Sacramento Bee: Pints and plies: A pairing that brings opportunity to ballet and the uninitiated

By Mitchel Bobo

29 January 2020

Artistic Director Amy Seiwert recalled debuting a piece during the Sacramento Ballet company’s inaugural Beer and Ballet event in 1994. The event was a chance for the troupe’s dancers a rare opportunity to step from the back of the class to the front of the room.

“It’s an incredibly vulnerable place to put yourself in. You make a ballet, you put it out there and you have no control how people see it, what they experience when they see it or what they take away from it. And that’s hard because you have to just put it out there and hope it reaches an audience in the way you intended,” Seiwert said.

Beer and Ballet’s choreographic workshops give nine members of the local ensemble the opportunity to create and perform their own pieces, which will debut Jan. 31 at 7:30 p.m. and run through Feb. 16. Each performance is followed by a Q&A session where dancers field questions from attendees.

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Previous reporting by The Bee highlighted Seiwert’s initiatives to create channels for women to step into leadership roles in ballet. According to the Dance Data Project, Seiwert and Sacramento Ballet’s commission of The Nutcracker was the only female-choreographed, full-length world premiere during the 2018-19 season.

“Amy is passionate about making sure there is equal representation of male and female representation in choreography. It’s vital that there are more female voices represented in the ballet world,” Feldman said.

Read the full article in the Sacramento Bee.