Ballet West Dracula preview 

• Beau Pearson

In 2021, looking to put together a season of blockbusters as arts organizations were emerging from the COVID shutdown, Ballet West artistic director Adam Sklute turned to Dracula, choreographer Ben Stevenson's staging of the Bram Stoker classic that the company had first performed 10 years earlier. And as it turned out, it performed even better than expected.

"When we did it first in 2011, it became, quickly, my most-often-requested ballet," Sklute says. "Everybody said, 'When are you going to bring back Dracula? ... That sold so well—it literally sold out houses—that we knew we had to bring it back soon."

"Soon" in this case meant just two years later, placing Dracula in the category of such recurring favorites as Swan Lake and The Sleeping Beauty. That may be something of a surprise for a work that's not part of the classical ballet canon—it was first created in 1997—and has a horror story at its core. Yet Sklute believes that the appeal of the production—full of elaborate sets and special effects—is quite understandable.

"It is so wildly theatrical, and so dance-forward as well," Sklute says. "Often, theatrical productions become thinner on the actual classical dancing, and people come to see the dancing when they come to see a ballet performance. ... That's exactly what [Stevenson] does so brilliantly: He really does balance it. The choreography is intricate and complex—and it's also hard, so it's a challenge for the entire company. He knows how to marry the theater of it to the steps."

The complexity in the choreography, while one of the draws of the show, can also mean it's a difficult one to perfect. But with that 2021 performance only two years in the rearview mirror, it meant in this case that the company—which remains largely the same, though some dancers are now in different roles—retained the muscle memory to be able to take the performances to the next level.

"We have one of Ben [Stevenson]'s former dancers, who now works as his stager, Dominic Walsh, and Dominic staged the whole thing the last time. ... I was watching, and it felt like all he could do [in 2021] was really make sure they were in the right place at the right time. I spoke to him after rehearsal yesterday, and he said, 'What's really great is that I can really start working on details that I couldn't do last time.' So we're really getting to the heart of not only their characterization, but the quality of movement. ... Because they can make it through the choreography much more proficiently now, and with less concern, they can really delve into their characters in a deeper way."

The appeal for a ballet company of a production that pulls in crowds and offers dancers an opportunity to master the material is understandable for a company. Yet there's also a balancing act for an organization like Ballet West between bringing back favorites, and challenging both audiences and the dance artists with new material. Sklute says that striking that balance wasn't really possible in the same way before the company's executive director encouraged expanding the number of productions Ballet West stages annually.

"We started last year to produce, immediately following our fall full-length production, a full-length repertory production. Prior to that, we were alternating them," Sklute says. "The mixed repertoire is really where the company grows artistically. So we are trying to produce shows in the fall that are appropriate to the season. I don't know if Dracula would play as well in April; I wouldn't think to do it there. The Nutcracker was originally produced in the summer, and it was a flop."

The Nutcracker is, of course, now a seasonal standard for many companies including Ballet West, providing audiences with a beloved seasonal favorite and the company with a reliable revenue stream. While Dracula seems like it has the potential to be similarly popular on an ongoing basis, Sklute recognizes that the job of an artistic director is more complicated than just feeding fans the hits.

"I think there's always trying to strike that balance between giving audiences something they've liked before and would want to see again, and exposing them to something new," he says. "Having them say 'I love that, I want to see that again,' but not having them say, 'Oh I saw that, I don't need to see that again.' And then ultimately, what I think is going to push the company forward in the most productive manner.

"Even our ballets like Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty, I like to rotate those every five years or so, to leave people wanting more. Creating programming is like creating a good menu—you really want to have something for everybody. Some people are going to want something that challenges their palate, and some people want comfort food. And you have to be able to offer all of that."