Christine Fossemalle is looking forward to the future.
As the director of the Santa Ynez Valley Performing Arts Company, she’s spent 30 years on the Central Coast teaching young dancers and watching them perform the annual An Invitation to Dance recital after long hours of preparation and hard work.
“It’s been the title of our performance for 30 years,” Fossemalle said. “Every year we pick a theme and we create various choreography for that theme. We incorporate ballet, jazz, lyrical, hip-hop, tap, and many other different styles of dance with different levels of expertise, and we present an evening of all those dances once a year.”
The company, also known as the Fossemalle Dance Studio, has taught young dancers the fundamentals of ballet and other formats since 1986, culminating in a yearly performance. This year Fossemalle faced an unusual challenge. The company’s home for the annual recital is the Santa Ynez Valley High School Campus, which has a stage ready to host performances such as theirs. This summer, however, the campus had to close for repairs, requiring Fossemalle’s troupe to find another home, Jonata Middle School in Buellton, for the event.
“The changes have been in the logistics,” she said. “We’ve been performing at the little theater for 30 years. This was two months ahead and put us in a very difficult situation. When you consider the venues available in the valley, the only option we had left was another venue, which was not a theater.”
That meant the group had to invest in many rentals for equipment such as staging, lighting, and sound, usually made available to them at the high school. The new costs proved a bit challenging for the small dance school.
“It’s a very different situation we did not expect,” Fossemalle said. “So for the first time in 30 years I am asking community to come to the performance, but also help in the form of donations.”
A page on the school’s website was set up to facilitate the donations, with Santa Ynez Valley Performing Arts Company under the fiscal sponsorship of Art Without Limits (AWL). AWL is an arts organization that lends its 501(c)3 tax exempt status to arts organizations and artists to allow for tax-deductible donations and major gifts.
Fossemalle said that despite the challenges, her students haven’t wavered in their enthusiasm.
“My dancers spend a lot of time working on their craft,” she said. “Dance is a very difficult craft, especially in this day and age. Young people crave more instant gratification, but with dance you have to work and spend a lot of time training. It is essential craft is presented and rewarded the way it should be.”
For a theme this year, Fossemalle turned to nature with “Caterpillars to Beautiful Butterflies.” She also based a performance on a powerful quote from The Diary of Anne Frank, which states, “I know that with nature there will always be comfort for every sorrow whatever the circumstances may be. I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.”
Fossemalle, who holds a diploma from the French National Conservatory in Bordeaux, said she wanted the theme to be a respite from some of the turmoil in the news today.
“I wanted it to be a positive thing for young people,” she said. “They are surrounded with a lot of negativity. I decided to use nature to entice youngsters to turn toward nature, to feel a positive input.”
Musical selections for the performance includes work from Antonio Vivaldi and Igor Stravinsky among others. The dances include themes of rain, sunshine, fire, rainbows, and many other elements connected to nature.
Fossemalle said the range of ages of the dancers (between 6 to 18 years old) and their experience makes for a compelling performance.
“There is not a lot of dance in this area,” Fossemalle said. “We have a lot of sports but not so much dance. I think the art form can lead to marvelous things for youngsters, both boys and girls.
“Dance is about movement through music,” she added. “To learn the art of dance, to connect to music and be able to express themselves through music, is important.”
Arts and Lifestyle Writer Rebecca Rose’s favorite dance troupe is Dancy Reagan. Contact her at rrose@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jun 14-21, 2018.