[ad_1]
“The whole range of the dance landscape is able to be enacted because you have world-class dancers,” Liang said in an interview Monday. “That has always been the case ever since I’ve worked with and choreographed for the Washington Ballet.”
Liang, 48, whose hiring was announced Tuesday, will be the fourth artistic director in the company’s 47-year history. Kent had led the company since 2016, following Septime Webre and Washington Ballet founder Mary Day. He will also oversee the Washington School of Ballet.
Liang comes to Washington after spending the past decade as artistic director of BalletMet, an esteemed midsize company in Columbus, Ohio. He is credited with nearly doubling the organization’s budget and choreographing 21 works during his time there, which was also marked by an expansion of BalletMet’s school.
“Obviously, Edwaard is a really deeply gifted artist,” said Jean-Marie Fernandez, chair of the Washington Ballet board, which conducted the search with an outside firm. “But he is a proven leader with over 10 years of experience as an artistic director, and that was key to us, because we were really looking for a candidate who could meet us where we are. Edwaard is a proven community builder, a fundraiser, and he’s also a leader with a vision.”
Discussing the search, Fernandez added: “Every step of the way, it was a unanimous decision to move forward with Edwaard.”
A Taiwan native raised in Marin County, Calif., Liang danced with the New York City Ballet and Nederlands Dans Theater and has created ballets for the San Francisco Ballet, Moscow’s Bolshoi Ballet and Chicago’s Joffrey Ballet. At the Washington Ballet, he choreographed 2008’s “Out of Time,” 2009’s “Wunderland,” 2011’s “As Above, So Below,” 2012’s “La Ofrenda (The Offering)” and 2016’s “Dancing in the Street.”
Liang also was the first Chinese American to lead an American ballet company, and he becomes the first person of color to serve as the Washington Ballet’s artistic director.
“Sometimes it can be bittersweet, because I believe that there’s more to do and there’s more to come in terms of representation in the United States,” Liang said. “But, I mean, how amazing is it that Washington Ballet is on the forefront of that?”
Liang said he signed his contract Friday and has already started work, taking the reins from acting artistic director Trinidad Vives amid what he described as a “wonderful transition plan” conceived by the Washington Ballet and BalletMet. Liang anticipates ramping up his involvement in the spring, at which point he and his husband, educator John Kuijper, plan to move to D.C. full time.
Although Liang said he hopes to continue creating ballets, describing himself as a “choreographic artistic director,” he expressed a desire to elevate fresh voices and indicated that he won’t choreograph at the same clip as during his BalletMet tenure. Outlining his vision, Liang also emphasized an interest in breaking convention and staging more works in outside-the-box performance spaces.
“What would it look like if we partnered with the [National Park Service] and did more outdoor performances?” he asked. “How would we be able to have more visibility? How would we be able to find and redefine what performances are like? How do we take our craft outside of big opera houses?
“I think that those ideas and thoughts are really inspiring to me, and I know that it’s going to be inspiring for any community that we serve.”
As artistic director, Liang also will be tasked with managing the Washington Ballet’s education programs and community engagement initiatives. Hailing the “transformational power of dance,” he underscored the ability to connect with the D.C. area’s diverse communities as a crucial part of the job’s appeal.
“[The board] was very, very focused on what it means for dance to belong to this community,” Liang said. “That really inspired me, and that really made me want to be a part of this institution, because that’s always been my driving force.”
[ad_2]
Source link