Canyon Concert Ballet

Dance with the Best

Ballet & Beer: Collaboration with Larimer Chorale

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Singers from Larimer Chorale and pianist Alice Crawford will be performing the “Court of Love” from Carmina Burana at our Second Annual Ballet & Beer production on Thursday, October 11.  We are so honored to partner with them!  We sat down with Larimer Chorale Artistic Director, Michael Todd Krueger, to learn more about Carmina Burana, why it is a must experience, and some fun tidbits about him!

You have directed the Larimer Chorale in “Carmina Burana” quite a few times over the years. What makes Carmina a regular part of your repertoire?

Audiences love the energized, pulsating rhythms of the piece. Many of the movements slowly build to raucous conclusions and the audience is caught up in that inertia! It’s so exciting!

What does it feel like to stand in front of your 120 person chorus while you are directing Carmina?

It’s an amazing feeling … the power of all of those voices … each unique and wonderful in their own way. It’s one of the best jobs anyone could have!

What is your favorite section of Carmina – if you had to choose?

It’s hard to choose. Probably, No. 10 – Were diu werlt alle min: “If all the world were mine from the sea to the Rhine, I would do without it if the Queen of England would lie in my arms. Hey!” It’s so incredibly joyful and serves as the finale to Part I … I love it.

Aside from Carmina, what is your favorite piece to direct?

I have a real fondness for Brahms so I would answer Brahms Requiem.

What is your favorite restaurant in Fort Collins?

Coopersmith’s. I love their beer and their pub food AND their desserts! For a more traditional restaurant, I really like Blue Agave.

More about Michael Todd Krueger:

After a distinguished career teaching at the college and university levels, Michael Todd Krueger has dedicated himself to the cause of the adult, avocational singer. He currently serves as conductor and artistic director of the Larimer Chorale, music director of Voices West (formerly Littleton Chorale) and as minister of music at King of Glory Lutheran Church in Arvada. Through his work with these choruses, he is known for his healthy, inspiring and unique approach to singing for adults

Dr. Krueger earned the Bachelor of Arts degree in music education from Luther College and the Master of Music degree in trumpet performance and jazz studies from the University of Northern Colorado at Greeley (UNC).  He subsequently earned the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in choral conducting and vocal studies from the University of Illinois.  He has served on the music faculties of Ithaca College, Morningside College, Millikin University, and the University of Wyoming.

Dr. Krueger is a former resident member of the Grammy Award-winning Robert Shaw Festival Singers. He has also performed with the Grammy-nominated UNC Axidentals Vocal Jazz Sextet directed by the legendary jazz educator, Gene Aitken.  He has conducted all-state, honor choir, and choral festival performances for singers of all ages throughout North and South America and Europe and has led numerous concert tours to the many cultural centers of Europe.

Ballet & Beer: Guest Artists Feature

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CSU Dance Faculty, Madeline and Matthew Harvey, will be performing their piece “Temptation” at our Second Annual Ballet & Beer production on Thursday, October 11.  We are so honored to partner with them, read on to learn more about their dance experiences, life in Fort Collins, and fun tidbits about how they prepare for a show!

You are both new to Fort Collins, in your 2nd year teaching and dancing in Fort Collins at CSU.  Where did you move from and how has the transition been?  How are you enjoying your new dance lives here in NoCo?

We moved to Fort Collins after spending the last nine years in South Carolina. We love the culture here – everyone seems so friendly and sincere. While I (Matthew) appreciate a winter more similar to those of my childhood in Pennsylvania, Madeline is still adjusting to the colder weather. We feel lucky to have found a place where we can teach, choreograph and perform. We have so much respect for local dance companies and are honored to have the opportunity to collaborate with other artists in the NoCo community!

How long have you both been choreographing together?  Can you tell us something about your process?

Despite having choreographed more than one hundred works combined, and having performed in each other’s choreography, we have only co-created a handful of  pieces. So far, our collaborative processes have been seamless. In fact, it is often difficult to distinguish who is responsible for specific movement vocabulary or ideas. I think having partnered together for over twelve years helped to build this intuitive understanding of one another in the studio.

What’s your favorite thing about working together?

The dedicated time to connect on such deep mental, physical, and emotional levels. The camaraderie is great too! If only we had an outtakes reel… some of the most memorable studio moments are when something totally unpredictable happens that sends us from intense concentration into hysterical laughter.

Aside from one another, who would you most like to have the opportunity to dance with?

Madeline – I would secretly love the opportunity to share the stage with Judy Bejarano, Artistic Director of IMPACT. It is inspiring to watch her create and demonstrate her choreography – I think it would be great fun to perform a duet with her one day. Matthew – I can’t say there is any specific person I would like to perform with, just some repertoire and styles that I would enjoy workshopping.

How do you prepare the day of a performance?

Madeline – Most of my performance days are spent trying to remember to breathe. I find comfort in a set order of events – I like to do my hair first, then make-up, then warm up. For some reason I like to eat a breakfast sandwich on show days, and I can usually be found wearing my sock monkey onesie backstage. Matthew – Whether it’s songs that energize or relax me, I have to listen to music on show days. I don’t get outwardly nervous, but I prefer to stay more meditative while preparing before a performance. I eat, brush my teeth, do my make up, wash my hands, then put on my costume. I come to the theatre packed for the week and then slowly move out over the course of the run.

What’s your favorite restaurant in Fort Collins?

There are so many excellent restaurants in Fort Collins, but Lucille’s (especially for their beignets) is at the top of my (Madeline’s) list. Matthew loves Snooze!

Ballet & Beer Inspirations: French Ballet

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The history of the development of ballet as a French court dance form is well known.  What may be a lesser known is the fact that this history is completely inter-meshed with the history of the expected behavior of the king’s courtiers, whose everyday lives where regulated in the most extreme ways.  The grip of these imposed rituals was unyielding — from clothing, to language, to food, to where one should sit or stand.  One courtier once quipped, “The austerities of a convent are nothing compared the the austerities of etiquette to which the King’s courtiers are subjected.”  It is during this time period – the 17th century particularly – that we see the use of two French words come into popularity: comportement and étiquette.  Together they paint a picture of the historical beginnings of ballet as prescribed personal bearing, carriage, and behavior.  During the reign of King Louis XIV, behaving  wrongly was at the peril of one’s life!

It is precisely because of this imposed etiquette that classical ballet is the graceful, pristine, and codified art form it is today.  However, this aspect of its development is only part of the story.  As soon as ballet moved away from the strictures of the court and into the theaters of Paris, dance masters and choreographers saw the potential of ballet to do more than entertain audiences with its scrolling, court dance floor patterns and light footwork. They knew they could use the form to tell stories.  By the mid-1700s French ballet master Jean Georges Noverre, for example, sought to make ballets that used expressive, dramatic movement that would reveal the relationships between characters and convey a narrative.  So while classical ballet narratives are largely dominated by sylphs, princesses, sorcerers, and the nobility, they are also about peasants and the working class, and express the full range of human emotion, including struggle, loss, joy, failure, success, family, uncertainty, and laughter.

In Canyon Concert Ballet’s 2nd Annual Ballet & Beer, artistic director Alicia Laumann, is using the program to showcase some of these more human, less lofty, and hopefully funny scenarios often found in ballet. Don Quixote (the Tavern Scene) for instance, tells the story of Basilio, the town barber, and his working class girlfriend, Kitri, who must join forces with their friends to trick Kitri’s dad into letting them get married.  Also in the program, the danced poetic excerpts from Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana (sung by members of the Larimer Chorale), depict the earthy pleasures of nature, love, and lust.  The Lyric will host this surprising and curated event.  With only 2 shows, you won’t want to miss this night out on the town!  Tickets are available on the Lyric’s website.

Article by Alicia Laumann

CCB Re-imagining the Ballerina

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In the wake of several important happenings, including the meteoric rise of Misty Copeland, the first African-American to become a principal dancer at American Ballet Theater and cultural movements such as #MeToo, dance historians, teachers, choreographers, and students are asking important questions concerning the future of this 400 year old art form: mainly, what should a 21st century ballerina look like?  Canyon Concert Ballet (CCB) is tackling this question head-on in their upcoming program, An Evening of Ballet and Chopin.  The questioning comes in the form of what this 38 year-old local ballet company does best – dance.

CCB’s spring production, at the Lincoln Center April 27th and 28th, opens with Michel Fokine’s 1908 masterpiece Les Sylphides, a one-act, plotless work choreographed in the quintessential Romantic era style akin to Giselle and populated by beautiful, ethereal other-worldly female dancers.  CCB’s second act is a presentation of the world premiere of CCB’s Artistic Director, Alicia Laumann’s new work, Études.  Using Les Sylphides as a foil, Laumann attempts to create a ballet blanc (a white ballet typical of the Romantic era) appropriate for this generation of female dancers.

With nine selections from Romantic era giant Frédéric Chopin, Études “riffs” off of the standard corps de ballet ideas of symmetry, synchronicity, and ethereality, purposely looking for opportunities to disrupt these established conventions of the ballet blanc.  Laumann asks: “What does a corp de ballet look like where the dancers are uniquely themselves and are given some agency to be human on stage: to see one another, to talk, to share, to laugh…and to dance together?”

Not wishing to completely eschew the beauty and the ability of the traditional ballet blanc to transport viewers from our sometimes arduous realties to these imaginary places, Laumann harkens back to these ballets with choreographic nods to classics such as Swan Lake and La Bayadére, while allowing the dancers’ unique movement styles to shine through rather than being subjugated to the whole.  Using 23 dancers who vary in age, gender, height, and personality, Études hopes to celebrate the wonderful diversity of humans through dance.

Alicia Laumann says, “Les Sylphides is a gem, a ‘nugget’ of classical ballet perfection.  Fokine’s delicate gestures, sublime musicality and effortless virtuosity – all accompanied to Chopin’s most beloved pieces – make it a work that will and should be performed into perpetuity.   It is its perfection that allows choreographers of today, like myself, to ask ‘What is our legacy?  How do we want ballerinas of today to be remembered?’  Études is a beginning for me of using my choreography to ask these important questions – for my daughter and for my dancers.”

Don’t miss An Evening of Ballet and Chopin: Les Sylphides & Etudes!

Performance will be held at the Lincoln Center (417 W Magnolia St, Fort Collins, CO 80521) on the following dates:

Friday, April 27 at 7pm and Saturday, April 28 at 2pm and 7pm

Tickets Available on the Lincoln Center’s website or by calling their box office at  970-223-

History of Les Sylphides

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As many of you know, our spring ballet is just several short weeks away:  April 27-28th at the Lincoln Center.  Because Canyon Concert Ballet is privileged to perform the early 20th century Michel Fokine masterpiece, Les Sylphides, I thought it might be nice to share with you a bit about this ballet’s interesting history.  

Les Sylphides was actually an edited and renamed work that Fokine brought over from Russia and re-staged as part of the famed Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes’ first Parisian season in 1909.  Diaghilev and Fokine decided to rename the ballet from Chopiniana to Les Sylphides as a marketing effort to recall for the Parisians the legendary Marie Taglioni, the renowned sylph (from Filippo Taglioni’s La Sylphide, 1832) who had captivated French audiences.  

Indeed, renaming it proved to be a brilliant decision for it is the only ballet of its kind:  a one-act overture to the by-gone Romantic ballet blanc.  Renaming it firmly ties it to this mid-1800s Golden era of ballet.

Though not a narrative work, Les Sylphides demonstrates all the qualities of the Romantic era, evoking imagination, other-worldliness, and unrequited desire.  The original set depicts the ruins of a Gothic castle in a misty, forested land.  (Romantic artists were fascinated by all things Gothic and grotesque!)  As the curtain opens, we see “the Poet” surrounded by the Sylphs.  Accompanied by Fokine’s eight selections of Romanic era giant, Frederic Chopin’s orchestrated pieces, the Sylphs dance in a flutter of white tulle as the Poet grasps longingly but futility after them.  While watching Les Sylphides, one can almost hear John Keat’s stanzas, “A thing of beauty is a joy forever:  its loveliness increases; it will never pass into nothingness.”

Choreographically, Fokine’s movement is extremely difficult for its lightness and precision.  The corps de ballet are woven in and out of exquisite patterns with bourreés (little steps on pointe) and airy jumps, while the lead dancers fly through the air with effortlessness.  Dainty and unique gestures give the ballet its signature Fokine look.

Our Canyon Concert Ballet dancers are doing a wonderful job at capturing Les Sylphides’ ethereal wonder for you.  Don’t forget to get your tickets soon!

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