Ballet Quad Cities Dancers Pumped to Return to Davenport’s Adler Theatre Stage
More than 17 months after they danced “The Nutcracker” at Davenport’s Adler Theatre, Ballet Quad Cities is finally getting to return to its traditional home, in a varied 40-minute program Saturday, May 29.
Maddie Rhode dances in “Love Stories” from this past February.
The professional ballet company is part of a triple bill, starting at 8 p.m., to kick off an Adler Theatre Foundation series of five shows. BQC – which had to be postponed from an originally scheduled May 8 date – will feature audience favorites such as the fun baseball-themed “Players,” the jazzy and sophisticated “Sugar Rum Fairy,” the sunny and chill “Dream a Little Dream” and Meghan Phillips’ “Where Ever the Wind Takes Us,” excerpts from Bernstein’s “On the Town” and more.
“That is just so exciting because that is what the dancers have trained to do — to perform on a stage with lights and facing the audience and having just a lot of space,” BQC artistic director Courtney Lyon said Monday.
“They’re just excited to be back in the more traditional setting,” she said, noting because of Covid, the
Claire Cordano dances in “Love Stories” from this past February.
company has performed inside and outside Davenport’s Outing Club for the entire 2020-21 season. “They’re very versatile — so they can perform almost anywhere but to look forward at a stage and not have any outside distractions, they just like a very focused environment and it’s just it’s just a really nice traditional setup and that feels good.
“It feels good to come back to that stage,” Lyon added. “I think it feels good to know that there are people who do want to come see us, who are buying tickets to come to the Adler. That feels good, that feels encouraging to keep doing what we’re doing.”
“It’s just exciting to be back in a more traditional stage,” agreed dancer Nick Bartolotti. “As fun as the smaller, more intimate stages have been, it’s kind of exciting to be back on a stage where we have more space to
Nick Bartolotti and Madeline Rhode had fun dancing on the Outing Club lawn last August.
ourselves.”
He’s especially stoked to dance in the fun piece his company partner Meghan Phillips created, set to the song “M.A.Y. in the Backyard” (which was in the 2017 film “Call Me by Your Name”), with three dancers and a massive balloon.
They first did it last summer outside in “Ballet on the Lawn,” when they literally had winds to deal with, which was unpredictable, Bartolotti said. “Whereas inside, it might be a little bit easier to manage.”
“Although there’s like three dancers in it, it’s really like there’s four, because of the balloon is totally its own body, its own dancer,” Phillips said Monday, noting this is the third piece she’s choreographed in her young career. “So, yeah, even though it is a trio, it kind of looks like a quartet, right?”
“The music just brought me back to some festivals in the summer, and it is very upbeat and happy and kind of childish as well and playful,” she said.
“I’m so excited to be back,” Phillips said of the Adler. “That’s like our home space, our home stage and it’s been too long so I’m very excited to be back there. We’re definitely looking forward to the next time when we can put on the full ballet again, but it’s nice to revisit some of the things you’ve done this year as well.”
Courtney Lyon is artistic director and choreographer for Ballet Quad Cities.
“I think the most exciting thing that I’m looking forward to with being at the Adler — performing on a big stage is always nice, but I like being backstage and like being able to support and cheer on the other dancers, as they’re dancing,” company member Madeline Rhode said.
“At the Outing Club, we weren’t able to do that. There really weren’t side wings so we could support them,” she said of watching from the side off-stage.
“It’s just like a totally different view to be able to watch them like from the side, and when you make eye contact with them, you know, just like that moral support of each other,” Rhode said. “I think that’s the thing that I’m most looking forward to being back at that Adler space.”
“It’s definitely something that only as performers or stage crew, you get to experience, right? So, that’s something that I’ve always valued, and cherished, even when I was a little student being able to see the professional dancers ahead of you and your dance, being able to see them,” she said.
“I think everybody’s a little bit different, ‘cause I know I’ve heard some people like specifically say, like please don’t watch me. Like, I can see you when you make me so nervous standing there,” Rhode said. “I know for me, I love being able to see the other dancers, if they’re on the side while I’m dancing or whatnot. Like I love to
Nick Bartolotti and Caroline Cady will reprise “Players” from last summer’s Ballet on the Lawn at Outing Club.
feel like their support and encouragement and like seeing them like cheer me on as I’m doing whatever it is.”
Being on the Adler stage is indescribable, she added.
“It’s going to be a feeling that you won’t forget, because we’ve been on a smaller stage with a more intimate setting for pretty much all season,” Rhode said. On the Saturday night show, one of her solos is the jazzy “Sugar Rum Fairy,” a play on the classic “Sugar Plum Fairy” from Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker.”
“To be able to be back, I think it’s going to be something that, I think all of us are extremely
Nick Bartolotti performing last summer in a piece choreographed by dancer Meghan Phillips.
excited to be back on that grand stage doing and dancing. It’s how we’ve grown up learning, to project outward to everybody up in the balcony, and in the back.
“So I think it’s also going to be like a learning curve again like oh, that’s right — this is how I have to make sure that I look up higher and look further out ‘cause it’s a lot deeper of an audience than we’re used to.”
Haley Zellmer, a two-year BQC trainee, is just 21 and has studied with the Ballet Quad Cities School of Dance over 15 years.
“At the Adler, I love being able to see all the seats. For me, it really makes me happy to see everybody, and we can also stand in the wings, to see your friends dancing,” she said Monday.
“All around, it’s pretty great to be at the Adler,” Zellmer said. At the Outing Club ballroom, it has been a little constricting in comparison, she said.
“But it’s cool at the Outing Club because you can see people’s faces and reactions and when you have like the little kids, who are like laughing when you’re doing something funny, which makes my heart so happy,” she said.
At the Adler, they “can definitely be more free in our movements,” Zellmer said. “We don’t feel like we might be running into a wall. I’m very excited about that.”
Other Adler acts and future ballet plans
The Saturday show will feature opening act Aaron Fullan, a Clinton, Iowa-based actor and composer. He has a strong following of 250,000+ on Facebook, where his self-produced videos have garnered millions of views across the globe.
Clinton composer Aaron Fullan at the Adler Theatre.
The theme for his May 29 piano concert will be movie music. He’ll play some selections from what he considers the greatest film scores, including his own favorite, the prolific John Williams (such as from “Schindler’s List”).
Fullan has signed to provide original music for a popular Christian series called “The Chosen,” based on the life of Christ. It’s on a platform called VidAngel, which just launched its own studio, Angel Studios, and hired Fullan to write new brand music that will appear with the studio logo at the start of all their films and TV series.
On Saturday, three Quad City Symphony Orchestra musicians — associate concertmaster Emily Nash, violist Bruno Silva, and associate principal bass Kit Polen — will perform music of Appalachia.
They will do some of the pieces they performed Feb. 27 at a Signature Series concert of American music
The Quad City Symphony trio of Emily Nash, Bruno Silva and Kit Polen will perform on May 29.
in the Figge Art Museum Grand Lobby.
Polen performs regularly with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, including joining them on tours through Europe, Asia, and the U.S. Since 2015, he’s been the Associate Principal Bass of the QCSO, in addition to performing with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.
Silva has worked with the Hawaii Symphony Orchestra, Civic Orchestra of Chicago, Chicago Sinfonietta, Northwest Indiana Symphony, and Elgin Symphony Orchestra. Married to Emily Nash of the QCSO, he’s also a freelancer in the Chicago area performing concerts with several orchestras, teaching private lessons, writing
Meghan Phillips dancing “Ballet on the Lawn” last summer at the Outing Club.
arrangements, and performing with the Cloud Gate String Quartet for special events.
Nash has been with the QCSO and the Northwest Indiana Symphony Orchestra for six years, where she is Associate Concertmaster and Assistant Principal Second respectively. She also subs with the Milwaukee Symphony, Hawaii Symphony, Chicago Philharmonic, Fort Wayne Philharmonic, Illinois Philharmonic, Lake Forest Symphony, and the Midwest Mozart Festival.
Ballet Quad Cities plans to return to outdoor performances at The Outing Club (2109 Brady St.) in August and September, and then partner with the QCSO for an Oct. 9 concert at Galvin Fine Arts Center at St. Ambrose University, Davenport.
The symphony plans to perform Igor Stravinsky’s 1918 “A Soldier’s Tale” — a parable of a soldier who trades his fiddle to the devil in return for unlimited economic gain. The music is scored for a septet of violin, double bass, clarinet, bassoon, cornet (often played on trumpet), trombone, and percussion, and the story is told by three actors: the soldier, the devil, and a narrator, who also takes on the roles of minor characters.
A dancer plays the non-speaking role of the princess, and there may also be additional ensemble dancers.
For tickets to the May 29 Adler program, visit ticketmaster.com.
