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St. Francis Hosts Brooklyn Ballet's First Summer Intensive

Brooklyn Ballet’s first International Summer Intensive takes place July 5 through July 23 at St. Francis College and in the company’s newly inaugurated studio space at The Schermerhorn in downtown Brooklyn.

The Summer Intensive has evolved as Founding Artistic Director Lynn Parkerson and Brooklyn Ballet Conservatory Director Caridad Martinez envisioned a program with the capacity to expand Brooklyn’s presence in the international dance scene while offering exclusive professional training to students in the borough and beyond. “But we didn’t have enough space,” said Artistic Director Lynn Parkerson. “We need at least two studios.”

When the Brooklyn Borough President's Office heard about the intensive, they immediately thought of St. Francis College as an ideal partner to meet the space needs of the workshop. St. Francis is conveniently located just a few blocks from Brooklyn Ballet’s studio.

“It is a pleasure to welcome Brooklyn Ballet to the campus of St. Francis College,” said Tim Houlihan, Vice President for Academic Affairs. “We are all looking forward to the Summer Intensive and to future collaborations.”

About the Workshop

The intensive serves students ages 8 through adult and is the first ballet workshop of its kind in the New York area. An important aspect of the workshop is the Cuban Ballet methodology as developed by Caridad Martinez, a former principal dancer with the National Ballet of Cuba.

The workshop includes Technique, Pointe, Pas de Deux, Variations, Choreography and Yoga. Martinez will be joined by Pedro Ruiz, Matthew Powell, Bianco Alonso, Brooklyn Ballet Artistic Director Lynn Parkerson, and faculty member Megan Brunke. In addition to professional level technique classes led by world-renowned instructors, offerings will include open rehearsals in Downtown Brooklyn and a culminating performance by workshop participants on Thursday, July 22.

Making Ballet Accessible
The cost of the intensive is low, $500-$900 for three weeks of incredible teaching by esteemed faculty. In addition, as the workshop grows the Ballet’s summer intensive will aid in Brooklyn Ballet’s mission to highlight Brooklyn’s place on the international stage and contribute to cultural tourism in the borough. The program will also provide opportunities for further community outreach, chiefly through performance of classical and neo-classical repertory learned during the intensive. Public performance is an essential component in Brooklyn Ballet’s intimate relationship with the community. The summer workshop will feature a culminating performance on Thursday, July 22, which will include excerpts from prestigious repertory by George Balanchine, new works, and the classics.

To ensure that the summer intensive adheres to the company’s stringent commitment to making dance accessible to everyone, Brooklyn Ballet will provide scholarship opportunities for talented students who demonstrate financial need in order to curtail the costs of attending the workshop. Professional dancers can take the workshop for 50 percent of the tuition cost.

For more information about the upcoming summer intensive, call (718) 246-0146, visit our web-site www.brooklynballet.org or send an e-mail to info@brooklynballet.org.

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The Faculty

Caridad Martinez, Brooklyn Ballet Conservatory Director, is a graduate of the Escuela Nacional de Arte in Havana, Cuba, where she studied with Alicia & Fernando Alonso. As a principal dancer of the National Ballet of Cuba she performed in the most important theaters in North and South America, Europe and Asia. Ms. Martinez was Artistic Director of the Cuban-Mexico Ballet School for 13 years and Artistic Director and choreographer of The Havana Ballet Theater. In the 1980s, The Havana Ballet Theater was the creative concept that transformed the performing arts in Cuba, and Ms. Martinez is considered one of the leading figures of the performing arts in that country. She has choreographed for the Hispanic Heritage Awards and for the acclaimed Julian Schnabel film Before Night Falls. She has obtained numerous awards for her choreographic work for dance and theater.

Pedro Ruiz trained in his native Cuba and in Venezuela. He danced as a principal with Ballet Hispanico for 21 years and choreographed three celebrated ballets while dancing with the company. Choreography credits include The Joffrey Ballet, Luna Negra, New Jersey Ballet, The Tribeca Performing Arts Center, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, Marymount College, The Ailey/Fordham BFA Program, Ailey’s Spring Celebration, Summer Sizzler Concerts, Ballet Builders 2010 and international gala "Notte di Stelle" in Italy.

Ruiz is on the dance faculty of Marymount College and the staff of The Ailey School. He is currently a master class teacher at The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and Scarsdale Ballet. Ruiz has taught master classes and performed throughout the United States, Europe, Central and South America.

He has received numerous awards, including the Bessie Award, the Choo-San Goh Award, The Cuban Artist’s Fund and The Joyce Foundation Award to create a new work for The Joffrey Ballet. Ruiz has performed at the White House and was profiled nationally on PBS’s In The Life.

Matthew Powell, a native of Shepherdstown, West Virginia, received his training at the West Virginia School of Ballet and on scholarship at the School of American Ballet. As a dancer, he has performed with Pacific Northwest Ballet, Kansas City Ballet, the San Francisco Opera, West Side Story International Tour and has danced principal and soloist roles in more than 50 works by renowned choreographers such as George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, Paul Taylor, Merce Cunningham, Twyla Tharp, Lynne Taylor-Corbett, Michael Smuin and more.

As a teacher, Powell was a faculty member with the Kansas City Ballet School and has taught classes at numerous institutions such as the Universities of Iowa and Alabama, Marymount Manhattan and Ballet Academy East. He worked as Assistant Director for the Lyric Opera of Kansas City’s production of Pirates of Penzance, and in 2006, his choreography received a fellowship from the New York Choreographic Institute, an affiliate of the New York City Ballet. This piece, Resonant Dances, was later performed by the Kansas City Ballet as part of the company's 50th anniversary season. In 2008, Powell conceived and directed the Crossroads Ballet Festival. These performances combined the talents of dancers from nine respected ballet companies worldwide and presented selections from classical ballets along with three original works from upcoming choreographers and George Balanchine's Stars and Stripes Pas de Deux. Proceeds from the festival were donated to arts organizations in the Kansas City metropolitan area. Matthew is currently working as Ballet Master for Morphoses and teaches at Broadway Dance Center.

Blanca Alonso was born and educated in Argentina and began studying at the Dance School of the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo. She joined the ballet company at the Universidad Nacional de Cuyo and performed as a guest Soloist for Ballet de Camara Mendoza and Ballet Arte. Upon arriving in New York City in 1982, Alonso studied dance at the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center, Peridance Center and the Limon Dance Institute with masters such as Zvi Gotheiner, Igal Perry, Risa Steinberg, Carla Maxwell and Jennifer Muller, among others. Alonso has danced in works by Igal Perry, Ze’Eva Cohen, Martita Goshen, Patricia N. Nanon and other independent choreographers. She has choreographed works for the Gestures Dance Ensemble, the faculty of the Harbor Conservatory dance division and for the Yard at Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. Her work has been performed at Aaron Davis Hall, Dancing in the Streets, Lincoln Center Out of Doors, Miller Theater (Columbia University), Hostos Center for the Performing Arts, The Field Gallery (MA), Kids Café, Alvin Ailey Theater and The Yard.

Her teaching experience includes master modern classes at Dickinson College (PA), company ballet classes and community dance classes at the Yard and ballet classes at Harkness Dance Center (92nd Street Y). She has been a faculty member at the Harbor Conservatory since 1992, teaching Ballet, Pointe Variations, Partnering and Modern (Limon Technique). Alonso is currently Ballet Mistress for Gestures Dance Ensemble.

Lynn Parkerson, Brooklyn Ballet’s Artistic Director, began her career as a choreographer while living in Germany. Her ballet studies began as a child with Barbara Bounds in Chapel Hill, NC. She later danced with the Boston and Chicago Ballets, performing many Nutcrackers and Balanchine ballets. In New York City, she was a trainee at the Harkness House for Ballet Arts and on scholarship at the Merce Cunningham School where she studied technique and learned repertory. In addition, she trained in the Limón Technique with Libby Nye and ballet with the Corvinos.

Lynn Parkerson’s choreography has been presented at many prominent international events and venues, including the Munich Theater Festival, Frankfurt’s Theatre am Turm, the Florence International Festival of Dance, Moers New Jazz Festival, Jazz Festival Baden-Baden and An Appalachian Summer Arts Festival in Boone, NC, among others. In New York City, she presented annual dance programs—notably the popular ballet series To the Pointe—as Director of Dance at Holy Trinity from 1991-2001. Her work has been supported by grants from the Harkness Foundation for Dance, Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation and Con Edison. She also served as the Assistant Director of the 92nd Street Y Harkness Dance Center from 1996-1999. Ms. Parkerson has taught dance to children and adults in New York and abroad.

In recognition of her exceptional leadership contributions to Brooklyn’s cultural community, Ms. Parkerson received the Betty Smith Arts Award as part of the Women’s “Herstory” Induction Ceremony and Reception on March 22, 2007. Each year, the awards, named after some of the most outstanding women in Brooklyn “herstory,” are given to six outstanding Brooklyn women. In November 2006 she received the Paul Robeson Award for Artistic Excellence and Community Service.

Megan Brunke holds degrees in dance with a concentration in kinesiology from Wayne State University and London Contemporary Dance School at The Place. She travels as a guest teacher for various companies and schools and worked as an adjunct faculty member at Wayne State University. Brunke comes to Brooklyn Ballet from Las Vegas where she worked with the Nevada Ballet Theatre. Primarily a solo artist since 2003, Brunke cultivates a varied repertoire focused on audience connection and drawing from a multitude of techniques, the most recent of which are the Latin dances.

Brooklyn Ballet

Brooklyn Ballet is a professional, not-for-profit dance company dedicated to artistic excellence, education and serving Brooklyn’s diverse communities. The company was founded in February 2002 by Artistic Director Lynn Parkerson, the first of its kind in Brooklyn in more than 40 years. Brooklyn Ballet brings a contemporary vision to the treasured art form of ballet, with repertory and programs that revitalize and re-imagine the classical form. The Ballet presents an annual performance season in Brooklyn and serves the community through educational outreach projects—specifically, Take Ballet to the Streets, an outdoor performance series, Elevate and Brooklyn Ballet in the Houses, in-school dance residencies—as well as through its professional dance school located at The Schermerhorn in Downtown Brooklyn. Brooklyn Ballet produced two highly successful seasons at Fort Greene's Kumble Theater and in October 2006 the Company performed in four cities in Mexico by invitation of the Cultural Consulate of Chiapas. The Company unveiled the new multi-use performance venue in The Schermerhorn with its First Look series in May 2010.

Brooklyn Ballet’s dedication to the community is wide-ranging. The Company continues to create and perform new repertory bringing Brooklyn audiences the artistic excellence they’ve come to expect, and through our Education and Community programs, Brooklyn Ballet creates opportunities for new audiences to experience an aspect of culture which they may otherwise never have had access to.

St. Francis College

St. Francis College, founded in 1859 by the Franciscan Brothers of Brooklyn, is located in Brooklyn Heights, New York. Since its founding, the College has pursued its Franciscan mission to provide an affordable, high-quality education to students from New York City’s five boroughs and beyond.

St. Francis College, 180 Remsen Street, Brooklyn Heights, NY 11201
www.stfranciscollege.edu