Photograph courtesy Aaron M. Conway/ (Frame, Plants) Frame Art & Olga Korneeva/Shutterstock.com
Keeping dancers and choreographers engaged during the off season benefits the artist and the audience. We sat down with co-artistic director of Moving Arts and Cincinnati Ballet principal dancer, Cervilio Amador, to chat about his efforts.
“When you work with a major dance company, you don’t work all year long. We start our season at the beginning of August and work until the end of April or May. Dancing is a short career, and the off season is too long to stop developing ourselves as artists.
“Moving Arts originated in 2013 in Kansas City as the Kansas City Dance Festival, and it was about four years ago when I thought I wanted to start something similar here. When I first reached out, we thought we would do two separate companies, but we ended up collaborating and changing the name. Next June will be our third year. We also feel it is important to teach, educate, and inspire new generations. Our outreach work encompasses master classes and discounted ticket rates to ballet schools, summer intensive students, and our Veteran Armed Forces. Our open rehearsals in the studio offer the chance for the community to get a behind-the-scenes look before our dancers take the stage.
“We really work hard to come up with new ideas—we want artists to bring their vision to Cincinnati. I want to continue to bring in other art forms and see how we can learn from each other, so it won’t just be dancing and music. It could be painting, or a chef coming up with a themed meal for a show. Creativity is very important in our lives. These choreographers and dancers need to keep that hunger alive. In the end, the audience benefits from that, too.” —As told to Jennifer Merritt
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