Ballet Quad Cities' “Ballet Off the Lawn,” August 23 and 24

Saturday, August 23, and Sunday, August 24

The Spotlight Theatre, 1800 Seventh Avenue, Moline IL

Over the past five years, since August of 2020, fans of the Quad Cities' professional dance company Ballet Quad Cities have enjoyed special late-summer performances of Ballet on the Lawn – presentations of crowd-favorite vignettes staged directly outside Davenport's Outing Club. This year, however, the talents of BQC will be taking their traditional season-opener inside Moline's Spotlight Theatre on August 23 and 24 … and you'll never guess what the program's title is.

“Yeah, we're Off the Lawn,” says Ballet Quad Cities Artistic Director Courtney Lyon. “We were asking ourselves, 'What are we gonna call it?' As a joke, kind of tongue-in-cheek, someone said, 'Ballet Off the Lawn'? And we were like, 'Ummm … okay!' Because it has the same feeling as the Ballet on the Lawns – it has great energy, and everything's really engaging and theatrical. It's just gonna be indoors.”

Lyon is quick to add, however, that there's “no big secret” behind why the company will be at the Spotlight this August instead of the Outing Club, and there's certainly no bad blood.

“Honestly, we loved those performances,” says Lyon, “and the audiences loved those performances. But frankly, we can't control the climate change – it's just getting hotter and hotter, and it's a lot to ask of the dancers and the audience.

“And because we have to rent a dance floor that gets built the day of, because it's cost-effective, we do all the performances on the same day. So if it happens to rain, we're out. They do have a ballroom at the Outing Club, and if it's not occupied, we can go inside. But that also means tearing up the floor, and then setting it up again, and then we have to move the music system … . There was one year when there was construction going on in the ballroom, so it was off-limits, and we had to just cross our fingers and hold our breath that it wouldn't rain.

“So we this year,” Lyon continues, “we decided, 'You know what? Let's move it off the lawn, and over to the Spotlight.' We really like working at the Spotlight a lot. [Venue co-owner] Brent Tubbs is great to work with, and we'll be there again in October, so we also also liked having that consistency for audiences.”

Like several of the Spotlight's recent musicals, Ballet Off the Lawn will be partly staged on the theatre's main floor, which Lyon says is ideal for the performance's second act: a 10th-anniversary rendition of her take on Boléro. Composer Maurice Ravel's sensuous classic has been reprised in numerous BQC programs over the years, and Lyon says, “We love getting to do it on the Spotlight's main floor because it can then be performed in the round, which is how it was intended to be viewed.”

Prior to Boléro, three shorter works will compose Ballet Off the Lawn's first act, the first being Lyon's No Limits, Just Edges.

“That's a balletic group piece that I choreographed a number of years ago,” Lyon says, “and I based it on Jackson Pollock's painting techniques. The title of a book of his, and I loved the idea behind it. I loved the very physical aspect of his paintings – how he would climb up on a ladder and dump the paint down onto this huge canvas. So I wanted to use the stage like a Jackson Pollock canvas and let the dancers go all over the place. It's very vibrant, very fun – a great introduction to the company dancers.”

In the case of several dancers, Lyon means “introduction” literally. Nine professional veterans of Ballet Quad Cities are returning for the 2025-26 season: Eleanor Ambler; Sierra DeYoung; Madeline Kreszenz; Marcus Pei; Madeleine Rhode; Kira Roberts; Caitlin Sendlenski; Jillian Van Cura; and Mahalia Zellmer. Four other talents, however, will be making their company debuts with Ballet Off the Lawn: Dagny Ingle; Emerald Pease; Corbin Phillips; and Sarah Pfeiffer.

“They're all featured in No Limits,” says Lyon. “It's a group piece, but everyone has a solo or a duet or a trio moment, so it was perfect for our kickoff. As the first piece on the program, it's a great way for the audience to see the familiar faces of the dancers that they know and love, and then see our new dancers, too.”

Also included in Ballet Off the Lawn's first act is, as Lyon says, “something we did in February that was lovely. It was by guest choreographer Donald Laney, and it's a modern dance piece he did to jazz standards with vocalists called Lust, Loss, Love. It's a full group piece about love – it's just beautiful.”

And completing the program's collection of vignettes is one that will likely be familiar to anyone who's seen a presentation of Ballet Quad Cities' holiday favorite The Nutcracker: a rendition of Tchaikovsky's The Sugar Plum Fairy.

“It's a solo on a female dancer in her tiny tutu,” says Lyon with a laugh. “For one performance, it'll be danced by Madeline Rhode, who's entering her seventh season with us, and in the other, it's Caitlin Sendlenski, who's in her second season. It's a very traditional piece, but also a bit of a jazzy version … and you might be wondering why we're doing The Sugar Plum Fairy in August.” (Well, yes.)

“The reason is because outreach is a huge part of our mission for Ballet Quad Cities,” says Lyon, “and we want to keep in the audience's mind that one of the biggest live-performance experiences that students in the Quad Cities have is the annual Nutcracker performance,” this year's even taking place at Davenport's Adler Theatre on December 13 and 14.

“This year,” Lyon continues, “for our student-matinée performance in December, we've actually added a show, because we had so many schools contact us that we sold out last year. So this is a way to remind people that they can sponsor kids to see The Nutcracker – that if they want to send one grade-school child, or five grade-school children, it doesn't cost that much. We'll have materials [at Ballet Off the Lawn performances] where people can learn about sponsoring. How, for $20, you can send a handful of kids to see The Nutcracker. It can be a life-changing event for a kid in the Quad Cities.”

Looking ahead to the rest of Ballet Quad Cities' 2025-26 season, Lyon says, she's already excited for the company's autumnal event at the Spotlight Theatre,

“Our Twisted Tales of Poe Halloween performance was last October,” says Lyon, “and that went over really, really well. This year, we're doing More Twisted Tales of Poe, so I'm adding more stories to it – letting a few go, keeping some, and adding a few more stories. That was a great time last year, and the dancers were really invested in it.

“We're at St. Ambrose University next spring for a premiere – Emily Kate Long will be choreographing Wickedest City in America, which of course is referring to-o-o … Davenport! I think that's gonna be so much fun. Emily's been researching all summer, and I can't wait to see what she comes up with. There's lots of wickedness to draw from in our history.

“And we're always out in the community,” Lyon says. “We have outreach events all the time. We're in the midst of our capital campaign, and we need to raise a million more dollars to get into our new building that's currently being renovated. We just gotta keep going. It's all good stuff on the horizon!” Including, it should be added, an uplifting, feel-good love story perfect for February's holiday: Romeo & Juliet.
“Yes!” says Lyon. “Happy Valentine's Day!”

Ballet Quad Cities' Ballet Off the Lawn will be performed at Moline's Spotlight Theatre on Saturday, August 23 at 7 p.m., and Sunday, August 24 at 2 p.m. Admission is $16.88-$32.64, and more information and tickets are available by calling (309)786-3779 and visiting BalletQuadCities.com.