Message to a prodigy
Dominic Walsh hasn't let age curtail his dancing career
Ballet is a cruel mistress.
No other art form so idolizes youth, and so dramatically spurns aging. The actor, at 50, has finally matured enough to play King Lear. Writers and poets become seasoned and enriched by their years and experiences. The painter, the composer, even the singer, continue to refine and polish personal style and technique.
The dancer, however, lives, more or less attached to a time bomb of physical limitation. The majority of ballet dancers have retired at 30, and the life of a professional ballet dancer rarely lasts much later than 40.
A few, however, beat the odds. Modern dance pioneer Merce Cunningham, 90, has not only transformed the art form, but has performed in his ‘80s. And Mats Ek, 64, is a leading Swedish dance and ballet choreographer, dancer and stage director, who after heading the Cullberg Ballet, has become known for his stunning interpretations of the classics.
Dominic Walsh
At 38, Dominic Walsh is practically a whippersnapper in that company, but for someone who joined a professional ballet company at 16, and was dancing principal roles at 25, he might be considered at late middle-age.
After nearly two decades with the Houston Ballet, Walsh left to form his own company seven years ago, and he has begun doing what few dancers do successfully – making the transition from dancer to choreographer.
The Chicago native, in town to present his award-winning "Mozart Trilogy" with the Sarasota Ballet, says the demands of ballet – its physical and mental challenges, its finite span – are part of what makes it such a spectacular art form.
Kate Honea of the Sarasota Ballet performs in "Mozart Trilogy" this weekend at the FSU Center for the Performing Arts.
"It’s a kind of nobility," Walsh said, "the physical peak of a career spent reshaping the human body, and pushing the limitations of what it can do."
That challenge has consumed most of his adult life. Walsh began studying at 6. Both his mother and sister were dancers, and his sister danced professionally in Los Angeles. Now in his 22nd year of dancing professionally, Walsh danced about 20 performances last season, but there is no doubt that his role is changing from performer to creator.
Fortunately, Walsh sees it as a continuation of his journey in ballet, not the end of one road. Even early on in his tenure at Houston Ballet, Walsh recalls having "tons of ideas" about staging ballet. For his creative effort, he commissioned some music by film composer Ennio Diberto. He also worked – and continues to work – with visual artists, encouraging them to stretch the boundaries of their medium by designing sets.
With the mission of presenting innovative, thought-provoking works by its founder and other leading U.S. and international choreographers, Dominic Walsh Dance Theatre has become highly praised for his interpretations of the classical and contemporary repertoires.
His very first work as choreographer, "Flames of Eros" won the prestigious Choo-San Goh Award in 1998, and he is now considered to be one of today’s leading American choreographers.
Dominic Walsh dancing.
Contemporary ballet, he said, fills a unique niche; its themes, sensibilities, and movements are modern, but they are brought to life through the aesthetics of classically trained ballet dancers.
After the company´s premiere performance in 2003, Dance Magazine reported: "At last Houston has a contemporary dance company on a par with its symphony, opera and ballet companies."
During the 2008-2009 season, Sarasota Ballet Director Iain Webb invited Walsh to choreograph a new work for the ballet. "Wolfgang for Webb," the first work in Walsh’s "Mozart Trilogy," was premiered by the company in April 2008.
"For several years, I have laid the groundwork for a creation that pays homage to the works of Mozart. I find so much of his music both humorous and poignantly touching, and even sometimes intriguingly irreverent," said Walsh.
Walsh created the second installment of his trilogy, the 2007 Choo-San Goh Award (his second) winning "Amadeus for Anita" for Dominic Walsh Dance Theater, dedicated to a supporter of the Walsh Dance Theater, Anita Garten.
This weekend, Sarasota Ballet and members of the Walsh company unveil the final part of that three-year journey through the varied compositions of Mozart.
"What I am most excited to explore," Walsh said, "is creating a work that will blend the personalities, skills and artistic abilities of dancers from two distinct companies. I feel there is a great deal that will be shared and enhanced by this exchange of qualities, thus providing a wonderfully wide canvas for me to reach new heights as a choreographer."
The Princess Grace Foundation recently awarded him a prestigious Princess Grace Award to support the creation of "Mozart." Walsh traveled to New York as the guest of the Princess Grace Foundation-USA for the black-tie awards gala held in the presence of HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco.
For "Mozart," Walsh will collaborate once again with Houston visual artist Libbie Masterson on the set design and Nicholas Phillips on lighting. Upon seeing an exhibition of Masterson’s photographs of Antarctica several years ago, Walsh was immediately inspired by her aesthetic.
"These images were so powerful for me and create feelings and ideas of open space, a clean coldness, solitude, loneliness, and something endangered in all of us," says Walsh.
For the first and second ballets of the trilogy, Masterson drew upon these photographs and created sculptures that are dramatically lit from within. They are reminiscent of icebergs and suggest an essence of time and space in a sea of solitude.
DWDT company member Domenico Luciano who also designed the costumes for "Wolfgang" and "Amadeus" will design the costumes for Mozart. The costuming will suggest elements from the Baroque period and will evolve into a more danceable while still representational look – high collars, long sleeves, and stylized make-up and hair for the women. This abstract, yet theatrical design is congruent with the choreographic style of the trilogy.
With a variety of costumed looks integrated with Mozart’s sometimes strange and wonderful compositions, and inside the icy glaciers of Antarctica, Walsh’s The Trilogy: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart will offer something unique and thought-provoking. "I am really enjoying taking this subject of Mozart, his life and his work, and developing the ideas over a period of a couple years, three works, and two dance companies, to really discover something through this immersion," says Walsh.
The world premiere of "Trilogy: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart," FSU Center for Performing Arts, 5555 N. Tamiami Trail with members of the Dominic Walsh Dance Theater and Sarasota Ballet.
Performances are April 24, 8 p.m.; April 25, 2 and 8 p.m.; and April 26, 2 and 8 p.m. Tickets range from $20 to $75. To purchase, visit www.sarasotaballet.org or call the box office at 351-8000 or (800) 361-8388. After the Sarasota performances, both companies will travel to Houston where Dominic Walsh Dance Theater will present "The Trilogy" on April 30-May 2.