IMMEDIATE RELEASE

ANNAPOLIS, MD-THE BALLET THEATRE OF MARYLAND

SEPTEMBER 18, 2017

CONTACT: Vianney Becerra or Dianna Cuatto

410-263-8289

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR DIANNA CUATTO’S FIFTEENTH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION 2017-2018:

It is hard to believe that Artistic Director Dianna Cuatto has been at the helm of the Ballet Theatre of Maryland (BTM) for fifteen years now. And what an amazing ride it has been! I caught up with her recently, and this is what she had to say:

“I have had the opportunity of working with so many talented professional dancers from all over the world-dancers who have given their blood, sweat their tears to help me build the vision that is BTM. What is this vision?

When I first came to BTM, I set out to build a high-caliber, professional, regional ballet company in a nurturing environment, which is sorely lacking in most of the professional ballet world. I wanted it to be a company of healthy dancers with a variety of body types and cultural backgrounds that could inspire our young students and audience members in the pursuit of excellence. Today, our company members come from all over the world to train and perform with BTM. They range in height from 5’0” to 6’4” and are all passionate actors with a natural quality of movement that is the hallmark of BTM’s artistry.

I also wanted to create transformative works of art that encapsulate and reinforce our spiritual and cultural values. To date, I have created over 70 major works of art – most of which have received critical acclaim. Several have received artistic awards of excellence. Among my favorites are: Swan Lake; Romeo & Juliet; The Sleeping Beauty; Little Woman; Excalibur; The Little Mermaid; Aladdin; Collage; Primal Dreams; Intimate Encounters; Odyssey; and Nightfall; to name a few.

In fulfillment of the Governor’s Citation designating us as Maryland’s premier and only fully professional ballet company, we have expanded our reach throughout the state by continuing our partnership with our home theatre at Maryland Hall and by forging partnerships with the Modell Lyric in Baltimore as well as the Bowie Center for the Performing Arts in Prince George County. We are now the official resident Ballet Company at all three locations! In addition, we tour other parts of the state regularly including Garrett County, Ocean City, The Gordon Theatre in Baltimore County; and we also have performing partnerships with the Westfield Mall, the Mid-Atlantic Symphony Orchestra, the Londontowne Symphony Orchestra, and The Maryland State Renaissance festival. In addition, we perform at the American, Russian, and Chinese Embassies in D.C., and regularly perform at Senior Venues like Ginger Cove Heritage Harbor.

When I came here, I also had a vision of making ballet accessible to a wider diversity of populations in our culture. In this respect, our community service through these past 15 years is unparalleled by any other organization throughout the state and even compared to other national organizations across the country (based on the findings of the national DataArts (cultural arts data base).

We have many partners in this arena including: Young Artists of Maryland; the Anne Arundel County School Superintendent’s Office; the Anne Arundel County PVA programs; the Modell Lyric, the Bowie Center for the Performing Arts; Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and others. Our programs are diverse and far-reaching, and include: assemblies; residencies and workshops in public or private schools and art centers; in-theatre “Mini-Performances” for public/private school students, Home-schoolers, Pre-schoolers, and seniors; workshops, master classes, special “Informances” and behind the scenes looks at the dance profession for audiences of all ages and diversities; and collaborative Arts Integration projects. Of these, I am most proud of our “Tiny Toes in the Studio” program for Pre-schoolers, our Arts Integration Program for underserved schools in Anne Arundel County in which one of our instructors works with 5 schools per year training students in the art of dance production and guiding them into creating a 7-minute ballet of their own, which is performed for the public annually in a real theatre with BTM dancers providing oleo acts plus mentoring for all participants.

I am also excited and proud of our upcoming educational and service programs to be launched 2017-2018. Our newest pilot program in Anne Arundel County launches this March at Pasadena Elementary School, where 4th graders will receive dance training through 8-hours of workshops over 4 weeks, where students will learn about the cultural impact of different cultures on classical dance while exploring cultural rhythms through dance. It will culminate with an assembly for the school, where students will perform with the BTM’s professional company. We are also launching two new programs in Baltimore in partnership with the Modell Lyric. BTM will provide students in underserved Baltimore schools with an assembly and a behind-the-scenes look at a dress rehearsal at the Modell Lyric. In addition, the Modell Lyric, in partnership with BTM, is launching its first ever Musical Theatre Summer Intensive for High School students of all diversities. And at Bowie Center for the Performing Arts, BTM is launching a series of Master class, drop-in classes, and workshops for adults and children in Prince George County which will include exercise and conditioning classes for the non-dancer, musical theatre classes such as: acting for musical theatre; jazz dance; tap dance; and classes that help students develop their audition skills.

And then there is BTM’s School of Classical and Contemporary Dance, which has grown through its fair share of ups and downs during these years. Our school is unique in Maryland, in that students can progress from Creative Movement through the ranks to become an Advanced level student, a Pre-Trainee, a Trainee or even a professional dancer. Graduates from our company have danced with Orlando Ballet, Texas Ballet Theatre, Kansas City Ballet, Ballet West, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Louisville Ballet, Suzanne Farrell’s ballet company, and many others. Others have received scholarships to attend rigorous academic programs in prestigious universities like Brown, Harvard, Point Park, Skidmore, and many others because of the stringency of their completing our Pre-Trainee or Trainee program. Through the years, students in our school have had the opportunity of performing alongside the professional dancers in our company in more productions than is typical in other professional ballet companies in D.C., Virginia, and elsewhere. It is a privilege to be able to experience “up-close” and personal the work of professional dancers and choreographers and to be a part of the pursuit of excellence at such high caliber. But they also reap the benefits of having a full staff of teachers who are current in the field as professional dancers and teachers to be their mentors. Most of our teachers have dance pedagogue degrees from top universities in the field like the University of Utah, Point Park College, Mercyhurst University, Oklahoma University and many others. All of the teachers have taught for or completed teacher training with top companies like Australian Ballet, Sacramento Ballet, San Francisco Ballet, Charlotte Ballet, Nashville Ballet, Ballet West, and many others. We also have the privilege of training our students on the anatomical syllabus from the Harkness House in New York developed by David Howard, Ruth Petronovic, and Joanna Kneeland.

Yet no matter how successful we seem to have been through my fifteen-year tenure, the challenges we face are enormous. Rent in our home theatre at Maryland Hall and at our Merritt Annex costs us well over a hundred thousand dollars per year. The cost for each production runs on average from $100,000 to $150,000 per year for each of our 5 to 6 major productions. Insurance for our 46 dancers and other requirements is close to $45,000 to $50,000 per year. We are not extravagant. Our sets cost from $12,000 to $50,000 apiece compared to the $2,5 million that most other professional companies spend. Our full-time paid dancer salaries range from $325 to $700 per week for 30 weeks. And we do not have the funds to provide them with the money for their pointe shoes. On average, it costs approximately $3500 per dancer per year. While our Adopt-A-Dancer Program is helpful, it does not provide the dancers with enough money to meet these costs. And yet they love to dance and bring beauty into the lives of Marylanders. While Maryland is one of the wealthiest states in the country, it is not yet as generous or as dedicated to regional professional dance as it could or probably should be. We have a lot of work to do to educate Marylanders to all of the wonderful things its own professional regional ballet company has to offer in terms of high-quality transformational art, education, community, service, accessibility, and so much more. While it has proved much harder than I could have anticipated fifteen years ago to bring the beauty, the power, the passion of the language of dance into many of your lives here in Maryland, I am dedicated to doing everything that I can to strengthen the vision, the legacy that is the BTM so that it will serve our diversity of culture, our values, and beyond for generations to come. As I look ahead to my BTM’s 40th Anniversary in 2018-2019, I would love to have you come and see my work and the work of my dancers – BTM, your only fully professional ballet company. I can promise you that you will be blown away by the power in the language of professional dance! You will not be disappointed, and there is a ticket price at many of our locations that will make it accessible to your needs. I think you will be pleasantly surprised by how marvelous a live professional dance experience can be and how good Maryland’s professional ballet company really is!

I also would love to have you join me for any one of our events throughout the season, and I would especially like to invite you to celebrate my 15th anniversary at 6:00 p.m. on October 21, at Maryland Hall. I plan to honor a few of the Marylanders who have been of the most help and support to BTM throughout my fifteen-year tenure. You can meet some of them and also see footage of me dancing at my prime-in case you want to see what I once looked like as a professional dancer. And on top of that, there will be lots of wonderful food as well as an opportunity to give me some feedback as to what you would like to experience from BTM in the future. At 7:00 p.m.., you can experience Shakespeare’s genius at Maryland Hall as BTM’s Romeo & Juliet leaps from the page to the stage. So come and help me celebrate my Fifteenth, which I like to call the 15-40, in anticipation of BTM’S 40th Anniversary in 2018-2019. For information about Romeo and Juliet in October and the 15th Anniversary Celebration, go online at www.balletmaryland.org or call 410-280-4680. For information on BTM or its other performances this season, please visit www.balletmaryland.org or call 410-263-8289.

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Founded in 1978, Ballet Theatre of Maryland, located in Annapolis, MD., is designated as the premier professional ballet company and school in the state of Maryland. The company is comprised of 33 professional dancers. BTM aims to inspire through the transforming power of American Classical Dance by engaging the mind and spirit through movement. A healthy body aesthetic and mentoring is a hallmark of BTM’s school and professional company. Our goal is to make ballet accessible to all while attaining artistic excellence.