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New Director Heralds Changes for Nation's Oldest Ballet Company
Qian Suyin; December 24, 2019 at 7:30 a.m.
Cateline Lécuyer, Executive Director of the Althea Ballet Company, had formerly performed for the troupe before becoming Artistic Director.
Source: Althea Ballet Company
Althea- When Cateline Lécuyer became the Executive Director of the prestigious Althea Ballet Company in late 2018, it was widely seen as a desperate move on the part of the company. No one was arguing that Lécuyer lacked dance skill- she had performed with the Company for nearly a decade, and then spent four years as the troupe's Artistic Director from 2014-2018. But she lacked any sort of business or administrative experience, a bad sign for a company which had faced declining revenues for seven straight years.
But the Althea Ballet Company wasn't in great shape itself. The oldest and most distinguished troupe still in existence in Laeral, it was founded at the order of Duchess Marie-Therese in 1817. Its box seats at the Palais Michaud had hosted kings, dukes, and presidents; the President of Laeral retains a box seat by longstanding tradition. It had been considered the preeminent ballet troupe in the International Democratic Union, and certainly the finest in East Hespia. But declining public interest in ballet mean that by 2000, it relied on state subsidies to keep doors open. Critics saw its performances as staid and the Company itself set in its ways. The final straw came in 2018, when then-Director Eugène Duchamps was forced to resign following allegations from numerous ballerinas that he had extorted them for sex. Just over a year after Duchamps' resignation, Cateline Lécuyer has shown a willingness to bring the troupe in an entirely new direction.
The Palais Michaud's opulent interior complements the perception
of the Althea Ballet's tradition and staidness.
Executive Directors of the Althea Ballet Company are chosen by vote of the Company's Board of Trustees; their secretive nature makes it impossible to know whether Lécuyer was a clear favorite or a dark horse. Upon being named Director, Lécuyer's first action was to institute a new sexual harassment policy. The general reaction was positive; Lécuyer was seen as working to atone for the misdeeds of her predecessor. Her second action was to fire the Artistic and Musical Directors, replacing them with unexpected candidates including incoming musical director James Wang, who had no prior experience in the ballet field.
"Cateline's a very skilled choreographer," said a highly-placed Company employee, who requested anonymity. "But it's very much her way or the highway, when it comes to the performance onstage and how the Company is run offstage. Some people have issues with that. But if you work in the field long enough, you meet plenty of big egos, and with Cateline, you know that she wants what's best for the troupe."
Under Lécuyer's leadership, the Althea Ballet Company has simultaneously been daring and innovative offstage while more traditional onstage. The 2018-2019 season featured the ballet La Sylphide, an 1836 production that, although it had never been performed at Althea before, was a respected part of the classical ballet canon. The Althea Ballet Company's 2019 production of the ballet was fairly conventional in its choreography, although Le Pays' Lothaire Vincent noted that the set backgrounds were unusually abstract in his four-star review of the production.
Tristan Leandres in the Althea Ballet Company's 2019 production of La Sylphide.
Offstage, however, the Ballet has established new collaborations with groups outside of the ballet mainstream. For instance, the Althea Kathak Dance Association, a group specializing in Andhran traditional dance, was invited to perform at the Michaud Theater, a rare honor which hadn't been extended to another troupe since 2006. The Althea Ballet Company held a showing of their marquee performance with tickets retailing for only M10, which some derided as a publicity stunt but Lécuyer herself estimates brought in hundreds of first-time viewers. Another new program, Plie for All, sends choreographers and dancers to high school and college productions around Althea to aid them in putting on productions.
Dancers practice at the Althea Ballet Company.
"Ballet is not a terribly egalitarian entertainment form," said Lécuyer, in one of her well-known understatements. "And like any ballet troupe anywhere in the world, our audience is very old, very wrinkled, you might say, and very pale. It's not what the advertisers would call a desirable audience. Without bringing in young people, new viewers, the company will wither up and die within two generations, at most." Sources within the company's marketing office suggest that the average attendee is around 70 years old.
Yet it's perhaps Lécuyer's practices with the dancers themselves that have raised the most eyebrows among long-time balletgoers. In addition to Musical Director James Wang, the first Rén to hold the position, the ballet has hired two new Rén dancers as well as the first Desi ballerina in the Company's history. Classical ballet often focuses on the concept of a homogeneous corps de ballet, a group of dancers who move as a single unit and share a common body type. This has traditionally meant that ballet is dominated by Arrivée dancers, particularly in the ballet blanc (white ballet) canon of classics such as Swan Lake. The Althea Ballet's first Rén dancer, Jacques Soong, joined in 1955, nearly 140 years after the Ballet's establishment.
"All of us love ballet. And some people are very tied to the old ways right now, but I'm sure they'll come around once they see that the ballet they love isn't going away."
In July, rumors that Lécuyer was intending to hire the transgender dancer Justine Bellerose led to an petition titled "Cateline Lécuyer is a disgrace to the Althea Ballet" circulating among Trustees and longtime ticket-holders. The letter described Lécuyer as having an "aggressive temperament" and planning "radical, irresponsible, and unprecedented" changes to the Ballet. It was signed "Concerned Trustees". Bellerose was never offered a position, and Lécuyer claims to have never considered offering her one.
Lécuyer herself brushes off the letter, which reportedly came to nothing. "All of us love ballet," says Lécuyer. "I believe that in order to have a verdant, prosperous ballet going on into the future, we need to think beyond how we've always done things at the Company. And some people are very tied to the old ways right now, but I'm sure they'll come around once they see that the ballet they love isn't going away."
Iravati Visariya says she is "the only Desi I've
ever met who does classical ballet."
Iravati Visariya, who at age 22 became the first ever dancer of Desi origin hired by the Althea Ballet Company, speaks enthusiastically about the need for diversifying ballet's audience. "If ballet keeps being associated with stuffiness and anorexia and expensive box-seat tickets, all of those problems will be here to stay," she says. "I'm the only Desi dancer I've ever met who does classical ballet, because there's a feeling that we aren't really welcome." Visariya says that her parents were often confused why she didn't choose to focus on Andhran classical dance. On 10-mark admission night, Visariya took her entire extended family- "aunties and uncles and grandparents, maybe 20 to 30 Desi family members sitting together in one row"- to see her perform in La Sylphide. "I think they understand better what ballet is, even if they don't really understand why I prefer it to Kathak," says Visariya.
Just over a year into her tenure, Lécuyer's changes have seen results. Ticket sales are up by 17% after years of decline, according to the company's financial staff. The Althea Ballet's dancers and choreographers now work with ballet programs at over a dozen high schools; one such production was attended by Lécuyer and Musical Director James Wang. At their most recent annual meeting, in November, the Board of Trustees did not host a recall vote for Lécuyer's position as Executive Director, despite rumors that traditionalist members of the Board were seeking to force a vote to replace her. Lécuyer doesn't like to talk about what reforms to the Althea Ballet Company, among the most prestigious (and to some, most hidebound) ballets in the world, will mean for ballet worldwide. "We will do things our way," Lécuyer said recently, "and the ballet troupes of the rest of the world can do as they like to keep their doors open and keep performing." She's tight-lipped on what the ballet will do for the next season- another classic work, perhaps? Maybe a Laeralian ballet, breaking from the classical French works that have historically been common fare for the troupe? When asked, Lécuyer flashes a knowing smile. "Why don't you come back next year and see?" she suggests.
Author: Qian Suyin
qian.suyin@lasentinelle.net
Setsuzoku: @LSQianSuyin
Qian Suyin is a Culture Correspondent for La Sentinelle, based in Laeralsford. Qian works as a cultural writer, scholar, and part-time musician, and is the author of Legions of Gold: Laeralsford's Ska Subculture of the 1960s-70s. She has worked for La Sentinelle for nearly 10 years, and won the Fu Huan Reporting on Art award in 2018 for a photography article focusing on the preservation of Laeral's artistic heritage. She attended Riverlands National University and was born in Laonong, Jinhua.
