performed Anthony Tudor's Continuo, William Forsythe's The Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude and Scott Rink's The Sorcerer's Apprentice. It was a varied program that showcased eleven of the twelve dancers in the company. (One of the dancers was returning from a knee injury and made his first stage appearance of the season in The Nutcracker.) I was very happy with the way that my ballet was performed, and the ABT Studio Company will keep the ballet in its touring repertoire.

When I consider the creative process of SpringScape, I know that I was pampered by the luxurious conditions and that I was truly happy most of the time. We worked very hard, and I have many memories of the White Oak residency. We spent Halloween evening sitting around a fire telling ghost stories. After the dancers left by van for the airport to return to New York, John Meehan, his friend Clinton Luckett, the Studio Company Ballet Master, and I stayed behind for a few hours of relaxation before the flight. After a walk, John and I took possession of the Tetris machine, which had been untouchable when the dancers were around.

I will remember a wonderfully rich creative time, but more important, I will remember the fun and companionship as we lived as a team.

“Peter Quanz's lyrical “SpringScape,” to Britten, was filled with breezy steps. Several episodes were especially attractive, including a light and quick sequence for Blaine Hoven and Matthew Murphy and a trio in which, as those two men partnered Caitlin Seither, they flowed from one attractive sculptural grouping to another.”
Jack Anderson
The New York Times
December 10, 2003

“Put out the flags, a superb new choreographer's appeared! His name is Peter Quanz whose ballet called SpringScape to Benjamin Britten's music American Ballet Theatre's miraculous Studio Company is dancing again tonight. Quanz shows off the gifts of the young men and women in a classical ballet that delights the eye and lifts the spirit. He reminds us that dancing in the Balanchine mold to fine music touches the mind and heart.”
Francis Mason
WXQR, 96.3 FM, the classical station of the New York Times
December 6, 2003, 18:00

“Closing the program was SpringScape, a buoyant, inventive work created for the company by Peter Quanz, a Canadian whose choreography has been nurtured by the Royal Winnipeg and Stuttgart Ballets. He chose an eminently danceable score, Britten's Simple Symphony, and came up with steps that are ideally suited to these fresh, unaffectedly elegant dancers. He set a central trio in muted mauve-grey off against an ensemble of seven in pale peach, and his stage pictures always looked fluent and unforced. The second movement, with the strings plucked in a rhythmic pizzicato, was an extended duet for Blaine Hoven and Matthew Murphy that suggested a cross between the mens' duet in Agon and the sweet playfulness of Robbins' adolescents. It worked wonderfully with the score - the choreography and the music seemed to be chasing each other.

“SpringScape is an accomplished, unfussy work that allows you to enjoy its harmonious and clear designs. Ideally, it might be a better opening ballet than a program closer, but it ended the evening on a robust, delightful note.”
Susan Reiter
Dance View New York
www.danceviewwest.com
December 5, 2003