From the Mat to the Barre: a Dialogue with Claudia Hubiak | Boulder Ballet
The origins of Boulder Ballet began with the Ballet Arts Studios, founded in Denver and Boulder by former American Ballet Theatre dancer Larry Boyette in the 1970s. In 1981 the Boulder studio was purchased by Barbara Demaree and Wanda Tierney. The next year they started the first performing company, originally known as Boulder City Ballet. In 1995, the company and school became known as Boulder Ballet.
Their mission is to deliver excellence in artistic expression and ignites a passion for dance through cutting-edge performance, high-caliber training, inclusivity, and community outreach. Their vision is to be a leading arts organization celebrated for its excellence and inclusivity. We aspire to be a bold dance institution that creates a nurturing environment of artistic growth and builds a community of outstanding humans.
I had the wonderful opportunity to sit down with their Executive Director for an in depth conversation to learn more about her history, her passion, and her work at the ballet.
I understand you began in life as a gymnast and then transitioned to dance fairly late (age 17), talk to me about that transition. Was it a challenge to be accepted into dance programs in college? What was that process like?
I coached and competed as a gymnast for most of my life. Gymnastics was always such a fundamental part of who I was, and the skills I learned as an athlete and human through that training were integral to my dance career. As I got older there was a tremendous amount of fear and struggle in those upper levels. I definitely learned what it meant to meet my edge. The floor exercise, (the dance aspect) was always what I loved; what grounded me, and what felt right. I naturally progressed into a dance focus, albeit very late in the game by the dance standards. When I started creating my own choreography in high school it just sealed the deal.
It’s an ambitious story, for someone to decide that they want to become a dancer at 18. I laugh at it now, but somehow I had the confidence to try, or maybe just didn’t know any better it at that point. I took the year off after high school and started taking ballet at Boulder Ballet, Horton at Cleo Parker Robinson, jazz at what was then Dance West in Boulder, and did all sorts of things to try and prepare myself to audition for programs. I choreographed like crazy in my basement and even auditioned for the Denver Broncos cheerleading team which was a great story about falling flat…for another day.
After my year off, I auditioned for the UCSB Dance program in Santa Barbara. I remember that audition so clearly because it was incredibly intimidating. I just remember gripping onto the barre, holding on for dear life, and watching the feet in front of me, just muddling my way through it. There was one professor in the modern part of the audition that asked us to just walk across the floor and I thought “Oh, thank God, I get to just be myself without thinking about technique”. There were so many dancers there that day who were classically trained and clearly danced their whole lives and I felt so small. I remember sitting in the hall when they came out and they called out all these numbers, and I wasn't in the numbers….and my heart sank. I thought, well, that’s it then. Then they said “We want to thank you for being here you're excused,” and I thought “What, what? I am staying? How did I make it through that?”
They saw something when I was muddling through, and that started my four-year journey of just beginning my training. It was incredibly fulfilling and very challenging to start that late. You would think gymnastics is quite similar but there is a lot of unlearning. That transition was a process of rewiring everything that you've learned. It’s almost like learning French when you have spoken Italian your whole life. There is an internal sensory muscular training that happens in dance, whereas gymnastics is incredibly external in terms of muscular development. There were a lot of things that translated, and there was a lot of unlearning that I continued to do throughout my career, just always rewiring and relearning. We are likely all doing that!
Why dance over gymnastics? What pulled you in that direction, and do you see your gymnast background showing up in your choreography today?
At first there was a tremendous amount of shape and structure in my work when I started creating. That was my comfort zone. In grad school, I shifted to the opposite side of the spectrum for some years and held a great interest in subtlety, minimalism, and how to craft layers of texture. I grew quite fascinated with contrast - impulse and reaction, precision and ease, all the nuance that comes from the layers and elements of choreography and partnership between humans. It wasn’t that dance was better than gymnastics in any way; for me, the artistry of dance was much more compelling because it spoke of human experience and relationships.
I grew up in a Buddhist family and I find that there are so many similarities around meditation and how it translates into dance practice and choreography. The contemplative practices and the moment-to-moment awareness inside of meditation are, I think, something that every dancer and choreographer plays with naturally and inherently. When you are training you are inside of every sensation, every moment, you are constantly training that sensory awareness. That's artistry, and that's what people look for on stage. I believe that is what's compelling and can connect an audience member with an artist.
Are there specific dancers, teachers, or choreographers that you feel influenced your work?
Too many! Oh my goodness… in my undergrad training, Nancy Colahan and Christopher Pilafian were instrumental for me. They both had beautiful careers and were such inspirations to me. They taught me the basics and how to have joy in the studio within my training. I would say specifically in grad school, Phyllis Lamhut taught choreography, and she changed my life. How she explained the choreographic process and how to think about the elements of choreography just made so much sense to me, No one had ever explained it in such an intellectual and strategic way and it clicked, you know? She created a whole platform for me to understand the structure, so I think about her almost every day. Later in my career, Kate Weare and Margaret Jenkins have been beautiful mentors to me.
Do you feel like you have faced any sort of stigma or kind of cold shoulder feelings about the fact that you didn't start and dance when you were little?
In general, people have been very welcoming; if you can hold your own, then no one cares when you start. Certainly, in the ballet world, careers sometimes end before mine even started. I didn't put on a pair of ballet shoes until I was 18, but there are things that I'm bringing to the table that a lot of these people haven't experienced or seen in running a ballet organization. There are certainly things that I never experienced (performing in Nutcrackers throughout my childhood for example) that there's a large learning curve, but the learning is the exciting part. We can all benefit from thinking outside the box and bringing in new perspectives, right? Certainly, I'm sure some people might discredit my career in the ballet field, but I don't really feel that too much.
Talk to me about your style and creative process. How would you describe your choreography style, and when you take on a project, how do you begin?
Back to the contemplative practices, when I was running my company in San Francisco we would start every rehearsal with a brief meditation just to get centered and wake up that sensory capacity. My preference has always been to work on a long-term project and to be able to really do research and improvisation to start, then work a lot on structure and revision, and then dive deeply into nuance and detail.
If I had my druthers I’d have six months with space to digest, and that is not at all how the ballet world works! When you're commissioned you tend to have one to three weeks of an intensive period of time, and that's fine, and I've learned to work that way. When I worked for the San Francisco School of the Arts and created choreography for them; there would be 40 students in the room and we only worked once a week to make a piece. Other times we would have one week to create a world premiere and just hope we could all remember it! You learn to work in all the different ways and that keeps things exciting.
What was one of your most challenging projects?
The pandemic was a challenging time. My choreography is really so much about partnering and the nuanced connection between dancers. I created a trio of work towards the end of the pandemic where we were all masked and there was less partnering opportunity… it was a very brief creation. I think we had maybe six rehearsals, and that was my first work for the Boulder Ballet. It was rewarding, but it was tough.
Running an organization is less art and more administration/politics, but I think one could argue it’s a different sort of choreography. What do you enjoy about the role, and what's been most challenging?
I agree that it is still a really creative process running an arts organization. You have to be nimble and wear a lot of hats, constantly creating and recreating the vision of the organization to stay with the times. I think for me there's a joy in continuing to learn - that's what's compelling is that growth, and there is never a dull day!
Cultivating a strong culture is also creative work. Creating a space where people want to come to work, be creative together, and enjoy each other is really exciting for me. People are complex and layered and it’s not always easy work, but people are also the best part – they are what make dance unique.
Are you still doing projects on the side? Are you still working on choreography or doing commissioned work?
Yes! I always am working whether it’s a commission or personal project, being in the studio when I can is essential for me. Ben has invited me to continue to create work for the company, so I'll make a little something in this coming season for our new Dancers Choice program on October 12. This program is new and exciting for us because the dancers are going to be jumping in and having some education around the choreographic process and being mentored with professional development opportunities around production, marketing, rehearsal direction, and other career opportunities. Myself and local choreographer Jarrett Rashad will work alongside the Company dancers for this program. Then the following season I'll do a full-length work for the company. I’m always trying to stay in communication with a couple of other organizations right now for the next couple of years around creating some commissions so that's exciting! It's not something that I can share at this point, but a work in progress. It’s important to me to make time for my art because I think I'm a better Executive Director when I am creative myself.
What's in the works for Boulder Ballet, what's coming up in the next season?
Our season is themed “Unlocked,” so we're excited to reveal what goes on behind the scenes and give as much opportunity to get to know the dancers and gain insight into the choreographic process. The throughline of wellness is foundational for our organization, as we continually create communities and spaces where people are able to grow in a really healthy and fulfilling way.
We open our season at Chautauqua Auditorium on September 20th with a world premiere by Ching Ching Wong. Andrea Shermoly will also be coming back, and we will premiere a historic work by Gerald Arpino, it will be a beautiful show with something for everyone. In November and December, we perform our beloved Nutcracker in collaboration with the Boulder Philharmonic and Longmont Symphony Orchestra. Both of these organizations have been collaborating with the ballet for over 30 years. In March the company presents Heart(s)pace by Nicolo Fonte and this will be a huge gift to the community. Nicolo’s work is a piece about transcending loss and the growth of new beginnings – a perfect spring addition. In May, we present the world premiere, Queen of Hearts, which is a twist on the classic Alice in Wonderland story. This full-length work will be an origin story of the Queen herself and explore empathy that may be possible for one of the world’s best-loved villains.
What do you want your legacy to be? What’s the mark you hope to leave on this world with the work you do?
It's so funny you ask this because I was just talking to my mother about this. She is a painter and growing up, her work and process were always inspirational to me. I told her if I could know my work inspired others, I think I could die happy. It may sound like a generic response but the best gift is to leave the studio or the theater and see that you made someone feel connected to themselves, or others through your art. If I can provide this, I will feel accomplished as an artist and as a curator of the arts.
Why does dance matter? If you had to make the argument for why dance should continue to be taught and performed, what would you say?
I think that dance specifically nails us to the present moment. It keeps us in our bodies, understanding the connection of our minds inside of our bodies, and that's something that is so easily fleeting these days. Dance is an inherently human experience; it's something that we all have the ability to participate in, and it's something that we all have naturally. The opportunity to continue to develop, refine, and share that skill that we all hold is a huge gift. Whether you're taking a dance class or sitting in a theater and experiencing a performance there is really something that can fuel you, heal you, inspire you, and make you feel so deeply; I think that it's essential.
