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SUMMER INTENSIVE GALA & ESMERALDA SUITE
As the curtain closes on the 2022 Summer Intensive, I’d like to take a moment to share my gratitude and reflect on the art we created. I am PROUD of:
OUR COLLABORATION with world-renowned professionals, choreographers, teachers, and professional dancers;
OUR UNWAVERING COMMITMENT to delivering the best, authentic ballet education;
THE RESULTS: students, who worked hard, trained, grew technically, danced like professionals, and made beautiful ART; and
THE SUPPORT from the community, the City of Mountain View, Bayer Ballet staff and parent volunteers, who dedicated their time and talent to bring the vision to life.
COLLABORATIONS WITH INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS
It was a great honor to have welcomed back world-renowned choreographers, Vasily Medvedev and Stanislav Fečo this summer. Over the course of six weeks, they transformed the summer intensive into a professional training and rehearsal experience, producing a beautiful work of art, Esmeralda Suite. Created and designed especially for young performers of Bayer Ballet, this one-act edition of Esmeralda, based on the Bolshoi production, featured the best ballet numbers included in the treasury of world classical dance.
Thank you, Vasily and Stanislav for your patience, hard work, diligence, and vision; we are extremely grateful for your guidance and the opportunity for these young, aspiring dancers to learn from such masters as yourselves.
In addition to working with world-renowned choreographers, dancers gained experience of training, rehearsing and performing with professional dancers. This year, we invited six professional dancers to partner our dancers from such companies as Slovak National Theater Ballet, Columbia City Ballet, Boston Ballet, and Nashville Ballet II. Alumni, Anastasia Cheplyansky, professional dancer with Atlanta Ballet returned this summer to work with our master faculty.
I am personally very honored to have welcomed four displaced Ukrainian dancers along with their teacher, into our summer intensive, through an introduction made by Youth America Grand Prix. With us, they continued their professional training on full scholarship. This opportunity wouldn’t have been possible without the families who helped provide accommodations and transportation.
UNWAIVERING COMMITMENT
Providing a professional experience to the dancers requires a lofty investment in all aspects of the production, including renting a beautiful theatre for not only the performances, but for a week of technical, dress, and run through rehearsals. The exquisite Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts was the perfect setting; we are grateful to have this beautiful performance space in our community and consider MVCPA as our second home, as we perform year-round at
this beautiful venue.
A production of this quality required hiring a specialized lighting design team, stage crew, professional photographers, and renting stunning costumes from the Esmeralda productions of Staatsballet Berlin & Slovak National Theater, Bratislava companies; as well as creating new costumes for the production. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity for dancers to wear costumes worn by famous dancers, such as Iana Salenko and Nicoletta Manni.
THE RESULTS - THE ART
I believe that these young dancers deserve the very best, authentic ballet education. It is rewarding to witness their growth, as artists and people, and to see tangible results of this success through the stage performance, the observable results of their training.
The intensive was divided into five groups, which allowed students to study in small class sizes for individualized attention. We are grateful to have had a stellar faculty of master choreographers and teachers, who provided more than 80 dancers with invaluable insights and an authentic perspective on the professional landscape of the artform, while encouraging them to grow.
THE SUPPORT
We would like to extend our gratitude to the City of Mountain View for supporting the arts.
It was an honor to have Mayor Lucas Ramirez present at the performance. We are inspired by this support and will continue striving to enhance the cultural well-being of our community by creating accessibility for members of our community to world-class ballet education and professionally staged performances, developed by world-renowned choreographers, as we aim to transform the Silicon Valley into a center for artistic excellence on par with its technological achievements.
A summer intensive program of this magnitude wouldn’t be possible without the support of the administrators, volunteers, parents, spectators, and members of our community. We are fortunate to have such an invested community, who worked tirelessly to prepare the costumes for our cast, transported dancers to the studio and theatre, hosted our Ukrainian guests, and filmed rehearsals, runs, and behind the scenes moments. Your production support made the intensive and performance run smoothly.
Thank you for your support in recognizing Bayer Ballet's commitment to investing in these children’s education. It is magical to witness the positive impact the art of ballet has on their lives. As their teachers and mentors, we are honored to earn the trust of our dancers and their families, as we guide their artistic journeys.
In closing, I would like to thank our Director of Operations, Christine Wood, who is the glue between the artistic and production teams of this massive endeavor.
Together, and with much gratitude,
Inna Bayer, Founder & Artistic Director
Bayer Ballet
OFFICIAL PARTNER SCHOOL Vaganova Ballet Academy
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