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Episode 1 | What is Madison Ballet Special Projects?
25 Plays13 days ago
Welcome to the very first episode of At the Barre, A Madison Ballet Special Projects podcast!
In our premiere episode, Caitlin Sloan (Strategic Advisor, MBSP) interviews Madison Ballet Special Projects Director, Chris Fahrenthold to share some insight into who we are and what we do!
Key points in this episode:
- Chris’s background and journey into the ballet world
- The origin story of Madison Ballet Special Projects
- The mission of MBSP and how it fits within Madison Ballet’s broader work
- Why this work matters, and how MBSP contributes to Madison’s cultural and artistic landscape
- A look at our programming, from performances to community conversations
- What we hope audiences experience and take away from attending
- The importance of creating space for dialogue around dance
- Ways listeners can support or get involved with MBSP
- What to expect from future episodes of At The Barre
Whether you’re a longtime ballet enthusiast or simply curious about how dance gets made, this episode offers insight into the creative process and the values guiding our work.
Join the conversation!
MBSP WEBSITE: https://www.madisonballetspecialprojects.com/
INSTAGRAM: instagram.com/madisonballetspecialprojects
UPCOMING MADISON BALLET PERFORMANCES: https://www.madisonballet.org/performances
Questions/comments? Email us at hello@madisonballetspecialprojects.com
Credits
PHOTO: Matthew Ulrich
DANCER: Madison Ballet Company Artist Lauren Thompson
MUSIC: Capet String Quartet - Ravel (Col. D 15057-60) 1928
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Transcript
Introduction to 'At the Bar' Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
I'm Chris Ferenthal, director of Madison Ballet's Special Projects, and this is At the Bar, your behind-the-scenes look at the ideas, stories, and creative processes shaping Madison Ballet's work.
00:00:18
Speaker
Each episode brings our community a little closer to the dancers, choreographers, and collaborators who are making ballet in Madison right now. Whether you're a seasoned ballet domain, current or former dancer, or simply curious about how dance gets made, we warmly invite you into the room where it happens.
Meet the Hosts: Caitlin Sloan and Chris Ferenthal
00:00:42
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the very first episode of At the Bar, a Madison Ballet Special Projects podcast. I'm Caitlin Sloan, Strategic Advisor, and I am here with the brains behind this whole operation, Madison Ballet Special Projects Director Chris Farenthold.
00:00:57
Speaker
We have so many incredible conversations coming and typically Chris will be the interviewer
Chris's Journey into Ballet
00:01:02
Speaker
role. But for our very first episode, I wanted to get Chris in the hot seat so he could tell us more about what we're doing with Madison Valley Special Projects, what it is, what we've done since launching in October 2025 and all of the exciting things to come. So first, Chris, could you give us some insight into your background and how you became involved in the ballet world?
00:01:22
Speaker
Sure. I actually didn't take my first ballet class till about last year, an adult open class at Madison Ballet. But I did grow up in a musical household where I took piano lessons and my mother played the piano, my grandmother played the piano.
00:01:37
Speaker
And I was in Little League Baseball. So it was a baseball and piano lessons house. And very easily, I think, could have been a ballet life. But when I was trying to make a life in the arts, as one does, you end up doing a lot of different things in the course of your career.
Chris's Passion for Ballet
00:01:52
Speaker
And so I thought with my MFA in writing and literature that I would be posted up at a university teaching composition and hanging out for the rest of my life. But that's not how life works. And you move across the country. You find the institutions that you thought you'd belong to are changing. And so when we moved to Madison, I found myself working for the Madison Opera as an assistant stage manager. I had a musical background and really enjoyed being part of the show, but have never really been a performer.
00:02:25
Speaker
And so enabling high level art is just there's nothing like it. And I think being backstage, you know you have the closest seat in the house. So I worked on the production staff at the opera.
00:02:37
Speaker
And then it was by happenstance that i I worked a nutcracker for the ballet and really fell in love with the art form because I recognized in it a lot of the things that I like in other arts that I like, whether it's poetry or visual art, where you see people being creative with the human body and seeking a sense of tradition with what's come before but also innovating and so in a sense learning to stage manage ballet required me to recognize where i was in the choreography and i was part of the show supporting the dancers getting on stage
00:03:12
Speaker
But also I got to have a front row seat at seeing Ballet's Created and watching what Jean Malik has built and in Madison Ballet. And I just thought that there were a lot of things i would have wanted to know about ballet earlier.
Community Engagement through Madison Ballet Special Projects
00:03:26
Speaker
And I think that's something that we can do here with Special Projects is just... create ballet fans where there weren't as many in Madison as we thought because growing up like me, I did not know I was a ballet person. And then here we are. And you and I have built something that I think is pretty special.
00:03:44
Speaker
okay Can you share how the idea for Madison Ballet Special Projects first came to you? Yeah, it's actually just following my curiosity, which I think is a theme both in my life and in the past year of what we've been doing.
00:03:58
Speaker
When I came into working for the ballet on the production staff, not being a dancer, I naturally needed to ask them what they needed for support, whether it's how much rosin to put in the rosin box or where those should go or all sorts of things like that. I just was asking questions and I enjoyed hearing dancers explain their art form to me.
00:04:21
Speaker
I enjoyed asking other stage managers how certain things get done. i enjoyed asking choreographers, where did that idea come from? You know, I said I'm not a performer and I don't think I have a real genius for production either. I'm not one of those engineering mind types who can envision the whole board and keep things straight as production stage manager.
00:04:43
Speaker
But I do think that a gift I have is being curious and asking questions and then sharing the answers with other people that I think might find interesting.
The Role of Live Ballet Experiences
00:04:54
Speaker
And so that's that's where the idea for special projects came from, was I wanted to find or rather i found we needed to create that channel by which the things that I just found myself being curious about could be shared with our community.
00:05:10
Speaker
Because I think one of the things that you and I are trying to do most is show that there really is a there there. And if you can just get someone to a rep show or a Nutcracker, just see dance. It will change your life.
00:05:25
Speaker
And creating those spark moments or facilitating those really exciting mind-opening moments in our community is truly where
Building Inclusive Art Institutions
00:05:35
Speaker
it came from. And so, you know, I mentioned before the institutions of our lives change, and that's certainly true now more than ever. But I think with special projects, i wanted to, you want to be the change you want to see in the world. And I think at a certain point, you just need to create the institutions yourself if you don't find them.
00:05:54
Speaker
Trying to find something that's kind of like a school, but kind of like an outreach program of a company and kind of like the Met Opera Guild and kind of like a lot of things. That's why I think Madison Ballet special projects is a broad enough term that lets us do a lot of different things. As you've seen, you know, we're in libraries with kiddos and also digging deep into choreographers like Heinz Pohl.
00:06:18
Speaker
Can you describe the mission of Madison Valley Special Projects in your own words and also how we fit into the larger mission of Madison Valley as a whole? The easiest way to say our mission statement is that we are a resource for the company first and then a resource for the community.
00:06:34
Speaker
And what that means to be a resource for the company, Madison Ballet, will change over time because we're currently not a large company. So there's not a lot of time to do ah a lot of the deep far-seeking things like planning out productions three years in advance or something like that. But I think being a resource for the company right now means promoting the shows, getting people to be curious to come out, to put ballet in front of as many people in Madison as possible. And that's why I think being a resource for the company in that regard also means being a resource for the community. And I kind of get to bridge those in things like the talkbacks after you know the opening nights of our rep shows that I get to host, where I literally get to ask questions of all these brilliant choreographers in front of the audience that just saw their works danced.
00:07:26
Speaker
And so that kind of in miniature is really what we're trying to do. And I also think that Jamalik has done such a ah wonderful job of bringing the idea that excellence in art is something that we can and must pursue and inclusivity.
00:07:44
Speaker
in sharing that art, in making that art, is not something that we need to sacrifice in pursuit of that excellence. In that sense, our goal is to support the highest level art that Madison artists can create.
00:07:59
Speaker
And also, I think being inclusive in our community means every age and every interest level from someone who's never been to ah show before to the deepest, most learned ballet domain, that every single person has a place that's an entry point into ballet. And so I think that's kind of where our programming you know is aimed at.
00:08:23
Speaker
But it all comes back to just, we want to support the company. And we want to support the community. And a lot of times those involved doing the same things, which is just giving our community an opportunity to hear what's going on in the studio.
Madison's Art Community and Ballet Potential
00:08:35
Speaker
And how do you see special projects contributing to the cultural and artistic landscape of Madison and beyond? Why is this work so important to our community? That's a great question. I think Madison is a very unique community. I mean, there are many towns of this size. There are many state capitals that have a flagship university in them.
00:08:55
Speaker
But we really do punch above our weight culturally in terms of the art that we can support. And we also have some advantages, like being close to Chicago means that we do get to get lots of talent on stage and backstage from Chicago.
00:09:13
Speaker
I remember being at the opera, we we were able to have role debuts by internationally famous sopranos who wanted to get a role in their body before they went and sang it at Houston Grand Opera or the Lyric or something like that. So our size and our proximity to other artistic institutions is something that we have.
00:09:32
Speaker
We also have a very talented talented an interesting and creative community. I mention all this because, you know, I said I grew up musical and doing athletic things, but never engaging with ballet.
00:09:46
Speaker
i think we have such an untapped resource here in Madison of people who don't know their ballet fans or dance fans generally. And if we can identify those, if we can just keep providing on-ramps, we can really have something special in terms of a jewel in the crown of the American dance world. I know Jamalik came here with that intention. And I see just from my own experience of really embracing my former ignorance, you know, I like realizing, oh, I've missed out on this all my life. I could have been going to rep shows. I could have been, you know, in the same way that whenever i
00:10:23
Speaker
visit a city, I know look up its art museum, see what's there, pop in. What we do in creating people interested in dance can create people who then go around looking for what's on stage in their city. And that's why I think your question is is well put to see not just here in Madison, but more broadly in the
The Unique Nature of Live Performances
00:10:44
Speaker
world. I think that a robust dance culture, whether it's in the you know the Midwest or America or and the world generally is always a good thing for culture because dance is a fully integrated art form.
00:10:57
Speaker
It's embodied, it's visual, there's music, there are ideas, but all in varying degrees. And so everyone can find something of themselves in dance because we all have bodies.
00:11:12
Speaker
and we can all relate to the music in different ways. So I think it's identifying those people in Madison that did not know they were dance fans and then using that as a springboard to really view, especially in the 21st century, I think we need to find analog ways to pursue both artistic endeavors and everything else we do.
00:11:38
Speaker
There's no more analog thing than being in a dance studio at the bar, watching bodies make beautiful and interesting shapes to music. Yeah, I've said this many times that a ballet class is like a meditation for me. There's very rare times in my life that I get 90 minutes to just fully focus on my craft and not go on my phone and not be distracted by something else. It's a really beautiful thing. And same thing with going to a performance. You put your phone away and you are just fully in this experience watching the dancers on stage, but also watching
00:12:09
Speaker
in the community of the people around you having a shared experience that will never happen again. This show is different every night. Things happen differently. This is the only time we're going to have this shared experience together.
00:12:20
Speaker
That's absolutely true. I think that corporate experience element of it, where you're right, i mean, you can stream dance, and I'm glad we have the ability to see what's on stage elsewhere in the world. But when you're in the moment, it's live theater, yeah. And it's something that, even though the steps are there, it will never be the same, which is, again, why I say...
00:12:40
Speaker
you should come to more than one performance of the same run. See a different cast, see the same cast on a different night. You know, when I said Madison punches above its weight culturally, i do think we owe it to those nationally and internationally talented artists who come here to show them that this is a place where they can make a fulfilling artistic life.
00:13:04
Speaker
And that is something that, you know, working with the dancers and choreographers that I have, I do feel it as a sense of mission that it's not just creating those spark moments for the sake of everyone's individual enjoyment of the art form, though there is that.
00:13:20
Speaker
I do think that a key to continuing to achieve excellence in dance in Madison means providing a more enthusiastic and more knowledgeable and simply more audience over time.
Special Projects and Community Engagement
00:13:34
Speaker
that's part of what we're up to. Yep. Let's get into the nitty gritty of our programming. What type of events are we bringing to the community? I had mentioned that I want every age and every interest level or familiarity level to have some point of entry. And so we have the kiddos, our Nutcracker story time, which we premiered this past December. And then we have our ballet story times that You and I will begin taking into local libraries in and March and April.
00:14:04
Speaker
These are places where kids are used to coming to have a story read, but they're not always used to seeing a Madison ballet dancer in pointe shoes and a tutu. They're also not used to necessarily learning about creative movement or hearing about ways of getting energy out in a focused artistic way. And so our ballet story times are are one of those entry points for kids.
00:14:33
Speaker
We also have for adults, and i would say that includes ballet students, ballet nerds, young and old of every level. At Leopold's, the bookstore on Regent, we have on the Thursday before the opening of each show, a ballet salon where a guest from the dance world, whether it's a company artist or Or, you know, next month we'll be having Chloe Angel, or guess that's later this month, visit us to talk about her nonfiction and fictional writing on dance. These are conversations that I facilitate so that we introduce the dance world to Madison.
00:15:10
Speaker
And these kinds of programs are... free people can just come and hang out and learn something and then for the real heads the real deep in the weeds ballet folk we have our open houses once a month the last friday of each month and those are at 100 state downtown on fairchild street where the madison ballet special projects offices are these are deeper dives which are again me following my curiosity i want to ask questions of some of the dancers and choreographers of madison ballet And there we get to sort of have them break down video from rehearsal or performance. We've also had company dancer and costume designer come and talk about how she creates costumes that have to be both beautiful but functional. And so that was me wondering what goes into creating dancewear and thinking that
00:16:05
Speaker
You know, other people might want to know the answers to that, too. So those programs sort of show the general array of what we do. We have ballet story times in the libraries for kids and then our Leopold salons before each show and our monthly deep dives all are trying to create a community where people know who their dancers are. That's a goal of mine someday to have company dancers recognized on the street, the grocery store, anywhere around Madison, because I think that's also a sign of a healthy dance culture.
00:16:38
Speaker
We've had so many incredible guests come and really insightful conversations. How do you curate or decide on the themes for each of our events? a good question.
00:16:48
Speaker
keep saying I follow my curiosity a lot. That's true in so much as it serves, you know, our mission number one, which is to serve the company. So as a resource to the company, putting the upcoming show first and foremost in people's minds. When in October we had Rock the Ballet as our mixed rep program at our Leopold's discussion, I thought it would be good to have something centered around what is contemporary ballet?
00:17:16
Speaker
because I did not know what contemporary ballet is. I had a sense of what classical ballet is and i had sense of what contemporary dance was, but what those two words together meant, I didn't know.
00:17:27
Speaker
So I asked people in the company and that was an organizing principle for our discussion. Then Nutcracker comes up and I still think in the dance world,
00:17:39
Speaker
we really need to talk about the Nutcracker. That was where we started because it pays the bills for many companies. And I wondered how our you know beautiful artists find inspiration in doing the same steps or you know the same roles or slightly different roles year after year. So in asking those questions, we got to create many of those spark moments that i keep coming back to for the community. People who came to that salon at Leopold's with Michaela King, our company dancer,
00:18:12
Speaker
who were hearing from her mouth what it's like to feel like you're going to fall into the orchestra pit during a lift and how that's part of the process of being a ballerina. We also, and I don't want to fail to mention this, we have Point shoes, used point shoes from our company available for purchase that goes to the Point Shoe Fund at Madison Ballet.
00:18:37
Speaker
And even just seeing a point shoe, hearing it clack, clack, clack against each other. Those are things that if you were just at Leopold's, you know, on a Thursday night, you might be curious and come over and then come to a show.
00:18:50
Speaker
and part of what i've loved about being in production is working with these artists and seeing what goes into their process and just conveying as much of that to the public as possible is what we're after so i try to keep it thematic in the sense that everything should be aimed toward getting more people to the show and yet i can get as ballet nerdy as i want we had Benjamin Shepard and Emily Dietz at our last open house talking about Schubert Waltzes by Heinz Pohl.
Exploring Ballet's Broader Context
00:19:23
Speaker
That was their February mixed rep.
00:19:25
Speaker
And hearing them get into the weeds on what it's like to stage and then restage ballet at different companies, that's still oriented around the upcoming show, but It's also just following the conversation where it goes, because i can ask questions and they can give me answers, but I often come out of these with even more questions. In fact, I now learned that at Butler University, there's, you know, a massive archive of all sorts of Ballet Russe stuff since that's where Diaghilev's company ended in America. So now I want to take a field trip down to Indiana and check it out. And so even curating programming around the upcoming shows, it's an entry point into a larger world of ballet that we eventually just get to explore.
00:20:15
Speaker
And you mentioned that the ballet world is more new to you. So you have a lot of curiosity around things you don't know yet, but I've been in the ballet world for 30 years and I've still learned so much from these conversations. So as you mentioned, no matter where your entry point is or how much you know about this world, there's still so much more to learn about and so many interesting conversations we've had that just speaks to the beauty of what we're creating, that it's really for everyone.
00:20:45
Speaker
That's absolutely right. Yeah. You can always go deeper. And there are those moments in any endeavor where you realize that there's not just a larger world, but that there's, oh, oh, this is what they're talking about.
00:20:59
Speaker
That kind of moment. And whether you've been in ballet for 30 years or you're just coming to it, you can always see things differently when you hear the perspective of people who have been devoting their lives to achieving beauty at a very high level.
00:21:16
Speaker
And I've loved the feedback loop that you and I have been in and following the answers that we get to other directions. And part of what I've learned in the months that we've been rolling out our programming is that we don't know what the programming is going to look like until we see what the demand is.
00:21:38
Speaker
we We don't know where to go until we find where people are asking us. yeah I've been so um gratified by all of the library requests that we're getting.
00:21:50
Speaker
And when i met up with you last August, I had no idea that we would be in libraries. That was not part of my you know initial plan, but it does flow from our mission.
00:22:03
Speaker
And so part of that mutual discovery of each other, the ballet company and the community, it's a beautiful thing to watch. And it's very gratifying to be part of.
00:22:14
Speaker
And we'll be at eight libraries this spring around the Madison area. So anyone who's listening who wants to take a kiddo, they're really geared towards ages maybe like three to six. We have kiddos younger and older who are there who have had a wonderful time. And then we've seen them at our shows. We saw so many of the same children that were at our story times of the Nutcracker. And so, like you said, it's amazing entry point into parent seeing, wow, my kid really gravitated toward this. I'd love to expose them to it more or come to a class. or anything in this world. So i think that's amazing. an amazing thing that people gain from coming to our events. And I'm curious what else you hope attendees gain from coming to one of our events.
00:22:55
Speaker
You're right that parents seeing their kids react to dance positively is something that could then create a new student at the School of Madison Ballet. In some respects, you know, a thing that I would like people to see is themselves in the dance world somewhere. That's really, I think, the mission of Madison Ballet Special Projects is that there is something for you in ballet, no matter what you're interested in because it is such an integrated art form.
The Impact of Experiencing Ballet Up Close
00:23:26
Speaker
You can come at it as, you know, if you like paintings, these paintings move and there's music happening. If you like going to the symphony or listening to music, you can listen to music and the music is embodied. It's moving.
00:23:41
Speaker
If you want to come to story ballets, we have story ballets. If you want to find the human story in a neoclassical or contemporary work, You can do that. The dancers are certainly trying to find through lines. So when people come to our events, I hope that they come with some answers, but even more questions, because that's where you find yourself, like I said before, living in a larger world.
00:24:07
Speaker
I mentioned the seeing point shoes and actually hearing them clack against each other. It may be a small detail, but I actually don't think it is because when I first came into the ballet studio for my very first professional gig there, trying to learn the show to work as an assistant stage manager, when they began to do a run of, think it was a Midsummer Night's Dream. It was the first performance back out of COVID.
00:24:33
Speaker
And the noise, the sheer volume of all of those pointe shoes hitting the floor as they're jetting across the floor. It is shocking and visceral.
00:24:46
Speaker
And yes, these are light ethereal beings that we think of as ballerinas, but It is such an athletic pursuit. It is a hardcore sensory experience.
00:24:59
Speaker
And that is so exciting. It's just exciting. And the fact that we have this year, five shows, it's that sense of finding that there really is a there there. That's what I do feel like I have a sense of mission. And when I was teaching English, I always tried to find those moments where for lyric poetry with disinterested undergrads who were there because it was a required class. But you can find ways into esoteric worlds like poetry and classical music. And I just find ballet because I i mentioned the the noise of the pointe shoes is sort of one of my first realizations that this is a big deal.
00:25:41
Speaker
This is something explosive happening right in front of your face. And if you go to a mixed rep show, whether it's in Promenade Hall at Overture or at My Arts, you are close to the stage and you can see their expressions. You can see the port de bras. You can hear the swish of the dancors' hands trying to support a ballerina in a spin. These details are fascinating. And I think when people come to our events,
00:26:14
Speaker
The goal is for you to come away wanting to learn more about what you just saw or to come see it again. And why do you believe providing the space for conversations around dance is so vital for our community? I think there's some who might say, let's just watch it. You know, we don't need to talk about it so much, but we found a lot of value in this. What do you think that value is for our community?
00:26:36
Speaker
That's true. And it's also true if you ask choreographers, a lot of them are like, just watch it. You know, what does it mean? Well, you know, it just is, you know, poems don't mean they be
The Importance of Conversations in Dance
00:26:46
Speaker
right. But I think it's important to have these conversations around and about dance because dance doesn't speak for itself. It's unique. Like I mentioned, it's an overlap or an intersection of the visual arts and music and the body. So in a sense, sculpture and sculpture.
00:27:05
Speaker
all of those are non-verbal forms. I think it's because I come from you know the English department background where I'm used to talking about things and categorizing them and dividing them into historical movements. And maybe that's not always useful or helpful, but I do think that dancers and choreographers are some of the most multivalently talented artists we have because they have to draw and they just do draw upon everything they see, have ever seen and have ever read and have ever experienced in creating their art.
00:27:41
Speaker
So that means that the influences quote unquote for a piece could come from a thousand different places in many different disciplines. And i don't pretend to be able to keep all of those you know together,
00:27:56
Speaker
but I can recognize where I think you know the life of a conversation lies. Like, what's interesting? What would people want to know contextually that would help them understand this piece a little better?
00:28:09
Speaker
And so I think the conversations aren't about explaining the work that you're about to see or that you just saw. It's part of that goal of creating a knowledgeable dance audience, which means, I think, a more fully...
00:28:25
Speaker
rounded human because dance such an embodied art form that we, mean, you can dance alone and we should and do, but when we perform dance, we are a community gathering together in the most ancient way that people gathered together to perform, going back to ancient Greece and even earlier, this is a deeply human act.
00:28:51
Speaker
That's fuel for my sense of mission and feeling that I become more and a better human the more I appreciate what is going on in dance.
Building an Appreciative Audience through the Podcast
00:29:01
Speaker
Because I understand my own body better. i understand my own culture. And anytime you have to pay attention, like you said, you know, it's a meditation session. It's you're free from your phone. You're just experiencing something viscerally, multisensorally in the moment.
00:29:20
Speaker
That's something that you want to talk about after. If you go to a movie and then you enjoy going to the bar dinner after and talking about it. Why wouldn't you want to do that after a rep show? And so I kind of think it's our job and our privilege to give people the vocabulary and the opportunity to find like-minded people interested in and dance.
00:29:45
Speaker
Okay. So coming up on this podcast, what should listeners expect to hear? Answers to questions that they may have had or might never have thought to ask about dance generally, but specifically, i hope that they come away with a sense of context and backstory for the artistic product that we're putting on stage. Our podcast is going to be organized around interviewing the creatives involved.
00:30:10
Speaker
in the upcoming program at Madison Ballet. And so that means that if you wanna listen on your way to the theater and get some context, that's one use of it. If you want to use it as a way to hear people in your community, Or you know if you can be listening from all over the world, dance is an international art form. You can participate in that conversation by hearing what's happening at the highest level.
00:30:38
Speaker
And those twin goals of context and enthusiasm, kind of creating enthusiasm for the product, are what I would like people to come away with from these
Engaging with Madison Ballet: Shows and Events
00:30:49
Speaker
conversations. These are people that I get to work with you know every day in the studio when we're in production.
00:30:55
Speaker
but they're anonymous in our community for the moment. And knowing what amazing talents are both working here at the company full time and that come in to choreograph these beautiful pieces. That's really the chief goal.
00:31:08
Speaker
For anyone listening who is curious about how they could support Madison Ballet or get involved with our work, how could they do that? The first and easiest thing to do is come to a show.
00:31:20
Speaker
If you come to a Madison Ballet show, you will see why we exist. And you'll also get to, you know, meet us. We're usually at most shows. I'll, you know, be backstage, but Caitlin is, you're usually there in some form. And so first come to a show. And then second, I would say, come to one of our events.
00:31:36
Speaker
whether it's at Leopold's five times a year or at 100 stay at our open houses once a month. You can find that on our schedule at madisonballetspecialprojects.com. And you can also connect with us on Instagram.
00:31:52
Speaker
And that's where we try to put out I think very interesting content from the studio, whether it's interviews with people's staging works or studio footage of a piece that you'll be seeing or that you just saw on stage as
Encouragement to Experience Live Ballet
00:32:08
Speaker
a finished product. Those behind the scenes glimpses are part of what I'm very excited to be able to bring to the community. so Come to a show, come to one of our events, bring your kids to a library ballet story time, and then find us on the web or here. Listen to the podcast. We'll keep going as long as they let us.
00:32:29
Speaker
Yeah, and I believe what we're doing here is very special. And as a lifelong dancer, I am so happy to be a part of this and thrilled for the opportunity to make ballet more available, more loved in our community. So thank you, Chris, for bringing me on. And I am so excited to hear all the conversations we have on the podcast.
00:32:46
Speaker
Absolutely. Me too. And I am so grateful that you're part of this too. I think we have a very special thing that we're and on the ground floor of. So yeah, keep listening, everyone. And I really appreciate everything that you do and that the company does and bringing something that can be life-changing to as many people as possible.
00:33:09
Speaker
Thank you for tuning in to At The Bar with Madison Ballet Special Projects. If you enjoyed this episode, we invite you to experience Madison Ballet in person by joining us at one of our upcoming performances or community events.
00:33:23
Speaker
From accessible, innovative productions to in-depth conversations with artists, our goal is to create welcoming spaces where everyone can experience ballet in a meaningful way.
00:33:35
Speaker
You can find performance dates, event details, and ticket information on our website and social media platforms. Whether it's your first time attending or you're a long-time supporter, we'd love to see you in the audience and share the experience with you live.
00:33:49
Speaker
Thanks again for listening. We hope to see you at the ballet soon.