Kinetic Conversations with the Fort Wayne Ballet

Welcome to the Kinetic Conversations series on pre-professional dance programs, featuring the Fort Wayne Ballet Summer Intensive program. Over three episodes, Artistic Director Karen Gibbons-Brown sits down with professional dancers Talbot Rue, Jessica Humphrey, and Abby Zinsser, and graduating pre-professional GiGi McDowell to discuss this all-important phase in a young dancer’s training.

Part two of our podcast on the Summer Intensive also finishes out our pre-professional series. We discuss what life is like for intensive students living in the dorms for a couple of weeks, hear from more of our intensive students from all over the country, and hear about training from one of our guest instructors. Thank you for joining us in this informative look at pre-pro training. 

Welcome to the Kinetic Conversations series on pre-professional dance programs, featuring the Fort Wayne Ballet Summer Intensive program. Over three episodes, Artistic Director Karen Gibbons-Brown sits down with professional dancers Talbot Rue, Jessica Humphrey, and Abby Zinsser, and graduating pre-professional GiGi McDowell to discuss this all-important phase in a young dancer’s training.

Following up on our episode on pre-pro development, this is the first of two-parts discussing the importance of summer training in the life of a pre-professional dancer and the benefits of a program like Fort Wayne Ballet's Summer Intensive.

Welcome to the Kinetic Conversations series on pre-professional dance programs, featuring the Fort Wayne Ballet Summer Intensive program. Over three episodes, Artistic Director Karen Gibbons-Brown sits down with professional dancers Talbot Rue, Jessica Humphrey, and Abby Zinsser, and graduating pre-professional GiGi McDowell to discuss this all-important phase in a young dancer’s training.

In this episode, the group discusses Fort Wayne Ballet’s Pre-Pro training curriculum and its importance in introducing young dancers to the larger world of professional ballet.

Artistic Director Karen Gibbons-Brown hosts this special episode of Kinetic Conversations, as she pulls in Academy instructors Avalou Burns and Schuyler Kechely, to discuss the fun and magic that is Fort Wayne Ballet’s summer camps.

Register now for our July camps! No dance experience necessary for ages 3-10. Register online at fortwayneballet.org or call us at 260-484-9646.

Kinetic Conversations is a joint production by Fort Wayne Ballet and Wayneshout Productions.

In our final Romeo & Juliet podcast, Jim Sparrow sits down with our own Romeo and Juliet, as Thomas Caleb Roberts and Brittany Focht tell us of their individual journeys in developing their characters for the stage. Along the way, we discuss a dancer’s quest to maintain good physical and mental health and the joys of performing with a live orchestra.

In part two of our discussion of Fort Wayne Ballet’s upcoming production of Romeo & Juliet, Jim Sparrow sits down with two former Romeos to discuss what is often thought of as a “man’s ballet.” Choreographers Robert La Fosse and David Ingram break down strenuous male roles that include multiple pas de deux and sword fighting. Meanwhile, Jim continues his quest to understand the “pillow dance.”

Kinetic Conversations is a creation of Wayneshout Productions. 

In this first part of our discussion on the ballet, Romeo & Juliet, Jim sits down with Karen Gibbons-Brown to review Prokofiev's near-perfect score and the history of his adaptation of the Shakespearean tale of woeful romance. The composer dreamed of a happy ending for his version of the luckless lovers' tale, but Fate could not be deterred. Fort Wayne Ballet presents Romeo & Juliet on April 19 & 20 at the Arts United Center. Tickets are available now at fortwayneballet.org.

Kinetic Conversations is a Wayneshout Production. Fort Wayne has a voice at Wayneshout.com.

For this episode, we take a look back at some of the previous conversations we have had about The Nutcracker in the years we have been doing this podcast. Join us as we revisit discussions on the ballet's history and legacy with Karen Gibbons-Brown and an insightful discussion on the Tchaikovsky's music with the help of the Fort Wayne Philharmonic's Caleb Young.

In this episode, we've turned the tables on show host Jim Sparrow, as he takes a turn in the interview chair. In his roll as Fort Wayne Ballet's Executive Director, he gives us a glimpse into the structure and the day-to-day mechanics of operating a ballet company. Find out what goes into a production from a fiscal standpoint, with the behind-the-scenes costs of staging, costuming, sets, courting trusts, and satisfying sponsors. Jim gives us the ins and outs of ballet as a business, as Kinetic Conversations takes ballet Beyond the Nutcracker.

Fort Wayne Ballet is getting ready to stage its first big show of the 2023-24 season, entitled Opening Night! In this three part series, Kinetic Conversations looks at each of the three ballets the company will be perform in the show - each with a nod to New York City.

In our third installment of this miniseries, Jim Sparrow and Karen Gibbons-Brown discuss the Agnes de Mille  comic ballet, Three Virgins and a Devil. We learn about de Mille’s career as a choreographer and her influential work on Broadway musicals in the 40’s and 50’s, and then Jim and Karen discuss Fort Wayne Ballet’s upcoming productions for season 67.

Tickets for Opening Night! can be purchased at fortwayneballet.org.