Two of Chautauqua’s artistic programs will join forces for a night of joy, community and remembrance, as the School of Dance will grace centerstage at 8:15 p.m. tonight in the Amphitheater in a performance alongside the Music School Festival Orchestra.
The MSFO is playing Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s Suite from The Sleeping Beauty, Op. 66, for the School of Dance students’ “Grand Waltz”; Antonín Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95 “From the New World” for “We Danced Through Life”; Paul Dukas’ The Sorcerer’s Apprentice for “A Tale of AI Ascension”; and Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings in C Major, Op. 48 for Balanchine’s “Serenade.”
Several of these pieces hold particular meaning for Chautauqua and the School of Dance; “Serenade” was a particular favorite of Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux, a luminary of the ballet world and the former director of the School of Dance who retired after 38 years in that role in 2021. Bonnefoux died in April, at the age of 82.
“We Danced Through Life,” choreographed by Sasha Janes — who now holds the endowed position of the Bonnefoux McBride Artistic Director of the School of Dance — is a work a commissioned by Chautauquan Terrie Vaile Hauck, former president of the Chautauqua Dance Circle, who also passed earlier this year; she died in February at the age of 87. “We Danced Through Life” is a three-movement ballet, one of which is a pas de deux that showcases the love between Terrie and her late husband, as Janes told The Chautauquan Daily in 2016.
“There were no parameters about the piece, about what it had to be about, about anything,” Janes said in 2016. “Her family wanted to celebrate his life by creating a ballet, by creating art, which is just a fantastic thing.”
These pieces will be performed with live music courtesy of the MSFO, who will spend much of tonight under the baton of Yue Bao — the 2018 David Effron Conducting Fellow and a guest conductor in 2022.
As the MSFO is different every year, Bao has had very little time to get to know the musicians, so she has emphasized working on that connection.
“You have different chemistry with different orchestras; it’s part of the excitement for our job. When you conduct the orchestra, you have a shorter amount of time — usually one week — to get to know your orchestra and put everything together and get to the forum,” Bao said. “As leaders, we need to have strong communication to build mutual trust and respect very quickly, those two are very important for us.”
Likewise, part of the excitement for the dancers of performing with a live orchestra is the unpredictability of the music.
“It’s never going to be just right, and it’s never going to be the recording, but that’s also what makes it exciting because it can bring out slightly different articulation and intonation in the steps,” Janes said.
To ensure that the cooperation between the musicians and dancers is cohesive, Hannah Schendel — the current David Effron Conducting Fellow, who will be maestro for Tchaikovsky’s suite from The Sleeping Beauty — and Bao check each other’s balance in rehearsal.
“We have our own interpretations that follow the tempo or the guidance or the music terms on the score,” Bao said. “We cannot only follow those things on our own interpretation; we also need to cooperate more with the dancers about their comfortable tempo and adjust, so that’s challenging.”
While the live orchestra can create difficulties, it ultimately adds to the overall performance.
“Because the dancers are performing so much, specifically with a live orchestra so often, they become so abandoned and joyful in what they’re doing, and that’s a hallmark of Jean-Pierre,” said Kati Hanlon Mayo, an alum of the School of Dance who studied under Bonnefoux, and who is now a guest faculty member at Chautauqua herself.
“I feel that a conductor is like a servant for the music, for the composers, to the musicians and the audiences,” Bao said. “I really love to share my love of music with the people in the community, and I just hope to inspire the musicians.”
Closing out the evening’s performance, the MSFO will depart for the School of Dance’s unaccompanied staging of Bonnefoux’s “Shindig,” a piece combining ballet and bluegrass for which he was widely known.
Jenni Propst, lighting designer and stage manager for the School of Dance, said she is excited for the students to bring Bonnefoux’s piece to the Amp stage.
“Our students bring so much life to (‘Shindig’), and to me, it’s the best way for Jean-Pierre’s spirit to live on because of the joy of the piece,” Propst said.
This season marks the first at Chautauqua in more than 40 years without Bonnefoux. Joining the Paris Opera Ballet at just 14 years old, Bonnefoux became an étoile — or star — at 21 years old, marking the beginning of a long, illustrious career in ballet. At Paris Opera Ballet, he served as principal dancer for seven years, training with the likes of Serge Peretti, Gérard Mulys and Raymond Franquetti.
Bonnefoux joined the New York City Ballet in 1970, and stayed with the company for 10 years, studying with world-renowned Artistic Director George Balanchine, Andrei Kramarevsky and Stanley Williams. But in 1980, Bonnefoux realized his true dream, he told the Daily in 2021: training young dancers as a choreographer, teacher and coach. While building Chautauqua’s School of Dance, Bonnefoux also served as chairman of Indiana University’s dance department from 1985 to 1996 and as artistic director of the Charlotte Ballet from 1996 to 2016.
“From the very beginning, I understood the need for dancers to actually perform, not just take classes, incorporating choreographers that I love, as well as top guest teachers,” Bonnefoux said in 2021. “Part of the legacy is that as a teacher, you really trust your students — you give them the chance to gain confidence and find themselves throughout the summer, and you trust their willingness to learn and take classes, while also providing the right people that they can truly learn from, fast.”
That legacy, many at the School of Dance have said, has and will endure.
Anna Gerberich is a faculty member within the School of Dance and is a former student of the program. She studied under Bonnefoux at the Institution and was later hired by him into the first company of Charlotte Ballet.
Gerberich recalled working with Bonnefoux in many capacities — as a student, mentee and faculty member — and said the two experienced many career milestones at the same time.
“He was very special to me,” she said.
For Mayo, a fellow student of the program and guest faculty member, Bonnefoux’s emphasis on performance experience in the summer intensive pushed dancers to take risks and explore in ways that would hone their artistry.
“He really helped and encouraged us to become very open to new styles and to pursuing new ways of learning to move and dance,” she said. “That, in turn, really created richer, fuller artists.”
In addition to the School of Dance’s strong emphasis on live performance, Bonnefoux felt it was important to expose young dancers to a vast variety of styles and techniques. A staple of the School of Dance’s curriculum is the selection of guest faculty who come to the Institution each year to teach students.
“He brought in the most well-established dancers and companies to come in and perform at Chautauqua and, in turn, that really developed the school to become a place that was really sought after by dancers all over the country — young dancers — because they saw what was happening in Chautauqua or they heard about what was happening in Chautauqua, and we all wanted to be a part of it,” said Mayo.
Propst credited Bonnefoux as being her first exposure to the dance world and a transformational force in her career. She started at North Carolina Dance Theater — now Charlotte Ballet — and came to Chautauqua when Bonnefoux asked her to design lighting for the School of Dance.
“I’ve been really lucky to be a part of it and get to see these phenomenal artists as they’re still beginning their careers,” she said.
Time and time again, those who worked with Bonnefoux highlighted his joy for the art of dance and his ability to see talents in dancers that they didn’t always see for themselves.
“He could see something in you that you hadn’t seen in yourself yet, and he was capable of bringing that out or helping manifest that or release it,” Janes said. “He just had an eye.”
For Gerberich, one of Bonnefoux’s skills was his ability to individualize his coaching to the dancer he was working with to elevate the art. She said that even when multiple dancers were making the same mistake, Bonnefoux was able to cater his coaching to each person in a way that would resonate with them specifically.
“He wanted you to take risks and explore. He wanted you to be an artist, not just a cookie cutter dancer that had good legs and feet,” Gerberich said. “He just really wanted to see people be artists, and artists through their own personal personality.”
Like Gerberich, Mayo said Bonnefoux’s goal was never perfection, but instead a sense of passion and risk-taking.
“Jean-Pierre didn’t want it perfect — he wanted you to take chances. He wanted you to feel abandon, and he wanted you to share your passion,” she said.
While Bonnefoux coached dancers to make technical and artistic progress, he also championed other dancers in the field in any way he could. Whether it was by bringing guest faculty to the program, providing young dancers with opportunities or fostering professional partnerships, those in the dance program remembered him fondly for his desire to support others in the name of art.
Through her time working for the School of Dance, Propst has seen the network Bonnefoux cultivated grow and expand.
“All of these different interwoven people all come back to Jean-Pierre and the community that he created here and the artists that he worked with and knew. That legacy will live on, which is really exciting,” she said.
To Janes, the longevity and vibrancy of the School of Dance speaks for itself. Bonnefoux left behind such a strong program for young dancers at the Institution because the foundation he set of bringing in a breadth of guest faculty and emphasizing performance experience sets dancers up for success.
“He’s put generations of dancers out on the dance floor that have gone on to have great careers, and a lot of that is a testament to what they did here,” Janes said.
“His vision in creating the school is unbelievable. What started as just an idea in the early ’80s has turned into — really and truly — the best summer intensive for young artists,” Propst said.
Over and over, those who knew Bonnefoux recalled the joy and vibrancy he felt for the artform and many expressed a continued admiration for his approach to dance.
“As much as he was a leader and a director, he was an educator and he loved the artform. He wanted to give back, too, and he continued to do that to the day he died,” said Janes.
From Mayo’s perspective, Chautauqua is fortunate that Bonnefoux saw the potential for the dance program and had so many ideas for how to cultivate an enduring presence both on the grounds of the Institution and in the field of dance.
“I just think Chautauqua needs to count itself so fortunate that Jean-Pierre, so many years ago, had these incredible ideas of how to develop a school and a company because now it’s this really incredible place, and Sasha has continued it,” she said.
Though his presence is deeply missed within the School of Dance, Bonnefoux is remembered fondly for the passion he brought to the program.
“Everything was such a vision, and a joy. For him to be a part of that, he just loved. We could all really feel that and feed off of that,” Gerberich said. “It made us all love it more and remember why we love to do it and our passion about it.”
