Ballet Quad Cities at the Adler Theatre -- May 29.
Saturday, May 29, 8 p.m.
Adler Theatre, 136 East Third Street, Davenport IA
In a unique blend of music and dance launching the 2021 Adler Theatre Foundation Series – a selection of eclectic live performances featuring celebrated national touring artists and lauded local talents – professional dancers from Ballet Quad Cities and professional musicians from the Quad City Symphony Orchestra take over the Davenport stage on May 29, treating audiences to choreographed favorites from the BQC repertoire and QCSO talents Kit Polen, Bruno Vaz da Silva, and Emily Nash delivering Music of Appalachia.
“It was a wonderful surprise,” says Ballet Quad Cities founder and CEO Joedy Cook of the Adler's recently announced performance series. “Its purpose is kind of twofold – to let people know that the Adler is alive and well, and to bring people to downtown Davenport and just get things jumping again. It's such a great opportunity for the arts in our community to get exposure, as well as an opportunity for the Adler to bring in national talent.”
The company's Adler performance will feature short Ballet Quad Cities vignettes, and as Artistic Director Courtney Lyon says, “We'll pretty much be doing highlights of what we did this year – some of the best stuff that came out of this year from all the different performances we've been doing.” With most of the company's 2020 and 2021 presentations performed at Davenport's Outing Club, the May 29 production will showcase recent audience favorites including the relaxing yet upbeat “Dream a Little Dream,” Meghan Phillips' "Where Ever the Wind Takes Us," and, taken from the company's most recent rendition of The Nutcracker, a reprise of “The Sugar Rum Fairy.”
“When we did Nutcracker in the Round at the Outing Club,” says Lyon, “I ended up using not traditional Nutcracker music, but like a grab bag of different versions of Nutcracker music, just because it was going to be a different atmosphere. You know, it wasn't going to be traditional with an orchestra and all the normal sets and costumes. And one of the pieces that I created new was this jazzy version of the 'Sugar Plum Fairy' dance that was so … cool.” She laughs. “I can't even explain it. Madeleine Rhode is the dance's performer, and she just did such a great job with it that we wanted to bring that one to the Adler, as well. It's like this sultry, jazzy, chill Sugar Plum Fairy.”
As baseball season is underway, the May 29 performance will also feature “Players,” which Lyon calls “super-short and very fun. It's like two minutes long, and it's got a sweet beat. These two performers come out on stage and they're in baseball attire with hats and jerseys and they're getting geared up for the big game. You know how performers have these rituals they do before they go on stage? I made a dance version of that, but with what baseball players do when they're getting ready, like with their warm-ups and their handshakes … . I took some of those moves and turned it into dance. And the two people performing it – Caroline Cady and Nicholas Bartolotti – are, like, avid baseball fans, so they really loved doing that one.”
Performing Music of Appalachia with the ensemble of the QCSO Trio, violinist Emily Nash graduated with her MM in violin performance while studying with Almita and Roland Vamos at Northwestern University, graduating early and with high honors. She received her BM in violin performance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and this is Nash’s sixth season in both the Quad City Symphony Orchestra and the Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra, where she serves as Associate Concertmaster and Assistant Principal Second, respectively. Nash also performs with the Milwaukee Symphony, Hawaii Symphony, Chicago Philharmonic, Fort Wayne Philharmonic, Illinois Philharmonic, Lake Forest Symphony, and the Midwest Mozart Festival, and resides in a Chicago suburb with her daughter Natalie and husband and violist, Bruno Vaz da Silva.
Silva began studying viola in 2004 in his native Brazil at the Escola de Musica de Brasilia, and after one year, he placed in a solo competition and had the opportunity to perform with the Orquestra Sinfonica da Escola de Musica de Brasilia. He graduated from the conservatory in two-and-a-half years – a program that normally takes eight years to complete – and has subsequently performed with the Bensenville Chamber Orchestra, Renovo String Orchestra, North Park University Symphony Orchestra, Brasilia Philharmonic, University of Brasilia String Orchestra, and Art-Brasilia Orchestra, among other ensembles. As a soloist, Silva has won top prizes and has performed with Midwest Young Artists, Orquestra Sinfonica da Escola de Musica de Brasilia, North Park University Symphony Orchestra, Mode Ensemble and the Orquestra Art-Brasilia, also performing in various orchestras in both summer and winter music festivals.
Bassist Kit Polen performs regularly with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, and Chicago Philharmonic in addition to being a member of the Quad City Symphony Orchestra and Rockford Symphony Orchestra. As a chamber musician, he has performed with many artists including the Argus Quartet, Chai Collaborative Ensemble, and Leon Fleisher. Polen has been based in Chicago since 2011, when he joined the Civic Orchestra of Chicago as Assistant Principal Bass, and prior to moving to Chicago, he earned his Master of Music from Indiana University and his Bachelor of Music from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, near his hometown of Hickory, North Carolina.
Joining the QCSO Trio for the Adler performance is Aaron Fullan, an actor, composer, and social-media influencer from Clinton, Iowa. Fullan has a following of more than 250,000 on Facebook, where his self-produced videos have garnered millions of views around the globe.
The Adler Theatre Foundation Series kicks off with 8 p.m. performances by Ballet Quad Cities and the QCSO Trio on May 29, admission is $10-25, and tickets are available by calling (800)745-3000 and visiting AdlerTheatre.com.
