Today we’d like to introduce you to Carter Alexander.
Carter, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I am a native of Los Angeles, CA. When I was six, I was diagnosed with Perthes Disease in my left hip. After wearing braces on my legs, and being in traction, it was determined that surgery would need to be performed on the hip for it to heal more correctly. My mom, a former dancer, when told what the surgery on the hip would entail, she thought, “Well there goes his career as a ballet dancer!” Fast forward nine years, I began studying ballet at my mom’s (Amanda Stone) dance studio in Cheyenne, WY. I moved to Dallas to finish high school at Booker T Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. After graduation, I joined the Hartford Ballet (where I first met my wife, Jeanne Elser Smith). After a couple of years in Hartford, I joined the Kansas City Ballet. While at the Kansas City Ballet, I also began teaching in the Kansas City Ballet School. After four years at KC Ballet, I danced with the Pennsylvania Ballet and also taught in the school (my wife was a dancer with the company).
The teaching of ballet became more important to me than dancing and I accepted a position to teach at the Ballet Workshop New England/Massachusetts Youth Ballet. We produced many excellent ballet performances, and I began an experiment with choreography.
I was then invited to join my former ballet teacher from Hartford, Truman Finney, to be the Assistant School Director of the School of Ballet Arizona. This was an incredible learning experience and has been one of the defining moments of my teaching career.
After Arizona, I was invited to become the principal teacher at the Miami City Ballet School. MCB at the time was directed by the illustrious ballet star Edward Villella. During my time in Miami about half the professional company came from the school, and over 70 students from the school became professional dancers in companies all over the world.
Now with two young daughters, and with my parents becoming older, it was time for the grandkids to be nearer to the family. Since leaving Dallas, I had a lot of guest teaching for Kathy Chamberlain, and when she heard that I was thinking of leaving Miami, she hired me to teach at her school, the Chamberlain School of Ballet and to be the Associate Artistic Director of Chamberlain Performing Arts. I continued to work on choreographing, and staging works for the pre-professional company.
I am currently a Visiting Artist-in-Residence at Southern Methodist University in the Meadows School for the Arts Division of Dance. I am also a ballet consultant for Booker T Washington HSPVA.
This past summer, two other choreographers and I organized a choreographic project, aka ballet, in which we produced five new ballets in three weeks! One of my ballets also featured an original score by Martin Morgan and was performed live by the composer. The performance received overwhelmingly positive feedback!
This past year I choreographed two successful new works for Ballet Dallas, formerly known as Contemporary Ballet Dallas. I was then invited to become the co-Artistic Director of the company.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
In the pursuit of being a professional ballet dancer, it was quite difficult dealing with the imbalance of the consequences of the Perthes! There were a lot of physically and emotionally hard days. Ballet is not only a demandingly physical art, but it constantly challenges the mind and the emotions!
In pursuit of this career, there have been lots of job changes with moves to different states. My wife and I have had two stints of maintaining a long distance relationship. We celebrated our 22nd wedding anniversary this year!
Please tell us about Ballet Dallas.
Ballet Dallas creates compelling dance! Our mission is to fuse traditional ballet with contemporary dance and music to present ballet as a progressive & innovative art form. Ballet Dallas challenges and entertains our audience by embracing all styles of dance from experimental contemporary dance to classical ballet. Our commitment to artists, our emphasis on new work, and our engagement with the greater DFW community are what we are most proud of.
Ballet Dallas is set apart from the other local dance companies by our 17-year commitment to offering choreographic opportunities to artists of all backgrounds to create work on a professional dance company. We have given many emerging artists the impetus they needed to launch their own work! We are proud to share in the successes of the choreographers that Ballet Dallas has provided the springboard to begin their careers. Ballet Dallas will continue to look to encourage and give opportunities to emerging choreographers. We will also be giving our dancers and audiences the opportunity to experience the work of top-level choreographers both established and new!
If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
I would be more patient, and I would look to maximize all opportunities for learning!
Contact Info:
- Address: 5400 E. Mockingbird Lane, Ste. 207
Dallas, TX 75206 - Website: balletdallas.org
- Phone: 214-821-2066
- Email: admin@balletdallas.org
Image Credit:
Lindsay Weir
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