The culmination of the inaugural Ballet West Summit Festival: Art Meets Elevation is the live performances on July 17 at the Canyons Village Stage. The evening’s general admission performances, which are appropriate for all ages, will feature four Ballet West principal dancers — Katlyn Addis on, Jenna Rae Herrera, Adrian Fry and David Huffmire — who will perform “Quattro a Verdi” by Michael Smuin, “L’air d’Esprit” by Gerald Arpino and “After the Rain Pas de Deux” by Christopher Wheeldon. It will also spotlight world premieres by renowned choreographers Phil Chan, Ingrid Silva, Garett Smith and Rex Tilton, performed by Ballet West trainees who are enrolled in the ArtÉmotion, a summer intensive workshop program that partners with Ballet West and was founded by former Ballet West principal dancer Tilton and his wife, Allison DeBona, Frederick Quinney Lawson Ballet West Academy Peggy Bergman Park City campus principal and Park City liaison. “We have started the workshop on July 6,” DeBona said. “The creation process is happening up here in Park City, so it’s been kind of crazy.” When Ballet West began putting together the Summit Festival, DeBona knew she wanted the ArtÉmotion students to work with these choreographers. Silva is a principal dancer for the Dance Theater of Harlem, who cofounded Blacks in Ballet, a nonprofit whose mission is to promote diversity in the global dance community. Smith hails from Salt Lake City and has created works for a string of international dance companies including the Mariinsky Ballet, the Bolshoi Ballet, New York City Ballet and Ballet de l’Opera de Bordeaux. Chan co-founded Final Bow for Yellow Face and is the president of the Gold Standard Arts Foundation, which respectively works to eliminate stereotypical representation of Asian culture on stage and “champion Asian voices in multiple creative disciplines.” “We audition students in 25 cities nationwide, and half of the choreographic workshop participants are Ballet West trainee students, and the others are students we see fitting into the highest level of the academy — as trainees or the professional training division,” DeBona said.  Chan didn’t hesitate when DeBona invited him to participate. Ingrid Silva is one of the guest artists who will create a new works that Ballet West trainees will premiere during the dance company’s inaugural Summit Festival. Credit: Photo courtesy of Ballet West “I’ve known Allison for a few years, and I was struck by her intelligence and her grit and her deep love for the artform of ballet,” he said. “I have worked with Ballet West a couple of times and gotten to know her and Rex, and I have a lot of respect for her through seeing her work as a mother and a champion of other people. She’s the real deal and a formidable leader in the field.” Chan is enjoying creating a piece for the trainees. “I am making a piece that shows off the dancers so they can potentially get jobs,” he said. “That’s nice because it takes the ego off of me as a choreographer. The main priority is supporting these young people who want to show how beautiful they are, how talented they are, how hungry they are and how creative they are. It’s a platform for them, and it’s an honor to make work for people who are willing to go and push their bodies to a place of interesting and exciting work.” Chan selected a 1936 composition called “Tabu-Tabuhan” by Colin McPhie for the music. “Colin McPhie was an anthropologist and a contemporary of Margaret Mead, and he went to Bali to study Balinese music,” he said. “He was one of the first ethnomusicologists who didn’t treat Asian music as this exotic, sort of fantasy thing. He recognized it had merit and a culture worth exploring, understanding and unpacking and as valuable as anything coming out of Europe. And inspired by Balinese music, structure and rhythm, he created his own interpretation of it and, being a white outsider, treated it with reverence, respect and scholarship.” Choreographer Phil Chan, a co-founder of is one of the ArtÉmotion Choreographic Workshop guest artists who is ceating a new work for Ballet West’s upcoming Summit Festival. Credit: Photo courtesy of John Hefti Chan, who is biracial, connected with the composition. “The piece is a 16-minute tour de force, and it’s sublime music and feels right up my alley,” he said. “I champion people who cross cultural barriers with integrity. So to have a piece of music that shows what Balinese music is and do something fun with it is a roller-coaster ride. I think it will be a lot of fun and a real challenge for the young dancers. I really put them through the paces.” The July 17 performance will also celebrate ArtÉmotion’s 10-year anniversary, Debona said. “Rex and I designed the workshop when we were still dancers with Ballet West,” she said. “What we were seeing were really talented dancers coming into the company but they still didn’t understand the atmosphere. One of the hardest transitions from going from student to professional is changing your mindset to being able to work without being told what to do.” ArtÉmotion does for dancers what the MCAT, or the Medical College Admission Test, and LSAT, the Law School Admission Test, does for students who go into the medical or law professions, DeBona said. “We are putting the students in an environment that allows them to be themselves in a safe space,” she said. One of the big changes for the dance students is not having a dress code for the two-week workshop, according to DeBona. “(Dress codes) are something they are used to having as students,” she said. “We did away with that because we wanted to see for ourselves how they present themselves.” The students are also given a rigorous schedule that mirrors the daily routine expected from professional dancers, DeBona said. “That includes an hour-and-a-half technique class every day along with five or six hours of rehearsals,” she said. “They also get a 15-minute break after company class, an hour-long break for lunch and five-minute breaks every hour like we have with the union. This kind of gets them into the flow of being in a company.” One of the workshop’s main goals is to showcase the human element in the dancing, according to DeBona. “Our mantra has always been ‘No movement without a purpose,’ and if we don’t keep the human aspect of it, we will get lost,” she said. “If we become like robots or if we just care about being a technician, we won’t keep people emotionally captivated no matter how impressive.” Performing a work in front of an audience, after only working on it for 10 days is another big goal, DeBona said. “We want the students to make all of their mistakes in those two weeks, so when they are in a situation that can mean your job, you don’t make any mistakes,” she said. “When we came to Adam with this idea of ArtÉmotion, he said, ‘Let’s do it,’ and now a lot of other companies follow this model.” The model also appeals to the students, DeBona said. “They always rise to the occasion because it’s so exciting,” she said. “When I tell them that they’re representing Ballet West, they feel really proud of that. And it becomes bigger than they are. Sometimes I feel young artists can get trapped and feel like they are secluded, but when we give them a chance to be a part of something that’s bigger than they are, they do rise to the occasion. I think that’s what this program does.” Ballet West at the Summit Performances When: 7 p.m., July 17 Where: Canyons Village stage, 4000 Canyons Resort Drive Cost: $35 Tickets: tinyurl.com/2ddtj688 Web: balletwest.org/events The post Ballet West Summit Festival performances hits a high pointe appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less