Pointe Magazine: How Boutique Troupe Avant Chamber Ballet Blossomed in Dallas

By Nancy Wozny

6 May 2019

Katie Cooper knows an opportunity when she sees one. When the Dallas-area Metropolitan Classical Ballet—where she’d danced for six years—shuttered its doors, she saw an opening for a new company: her own. “There were ballet dancers who needed work,” she says. So in 2012, Cooper, known for her Texas spunk, founded Avant Chamber Ballet, now considered the city’s cherished boutique troupe.

“During my performance career, I had never worked under a female artistic director or danced work by a female choreographer,” says Cooper, who began developing herself as a dancemaker when she launched the company. “It was time for me to move to the front of the room.” After starting ACB at 28, she quickly found that dancing, choreographing and running a company proved too big a load, so she retired from performing after the first few shows.

Though the troupe was originally project-based, local enthusiasm from audience members, musicians, dancers, critics and donors spurred Cooper to develop a set season. A threshold moment occurred when former New York City Ballet and Texas Ballet Theater dancer Michele Gifford returned to the North Texas area. Gifford, a répétiteur for Christopher Wheeldon and The George Balanchine Trust, danced with ACB for two seasons, and then, starting in 2015, began setting works by both choreographers. So far, the company has performed Wheeldon’s There Where She Loved pas de deux and The American pas de deux and Balanchine’s Valse Fantaisie, Who Cares? (concert version), Walpurgisnacht Ballet and Concerto Barocco. Cooper found that having big-name choreographers in the mix gave the company added momentum.

Read the full article on Pointe Magazine’s blog.