Houston Ballet

Houston's professional ballet style began developing in the 1930s through Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.[5] Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo spent a week during the Christmas season performing for Houston audiences for 11 years.[6] This led patrons to express a growing desire for a resident dance company within Houston. In Spring of 1955, a former dancer with Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, Tatiana Semenova, was invited to start a ballet school in Houston. Semenova accepted, and a state charter was obtained to establish Houston Foundation for Ballet on July 26, 1955.

Under Semenova's direction, the Foundation trained young dancers in ballet technique and reached out to under-served students. It established a scholarship program with the Neighborhood Centers Association to train students at Ripley House in Houston's East End, later advancing selected students into the school. Semenova remained the director until 1966.

In 1967, Nina Popova, another alumna of Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, was selected as the Foundation's next Artistic Director with the understanding that she was to create a company of professional dancers. By mid-December 1967, Popova had trained a corps of students and recruited students from other Houston dance studios to perform in an elegant full-length production of Giselle, featuring star dancers from American Ballet Theatre: Carla Fracci and Erik Bruhn as Giselle and Albrecht, Cynthia Gregory as Myrtha, and Terry Orr and Mariana Tcherkassky dancing the Peasant pas de deux.

By 1968, Popova began selecting and training dancers for a professional company. Auditions for dancers were held during the fall of 1968 in Houston, Dallas, New York and Los Angeles. Sixteen dancers began the first season and made their debut on February 17, 1969, at Sam Houston State Teachers College in Huntsville, Texas. This performance launched their statewide tour to 23 cities, which concluded with their Jones Hall premiere on May 14, 1969.

The company included four Academy-trained Houstonians, with imported dancers Judith Aaen and Anthony Sellers as Principals. In April 1972, Henry Holth, former Manager of Boston Ballet, was appointed as the executive head of the Houston Ballet Foundation. That same year, Houston Ballet performed Frederic Franklin’s Nutcracker for six post-Christmas performances in Jones Hall. These were Houston Ballet's first performances with a live orchestra.

By 1973, Houston Ballet's business offices had moved into Jones Hall. To attract a larger audience, guest stars were invited to perform with the company. Cynthia Gregory, Dame Margot Fonteyn, Desmond Kelly, Allegra Kent, Edward Villella, Natalia Makarova, and Ivan Nagy all guested during the next few seasons. More solo and leading dancers were added to the company, notably the Finnish couple Leo Ahonen and Soili Arvola.

After Popova resigned in February 1975, James Clouser, who had been a regular ballet master and a popular choreographer with both the dancers and audiences, was named interim Artistic Director while the board searched for Popova's replacement.

The board's artistic committee ultimately chose British-born Ben Stevenson as the next Artistic Director because of his classical foundation, his intense interest in training Academy students, and his international contacts that would attract the best talent to Houston. Clouser resigned after Stevenson was appointed, but not before Houston Ballet's world premiere of his rock ballet, Caliban, in May 1976.

Stevenson's goal of building a company by training its dancers in a resident academy won full support from Houston Ballet Foundation's trustees, and he ultimately succeeded in bringing the company to maturity. But it took time to achieve that goal. Having retained only 12 of the 28 dancers from Houston Ballet's Popova/Clouser years, Stevenson had to import nearly two-thirds of his company members.

Initially, four of the five principals were retained: Leo Ahonen, Soili Arvola, Matti Tikkanen, and Andrea Vodehnal, who had begun her childhood training in Houston. Several dancers from companies Stevenson had previously worked with followed him to Houston and became leading members of Houston Ballet over the next five to ten years. These dancers included Soloists: Suzanne Longley, Rosemary Miles, Janie Parker, and Dorio Pérez; and five Corps de Ballet dancers: Michael Bjerknes, Thomas Boyd, Jennifer Holmes, William Pizzuto, and Kristine Richmond.

For the next eleven years, Stevenson would choreograph several full-length ballets for the company: Cinderella, The Nutcracker, The Sleeping Beauty, Swan Lake, and Peer Gynt. Peer Gynt was Stevenson's first original story ballet. He also staged more than 20 of his one-act ballets while also engaging some of the most important choreographers of the time: Ronald Hynd, Barry Moreland, Hans van Manen, John Cranko, and Sir Frederick Ashton.

In 1980, former Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo executive J. B. Cerrone became General Manager of the company. During his tenure, the number of dancers, budget, and size of the orchestra grew tremendously. [citation needed]

Houston Ballet shared Jones Hall with the Houston Symphony, Houston Grand Opera, and the Society for the Performing Arts. In 1987, the Wortham Theater Center opened and became Houston Ballet's new performance home. The company launched its 1987–88 season on the new Wortham Theater Center's Brown Theater stage on September 2, 1987, with Stevenson's production of Romeo and Juliet, with Li Cunxin and Janie Parker in the title roles.

The opening of Wortham Theater Center marked the beginning of a new era for Houston Ballet. The dancers finally had a sprung dance floor, a deeper stage, ample backstage space, and an expanded lighting grid - improvements that created new production possibilities. Stevenson engaged Desmond Heeley to redesign and enhance the production quality of his staging of The Nutcracker. This production premiered on December 4, 1987, and would be performed annually by the company for the next 30 years.

In 1989, Houston Ballet appointed British choreographers Sir Kenneth MacMillan as Artistic Associate and Christopher Bruce as Associate Choreographer. Together, they brought modern influences to Houston Ballet's repertoire. Bruce introduced numerous works into Houston Ballet's repertoire over the next two decades, and MacMillan added five ballets, including his full-length Manon.

Throughout the remaining 14 years of his directorship, Stevenson blended elegant new productions of classic ballets – notably La Sylphide, Cinderella, The Sleeping Beauty, La Fille Mal Gardée, and Don Quixote - with world premieres of several of his original full-length and shorter ballets: Alice in Wonderland (1992), Dracula (1997), and The Snow Maiden (1998). Finally, he choreographed Cleopatra (1999) for Lauren Anderson.

Stevenson increased the number of guest choreographers by contracting works from internationally known dance-makers: Glen Tetley, James Kudelka, Paul Taylor, Jerome Robbins, Jiří Kylián, Lila York, William Forsythe, Natalie Weir, Brian Enos, Nacho Duato, David Parsons, Houston-born David Roussève, Farrell Dyde, Gillian Lynne, and Stanton Welch.

During his tenure, Stevenson also nurtured the choreographic careers of several of his dancers: Daniel Jamison, William Pizzuto, Barbara Bears, Sean Kelly, Ken Kempe, Timothy O’Keefe, Sandra Organ, Kristine Richmond, Dominic Walsh, and Trey McIntyre. Organ and Walsh went on to establish their own companies in Houston, and McIntyre's choreography was added to the repertoires of several major companies. He formed his own company in Idaho in 2005, after serving eight years as Houston Ballet's Choreographic Associate.

In 1995, Cecil C. Conner, Jr., was appointed as Managing Director bringing to Houston Ballet a professional background in law and several years managing Joffrey Ballet. Under Conner's leadership, Houston Ballet retired its accumulated deficit and quadrupled the company's endowment. [citation needed] During his 17-year tenure, Conner organized 12 tours both within the United States and internationally, greatly raising the company's artistic profile and leading the effort to build Houston Ballet's state-of-the-art facility, the Center for Dance. Following his retirement in 2012, Conner continued in an advisory capacity as Managing Director Emeritus.

Personal recognition from Great Britain came to Stevenson in 2000, when Queen Elizabeth II named him an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE). In July 2003, Stevenson stepped down as Artistic Director, assuming the title of Artistic Director Emeritus of Houston Ballet. Stanton Welch AM became Houston Ballet's fifth Artistic Director.

Ben Stevenson now serves as the Artistic Director of Texas Ballet Theater in Fort Worth, Texas.

Janie Parker joined the company in 1976, Stevenson's first season as Artistic Director. She would quickly rise to Principal and danced with Houston Ballet for the next 20 years. She performed all of the title roles and had several ballets created on her. When Li Cunxin joined the company, Stevenson regularly paired them together. They were the leading partner of the Houston Ballet during their time.

Li Cunxin became one of Houston Ballet's shining stars, dancing with the company for 16 years. In 1979, Stevenson had travelled to China on behalf of Columbia University’s Cultural Exchange Center to teach a month of classes at the Beijing Academy of Dance. Upon his return, he invited two Chinese students, Li Cunxin and Zhang Weiqiang, for summer classes at Houston Ballet Academy. Li's strong technique won him an extended stay, but his sudden marriage to a fellow Academy student and his refusal to return to China when his visa expired briefly caused an international incident. When the issue was resolved in Li's favour, he was permitted to join Houston Ballet and quickly rose to become the company's most popular Principal male dancer of his time. The incident is recounted both in Li's 2003 autobiography, Mao’s Last Dancer, and the feature film based upon it.

Lauren Anderson began her training at the age of seven at Houston Ballet Academy. In 1983, she was asked to join the company and became the company's second African-American dancer, following Sandra Organ who had joined Houston Ballet in 1982. In 1990, Anderson was promoted to principal dancer, becoming the company's first African-American principal.

In 1993, Stevenson appointed Cuban sensation Carlos Acosta as a new principal. Acosta and Anderson became a show-stopping pair; their dancing won accolades – at home as well as on national and international tours. It also brought praise from major U.S. dance critics for Stevenson's leadership among American ballet companies in featuring black dancers at Houston Ballet's highest level.

Anderson retired in 2006 at the age of 41. Upon her retirement, she was appointed Outreach Associate for Houston Ballet. In 2015, she was named Program Manager for the Education and Community Engagement department with Houston Ballet.

Anderson's signed pointe shoes were included in the permanent collection at the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of African American History and Culture. Other memorabilia from Anderson's career will be included in temporary exhibits.

In July 2003, Australian choreographer Stanton Welch assumed the leadership of Houston Ballet as Artistic Director. Since his arrival, Welch has transformed Houston Ballet by raising the level of classical technique; introducing works by distinguished and emerging choreographers such as Aszure Barton, David Bintley, Alexander Ekman, Nicolo Fonte, Tim Harbour, Edward Liang, Mark Morris, John Neumeier, Justin Peck, Garret Smith, and Twyla Tharp; adding to the company's repertoire important ballets by Kylián, Robbins, and others; and attracting some of the world's best coaches to work with the dancers.

Since his designation as Artistic Director, Welch has premiered six full-lengths and more than 20 one-act ballets. His full-lengths include The Nutcracker, Giselle, Romeo & Juliet, Marie, Swan Lake, and La Bayadère. Almost all of Welch's full-length ballets have toured both nationally and internationally. In 2016, Welch returned home to Australia with the entire Houston Ballet company to tour his critically acclaimed 2015 staging of Romeo & Juliet to Melbourne and Sydney. In October 2018, Welch lead the company on a tour to Dubai, the United Arab Emirates for performances of his Swan Lake.

In October 2013, Welch's two-act ballet, Sons de L’âme, had its world premiere at the historic Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, France. Welch choreographed the evening-length ballet to music by Frédéric Chopin, which was performed by internationally acclaimed pianist Lang Lang. This special production was broadcast live on television across several European countries and was then formatted into a documentary film.

For his contributions to the world of dance, Welch was awarded the Order of Australia (AM) in June 2015. The prestigious Order of Australia Award is bestowed on Australian citizens for meritorious service in a particular area or field of activity. Welch was recognized for his significant service to the performing arts as a ballet dancer, mentor, choreographer, and artistic director.

In 2012, James Nelson was promoted from General Manager of Houston Ballet to the role of Executive Director. Through his leadership, Nelson has successfully guided the company financially through growth in the number of dancers and of performances and through several international tours, while also navigating the largest threat to Houston Ballet's financial stability, Hurricane Harvey. [citation needed]

During 2019–20, Stanton Welch AM and James Nelson lead Houston Ballet into its 50th anniversary.

Julie Kent is set to join Welch as co-artistic director in July 2023.[7][8]

On March 21, 1956, Tatiana Semenova presented 12 student dancers (six girls, six boys), including Suzelle Poole, in the first dance recital for Houston Foundation for Ballet.

On February 17, 1969, Nina Popova's newly formed professional company debuted at Sam Houston State Teachers College in Huntsville, Texas, which launched their Texas tour consisting of a 23-city tour of the state. They concluded the tour with their first performance in Jones Hall on May 14, 1969.

By 1971–72, Houston Ballet was dancing a 26-week season with an expanded 18-member company.

By the end of the 1973–74 season, the number of dancers had increased to 32.

Ben Stevenson presented a company of 28 dancers in his first year as Artistic Director. During the next 11 years, Stevenson would grow the company, and in his final year as Artistic Director, the number of dancers was 52.

After he was appointed Artistic Director, Stanton Welch continued to grow the size of the company. In 2015, Houston Ballet implemented a five-year strategic plan with goals to expand the company to 65 dancers by 2020. For the 2020–2021 season the company has 56 total dancers.

Houston Ballet ranks their dancers in the following categories, beginning with entry level: Apprentice, Corps de Ballet, Demi Soloist, Soloist, First Soloist, and Principal.

In 2009, the autobiography of former Houston Ballet Principal dancer Li Cunxin - Mao’s Last Dancer - was made into a film by Australian director Bruce Beresford. It premiered on September 13, 2009, at the Toronto International Film Festival, was nominated for several Australian film awards, and won the AACTA Award for Best Original Music Score.

After its premiere in Paris in 2013, Sons de L’âme was formatted into a documentary film by director Olivier Simonnet. This documentary was presented at the 2014 Houston Cinema Arts Festival.