Curtis Institute Rehearsal
In preparation for our 20th Annual Gala Benefit, this Saturday, April 30th, The Rock School sat in during a Curtis Institute Rehearsal last week. For the third consecutive year, The Rock School and the Curtis Institute will be collaborating an original composition with original choreography that will be showcased at the annual Rock School Benefit.
Curtis student Gabriella Smith has composed a dramatic piece featuring two percussionists and two grand pianos! Rock School faculty and Rock West Ballet Mistress Jennifer Wheat has created beautiful choreography for our dancers to follow that will accompany Smith’s music.
Stay tuned. Later this week, the Curtis musicians and composer Gabriella Smith will be rehearsing in The Rock School studios with our dancers and choreographer Jennifer Wheat.
Please enjoy photos from the Curtis/ Rock School collaboration rehearsal below:
Composer - Gabriella Smith turns the pages for one of her pianists
Phillip Otto
Phillip Otto taught during the second week and will be in the studios during our third week of The Rock School’s summer intensive. Mr. Otto began teaching at The Rock School when it was still the Pennsylvania Ballet. In 1987, The Pennsylvania Ballet and The Milwaukee Ballet joined together as the Pennsylvania Milwaukee Ballet. It was during this first-time allied venture that Mr. Otto taught here at Rock Center, which means this is Mr. Otto’s 23rd year teaching here. Currently, Mr. Otto is the Artistic Director of Huntsville Ballet Company.
Mr. Otto asked composer John Levis to explain the importance of music for ballet to a younger group of students. Both Otto and Levis emphasized that it’s not only the beat of the music that is important for dancers to pay attention to, but also the style and rhythm.
Mr. Otto has most recently served as New Haven Ballet’s artistic director. Born in New York, Mr. Otto has trained at the School of American Ballet, American Ballet Theatre School, and the Joffrey School, among others. As a child Mr. Otto was a member of the Metropolitan Opera’s children’s chorus and danced with NewYork City Ballet,American BalletTheatre,London’s Royal Ballet,the Stuttgart Ballet and the Bolshoi Ballet.
As an adult Mr. Otto danced principal and soloists roles with Milwaukee Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet and Pacific Northwest Ballet.After retiring as a featured soloist from Pacific Northwest Ballet in 1996, Mr. Otto was the first company member ever to be asked to join the faculty of Pacific Northwest Ballet School and went on to direct Pacific Northwest Ballet’s student company as well as the companies outreach and educational programs for which he was nominated for the State of Washington’s Golden Apple award for excellence in education.
Mr. Otto has worked and trained with such distinguished artists as George Balanchine, Peter Martins, Jerome Robins, Kent Stowell, Francia Russell, Bojan Spasoff, Robert Weiss and Lynn Taylor- Corbett,Violette Verdi, Richard Thomas, Alexandra Danilova, Lar Lubavitch, Andre Eglevsky and Ted Kivitt, among others. Mr. Otto’s dancing credits include principal roles in (George Balanchine’s)“Who Care’s”,The Four Temperaments,Western Symphony, Concerto Borocco, La Valse, Symphony in C, Nutcracker, Prodical Son, Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, (Cranko’s) Romeo and Juliet, (Limons) Moor’s Pavane, (Forsythe’s) Love Songs, (Lynn Taylor- Corbett’s) Brahms Sonata’s, Code Of Silence,The Quilt,Tunes Great Galloping Gottschalk and Final Draft among others.
In addition, Mr. Otto serves as permanent guest faculty for the Rock School for Dance Education in Philadelphia and has taught master classes for Vassar College,Yale University, the Kennedy Center, Ballet Folklorico de Mexico, Aliey II and the Edinburgh Festival among other schools and companies throughout the United States and Scotland.
