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ARTISTIC STAFF BIOS
ANNE MUELLER / INTERIM ARTISTIC DIRECTOR
Sponsored by John Van Buren
Anne Mueller assumed the role of Interim Artistic Director on December 24th, 2012. Mueller has been with OBT since 1996. She retired from dancing in 2011 following a stellar career as a Principal Dancer. She has worked in artistic administration for the company since the 2008-2009 season, juggling her role in the Company with the position of Artistic Coordinator until her retirement from the stage. Anne advanced to Director of Artistic Operations in 2011, where she spent half of her time in the studio setting repertoire and working with dancers and half working with production-related contracts, budgeting and communications. She has also taught in the School of Oregon Ballet Theatre. Anne has pursued coursework in Dance and Religious Studies, Dance Injury Prevention and Business and the Arts at Vermont College. She has been instrumental in cultivating regional touring opportunities for OBT including tours to Caldera in Central Oregon, Temecula in California, Longview and Olympia, Washington.
Mueller's choreography was selected for Ballet Builders 2009 in New York, NY and appears in the repertoire of Oregon Ballet Theatre, Arova Contemporary Ballet, Ballet Victoria, the Alabama Ballet and BodyVox-2. Her most recent choreographic endeavors for OBT include The Stravinksy Project for the 2010 winter program, and Carnival of the Animals for The School of Oregon Ballet Theatre’s annual performances.
Anne has worked as a répétiteur for Nicolo Fonte, having set or assisted in the staging of his ballets for The Washington Ballet, Ballet West, and Perm Tchaikovsky Opera and Ballet Theatre in Perm, Russia. She has also set ballets for Christopher Stowell at Carolina Ballet and Diablo Ballet. Anne has guest taught with Trey McIntyre Project, University of Wisconsin, Ballet Idaho, the Alabama School of Fine Arts and Summer Dance Lab.
Anne Mueller received her primary dance training from the Washington School of Ballet and from Dame Sonia Arova at the Alabama School of Fine Arts, as well as additional training with The Kirov Academy, Houston Ballet Academy, the Joffrey Workshop and the School of American Ballet. Mueller danced with the Alabama Ballet prior to joining OBT in 1996. She danced fifteen seasons with OBT, having been promoted to Principal Dancer when ranks were established. During her time with the company, she danced leading roles in works by Julia Adam, George Balanchine, James Canfield, Nicolo Fonte, James Kudelka, Trey McIntyre, Yuri Possokhov, Jerome Robbins, Helgi Tomasson, Twyla Tharp and Christopher Wheeldon, and had numerous original roles created on her by then Artistic Director Christopher Stowell. Anne was a co-founder of the Trey McIntyre Project, with which she toured nationally every summer from 2005 to 2007 and served as its Managing Director from 2004 to 2006.
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NIEL DEPONTE / MUSIC DIRECTOR AND CONDUCTOR
Niel DePonte has been the Music Director for Oregon Ballet Theatre and its predecessor, Pacific Ballet Theatre, since 1985. He has appeared as a guest conductor for Boston Ballet, the Ballet of the Mussorgsky (Maly) Theatre in St. Petersberg, Russia, and at the Nureyev Ballet Festival. He has also conducted symphonic, pops and youth concerts with the symphonies of Oregon, Syracuse and Charlotte, among others.
Mr. DePonte appears frequently before audiences across America pursuing his many musical interests. He is artistic director and conductor of the Young Artists Debut! concerto concert and served as Bel Canto Northwest's opera conductor for three seasons. He was a 2003 Grammy Award nominee for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance with Orchestra for his performance of Tomas Svoboda's Concerto for Marimba with the Oregon Symphony, and frequently appears with Chamber Music Northwest. As founder of MetroArts, Inc., he has done considerable research on the use of the arts for teaching cognitive strategies in the classroom, and in 2006 was named a Local Hero by Bank of America for his work with the MetroArts Kids Camp summer arts program.
Mr. DePonte's arrangement of A Midsummer Night's Dream is his latest in a series of compositions and arrangements written for the ballet stage. These include Christopher Stowell's Adin in 2004, Houston Ballet's 2002 production of Peter Pan and OBT's 1993 version of The Nutcracker. He holds a Master's degree and the Performer's Certificate from the Eastman School of Music, and a degree in Education from the State University of New York.
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MICHAEL MAZZOLA / LIGHTING DIRECTOR
Michael Mazzola's critically acclaimed lighting
has been seen in venues all over the U.S. and Europe, ranging from opera
houses to circus tents to outdoor amphitheaters. The three-time New York Dance and Performance Award-winner has designed lighting most recently for he Bebe Miller Company, Stuttgart Ballet, Oregon Ballet Theatre, Pacific Northwest Ballet, the Royal Ballet of Flanders, San Francisco Ballet, Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and Liz Lerman Dance Exchange. |
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LISA KIPP / BALLET MASTER
Sponsored by Anonymous
Lisa Kipp began studying ballet in Olympia, Washington, and finished her training at Pacific Northwest Ballet School. She danced with Pacific Northwest Ballet, Pacific Ballet Theatre, Ballet Oregon, Ballet of Los Angeles, Ballet Chicago and James Sewell Dance, and also performed in the touring company of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera. Ms. Kipp danced principal roles in George Balanchine's Rubies, Tchaikovsky Pas de Deux, Square Dance, Concerto Barocco and Apollo, and appeared as the Cowgirl in Agnes De Mille's Rodeo. Prior to joining OBT, she was the Ballet Department Head for the school of Spectrum Dance Theater in Seattle, as well as the company’s Rehearsal Director. |
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CHRISTOPHER STOWELL / ARTISTIC DIRECTOR 2003-2012
Christopher Stowell was born in New York City and received his training at Pacific Northwest Ballet School and the School of American Ballet. In 1985 he joined San Francisco Ballet where he danced for sixteen years, appearing in theaters throughout the world including the Paris Opera, New York’s Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. and Moscow’s Bolshoi Theatre. As a principal dancer, Stowell performed leading roles in the full-length classics Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and Othello, and had roles created for him by Artistic Director Helgi Tomasson and by contemporary choreographers including Mark Morris, William Forsythe and James Kudelka. An established interpreter of the George Balanchine repertoire, Stowell appeared in almost every Balanchine ballet performed by SFB. Upon his retirement in 2001, he was accorded a gala farewell in the War Memorial Opera House.
Stowell has taught and coached in San Francisco, New York, Japan, China and Europe. He has created new works for San Francisco Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet, Diablo Ballet and Pacific Northwest Ballet, as well as the New York City Ballet Choreographic Institute. He has also staged the works of George Balanchine and Mark Morris.
In 2003, Christopher Stowell became Oregon Ballet Theatre’s second artistic director. He made significant additions to the OBT repertoire, bringing to Portland works from some of the world’s most celebrated choreographers, including Ashton, Balanchine, Robbins, Taylor, Tomasson, Wheeldon and Lubovitch. During Stowell’s tenure with OBT, the company performed in Korea and at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C, as well as venues in New York, Chicago, Colorado, Washington and Wyoming. In addition to creating eight world premieres for OBT, including Swan Lake (2006), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2007) The Rite of Spring (2009), Carmen (2011) and Ekho (2012), Stowell also commissioned works by internationally prominent artists James Kudelka, Kent Stowell, Trey McIntyre, Yuri Possokhov, Julia Adam and Nicolo Fonte. Stowell served as OBT’s Artistic Director until December 2012.
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Photos by Joni Kabana
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