When Christopher Stowell officially assumed the role of artistic director for Oregon Ballet Theatre in July 2003, the retired dancer knew he was done performing ballets. But by taking the creative helm at OBT, he stepped onto another kind of stage.

“I still have to give performances, at board meetings and stuff like that,” Stowell says with a laugh.

Many people—including local ballet supporters, OBT’s dancers and staff, and the wider ballet community—were wondering how the transition would play out at OBT, which had been under the leadership of founding artistic director James Canfield since 1989.

In what direction would Stowell take OBT? How would things change within the organization? Which ballets would the company perform?

Stowell certainly came in with high expectations for OBT: to take a “good, small, active company and make an institution out of it and have it be a force on the national scene, rather than just a statewide or regional one.”

As Stowell’s fifth season with OBT nears its close—and as the company prepares for its 20th anniversary next season—Stowell has made long strides toward his goals.

Under Stowell, OBT has increased the number of dancers in the company. Income from ticket sales is up 53 percent from 2003, and enrollment in OBT’s school has increased. And the relatively young ballet company has been invited to join eight larger and more established companies in performing at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ “Ballet Across America” festival in June.

“It’s a really concrete affirmation of the success of the organization,” says Anne Mueller, a principal dancer who has been with OBT since 1996, in reference to OBT’s Kennedy Center debut.

Still, Stowell isn’t resting on his laurels. He says he’s always asking, “How can we make something better, more interesting, more exciting, involve more people, [make it] more pertinent to our lives?”

During the past couple of years in particular, Stowell has become more comfortable in his demanding role as artistic director. It helps, he says, that “the organization has changed almost completely since I first got here, and I’m working with a lot of people I really admire and am happy working with.”


Building a Strong Foundation

It’s no coincidence that Stowell is surrounded by people he likes and admires: He either personally selected, or had a hand in selecting, most of them. That includes Damara Bennett, whom Stowell brought in to direct OBT’s school.

“That was the first big, wholehearted change I made: I hired a new director, I changed the syllabus, the approach to training—everything changed,” says Stowell, who describes the ballet school as the foundation of OBT’s future.

Because of the physically demanding nature of dance, the career of a dancer is short. So, Stowell says, “I need to see the future Sugar Plum Fairy now, because in 10 years this place is going to be different.”

Any dancer desiring to join OBT has to be rigorously trained in classical ballet.

Stowell says: “Really detailed, refined training in classical ballet is really important to me, because it’s the hardest. If you can handle that, you can probably handle a lot of other stuff.”

Stowell knows firsthand just how challenging it is to learn and perform classical ballet. For 16 years, he danced for San Francisco Ballet, performing leading roles in ballets such as “Romeo and Juliet,” “Swan Lake” and “Othello.” Allan Ulrich described Stowell as “one of San Francisco Ballet’s most respected principal dancers” in an article for Dance Magazine.

Even before Stowell became a professional dancer, ballet was part of his life—since he was born, in fact. His parents, Kent Stowell and Francia Russell, were the artistic directors of Seattle’s Pacific Northwest Ballet for nearly 27 years.

Christopher Stowell retired from dancing in 2001, at age 35, because he wanted to stop dancing at a time of his own choosing. His body was starting to show signs of wear and tear, he says, and he didn’t want to end up with an injury that would force his last performance to be “some random matinee.”

For the next couple of years, Stowell worked as an independent choreographer for companies including San Francisco Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet and Pacific Northwest Ballet.

When it came time for his next career move, Stowell, who is gay, looked for a place where he thought he could live comfortably and happily. He also wanted to be in a community that seemed interested in supporting serious arts organizations.
Portland fit the bill on both counts.

Stowell says: “I think this community is the kind that is growing and changing and energetic. There’s more people and ideas coming to it so that it would be good to get on the bandwagon with that energy and not wait, for instance, for a city to be fully formed and then try to do something.”


Renovating the Repertoire

When Stowell arrived at OBT, it wasn’t just the school he overhauled. He has also been systematically changing the company’s repertoire, which was previously characterized by Canfield’s pop-culture-influenced ballets such as “CQ (Charmed Quark),” a hip-hop ballet, and “Go Ask Alice,” set to Pink Floyd.

“James and Christopher have different ways of using the material of classical ballet, as directors and as choreographers,” says Linda Besant, OBT’s on-staff lecturer and historian.

For example, Stowell has added a number of works from 20th century master choreographer George Balanchine, who made more than 400 dances in his lifetime and revolutionized classical ballet. (As a dancer, Stowell appeared in nearly every Balanchine ballet performed by San Francisco Ballet.)

In other words, Stowell is committed to preserving what Besant dubs “the new classics,” or dance works that are less than 100 years old but clearly have lasting value outside their own decade. Balanchine’s dances fall into that category, as do the works of Jerome Robbins, Paul Taylor and William Forsythe, which OBT has also performed.

In addition, Stowell’s first season with OBT included a work from Christopher Wheeldon, who may be the world’s most in-demand ballet choreographer, according to The New York Times.

Since then, Stowell has wanted OBT to perform another of work of Wheeldon’s—who is gay and a good friend of Stowell’s—but it hadn’t happened because Wheeldon is so much in demand. As Stowell puts it, “Would he have to, like, not work for the Royal Ballet of London to come here?”

The Kennedy Center’s invitation for OBT to perform in “Ballet Across America” acted as the perfect catalyst to get things rolling again with Wheeldon. OBT will perform Wheeldon’s work “Rush” twice during the festival, June 13 and 15.

Before OBT performs “Rush” in Washington, D.C., Portland audiences will have the chance to see it May 8 and 9. The performance is part of 4x4: The Ballet Project, a special program put together by White Bird, in honor of the local dance presentation company’s 10th anniversary.

In addition to OBT, White Bird is bringing three other West Coast ballet companies to the stage for those two evenings: Eugene Ballet Company, Pacific Northwest Ballet and San Francisco Ballet.

“I feel really confident and good about us being up against these other companies, both with White Bird and at the Kennedy Center, with this work,” says Stowell.


The Programming Puzzle

Although both the Kennedy Center and White Bird events are exciting ones, it was challenging for Stowell to add the extra performances into OBT’s schedule. The company’s budget, after all, is finite.

“It all happened after I had our season planned, so we’ve had to scramble for time and money,” says Stowell.

But planning and budgetary issues like these are anything but new for Stowell. As artistic director, his job is to balance a dizzying array of factors including financial considerations, artistic integrity, the dancers’ needs and audience members’ interests.

This juggling act comes into play in terms of live music at performances, to which Stowell is absolutely committed.

Stowell maintains that dancers just don’t dance the same way to recorded music. They know exactly what is coming, so they don’t have to stay as alert, as present in the moment.

“When the musician in the pit is finding new shades and colors, the dancer on stage has to respond to that,” explains Stowell. “I think that makes it so much more interesting for the dancer and for the audience.”

That said, there’s a reason that fewer dance companies are using live music these days: It’s not cheap. In 2004, The Oregonian reported that OBT’s White Nights program, with a full-scale orchestra, rang up at least $85,000 in musicians’ wages.

“We’re really pushing for something that other companies our size have given up on because it’s so expensive,” says Stowell.

To get around the prohibitive costs of live music, Stowell is doing some creative programming to ensure that every OBT performance has some element of live music. Not every program can feature the whole orchestra, but including a dance in which one or two musicians perform the music is more manageable.

Even Stowell’s own choreography helps balance the budget. If, for example, he wants to bring in a more expensive guest choreographer for one program, Stowell might make a dance for another program and move the money saved by doing that into the budget for the guest choreographer.

Although Stowell is enjoying his role as dancemaker more than he expected—he much prefers making work for his own dancers over coming in to a company as an independent choreographer—he doesn’t want OBT’s repertoire to turn into a vehicle for his choreography.

What Stowell does want to do is to create opportunity for other artists and to support the development of the art form by bringing in top-notch choreographers to generate significant new work.

“As soon as he took over, he brought in works of the highest quality and brought in choreographers of the highest quality to work with us in making new creations,” says Mueller.

One such choreographer is Trey McIntyre, who was OBT’s resident choreographer during the 1998-99 season. When Stowell invited him to work with OBT again, the gay choreographer created “Just,” which premiered in 2006 and was performed again in April.

While making “Just,” McIntyre found that some of the company’s best Canfield-era qualities are being maintained under Stowell, namely, a strong work ethic and great discipline.

In addition, McIntyre says: “Coming back in this new era, the dancers have benefited from a greater variance of repertory. They were versatile in new ways that I thought were exciting.”

Which is, in fact, a goal of Stowell’s. He says: “I look for ballets that are going to entertain, train, excite and inspire the dancers. I feel like they’ve really taken to all the variety.”


Meeting the Art Form on Its Own Ground

It isn’t only the dancers who benefit from varied programming. The particular mix of dances that fill an evening’s program needs to attract audience members to the theater.

“It takes a special kind of chemistry to put together something that’s satisfying to an entire audience but also uses the company well through the whole spectrum…it’s a great jigsaw puzzle of programming,” says Besant, a lesbian and self-described balletomane (ballet fanatic) who has been involved with OBT since 1997.

Of course, Stowell wants to see the theater full for OBT performances. But he doesn’t intend to sell out to make it happen. “What is important to me is never to change the art form for the audience but to get the audience to understand the art form,” he says.

To that end, Stowell is gradually putting together a mix of works that he hopes will lead audiences to reconsider their preconceptions about ballet, so that “if they think they know what ballet is, they’re wrong, because it can be a whole bunch of stuff.”

On one hand, the art form encompasses classic story ballets like “Swan Lake,” which Stowell choreographed for OBT in 2006. It also includes works like James Kudelka’s “Almost Mozart,” which Besant describes as “absolutely now.”

Often, both ends of the spectrum are represented in one evening’s program. That means that ballet fans who are drawn to the theater to see the great classics might leave inspired by works they had never heard of.

The reverse can also happen. Dancegoers who profess to like only “edgy” work—the ones who might be put off by the sight of a tutu—can watch a classic ballet on the program and see the foundation from which those new movements evolved.

Stowell also helps audiences’ love for ballet grow by supporting opportunities for them to learn more about the unique, complex art form. The opening of each program is preceded by “Dance Talks” in which he helps audiences contextualize the work in the upcoming program. Stowell also moderates question-and-answer sessions after certain performances. In addition, Besant offers “Performance Perspectives” one hour before each performance.

Stowell is pleased that audience members are both becoming more loyal, as evidenced by increases in season subscriptions, and taking advantage of learning opportunities.

He says: “They’re attending more things associated with the performances to increase the experience that they have. I think those are all really good signs of people getting on board with what our values are, what our personality is.”


More Than a Job

The company’s values and personality are largely influenced by Stowell’s own beliefs.

“Companies take on a culture, and it needs to be established by the leaders,” he says. “I feel now like some principles that I apply in the studio, people apply just generally around here.”

It’s not always a pretty picture when entire organizations adopt the standards of their leaders. But in this case, it appears to be a good thing. Besant describes Stowell as a respectful person and says he always has the dancers’ best interests at heart.

Choreographer McIntyre agrees. “He obviously cares a lot about the dancers he works with and genuinely likes them.”

Stowell is funny and friendly and not at all overbearing. He is good at acting as a public representative of OBT, as Besant points out.

That said, there have been times that the position felt a little too public for Stowell’s taste.

For his first few years as artistic director, Stowell tried to separate his work life and his personal life. He was fine with representing OBT when he was on the clock, so to speak. But when he was out socializing on his own time, he didn’t want to be recognized as “the guy from the ballet.”

But Portland is a small city, and people often know who he is. After a while, Stowell stopped trying to divide his life. Now, when he meets people outside work, he says he’s more likely to proactively acknowledge the fact that he’s a public figure, if it comes up. “Hi, I am the director of the ballet, and it’s nice to meet you,” he might say.

Stowell also encourages intermingling between his nonwork friends and the OBT clan. He invites his nonwork friends to join him when OBT folks go out for drinks after work. And when he cooks nice dinners at home for friends, his guests often include his executive assistant, Rebecca Roberts.

Although Stowell has gotten better at finding balance, he still feels like there’s room for improvement. He’d like to be in a serious relationship, for instance.

“Then there’s another person who needs some attention, and you actually say, ‘You know, I can’t go to that meeting tonight or have dinner with a board member, because my boyfriend is going to freak out,’ ” he says.

But he has yet to make the right connection at the right time. So for now, Stowell is devoted to the love of his life: ballet.
“I can’t imagine doing this if it felt at all like a job,” he says. “I like dedicating myself to something. There’s a bit of faith involved.”

Oregon Ballet Theatre spotlights Russia in its last program of the season June 6 to 8 at Keller Auditorium, 222 S.W. Clay St. Tickets are $14-$120 from 503-790-2787 or www.obt.org.

A Decade of Dance
White Bird shatters records with 10th season

In a time when independent dance presenters are becoming an endangered species, Portland’s own White Bird is closing its 10th season without a feather out of place.

The nonprofit dance presentation organization has sold a record number of subscriptions this year—more than double what was sold during its first subscription season.

Audience members have been known to leave the theater in tears, so strongly affected are they by the dance performance that has just ended. They make a point of seeking out and thanking White Bird co-founders Paul King and Walter Jaffe for making the experience possible.

By the end of this season, White Bird will have brought 78 different contemporary dance companies to Portland stages for a total of 236 performances. This season alone included 10 U.S. companies, plus companies from Canada, Argentina, Senegal, Australia and the Netherlands.

Naturally, these performances by world-class dance companies get the spotlight. However, other facets of White Bird’s mission are equally, if not more, important to its founders. For example, White Bird supports the development of new dances. Its 23 commissions include work by Portland dancemakers such as Josie Moseley and Minh Tran.

White Bird’s educational programs have also blossomed. For eight years, it has brought dance into Portland Public Schools through a monthlong curriculum and a performance by one of its visiting dance companies.

White Bird spearheads other dance-related outreach programs, as well. Last season, when choreographer Le Vu Long’s company of deaf and hearing-impaired performers came to Portland, White Bird helped the group connect with Washington School of the Deaf in Vancouver and the local Vietnamese community.

Jaffe says: “Outreach has become an integral part of what we do…. It’s not enough simply to put [the dance companies] onstage and have one, two or three performances and then leave. They need to connect with the community.”

King and Jaffe were not always consumed with the task of promoting contemporary dance. When the couple moved to Portland in 1996, they thought they’d go into a food-related business. (King was a pastry chef in his previous career.) They considered buying a chocolate truffle factory.

Instead, the opportunity arose for them to present Paul Taylor Dance Company in the fall of 1997. When 1,400 Portlanders turned out for the occasion, the seed was planted.

Today, White Bird is the sole dance-only presentation company west of the Rocky Mountains. Its co-founders continue to encourage Portland to grow into a city of dance aficionados where touring companies look forward to performing.

There were probably moments during the past 10 years when King and Jaffe wished that they had stuck with a traditional business model instead of forming an experimental arts organization. Finding funding for the arts is no small feat in this country, in these times. King and Jaffe work weekends and evenings, and neither founder takes a salary.

But if either King or Jaffe has any regrets, those thoughts are outweighed by a shared sense of purpose.

King says: “It’s become our life’s work; it’s not about glamour or making money. We love Portland, the community here, and we want to try to make a difference. That’s what is important to us.”

White Bird closes its 10th season with 4x4: The Ballet Project, a special performance of contemporary ballet works by four West Coast companies, including Oregon Ballet Theatre, 7:30 p.m. May 8 and 9 at Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 S.W. Broadway. Tickets are $20-$62 from 503-790-2787 or www.whitebird.org.

Rebecca Ragain writes regularly for Just Out and has contributed to Dance Magazine. Contact her via www.rebeccaragain.com.

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