Dear Ballet West Family,

As part of our current 53rd Season, Ballet West has brought to the Janet Quinney Lawson Capitol Theatre stage critically-acclaimed productions of Madame Butterfly, The Nutcracker, The Sleeping Beauty, and the spectacular triple bill, Journeys and Reflections. In May we will present the inaugural year of our exciting new Ballet West National Choreographic Festival. 

As we present world-class ballets for tens of thousands in our local and national audiences, we are also concurrently touring to Cuba, Texas, and Arizona, all the while sustaining our on-going commitment to providing FREE Education and Outreach programming to over 110,000 students and teachers each year.

With that in mind, the recent news of the potential closure of the National Endowment for the Arts has given us great pause, as Ballet West – along with a handful of other arts organizations in Utah – has been a recipient of NEA support for over a decade.

This funding has afforded our organization the ability to present classics, such as Balanchine’s Serenade, Stars and Stripes and Agon. It has also provided Ballet West with seed money to invest in new works that have advanced the art of ballet, such as Helen Pickett’s updated classic Jeux; Jessica Lang’s Lyric Pieces; and two new pieces that will be debuted at Ballet West’s National Choreographic Festival from acclaimed choreographers Nicolo Fonte and Val Caniparoli. And, NEA funding has given emerging choreographers from our Company the unprecedented opportunity to stage new works, such as Christopher Ruud’s Great Souls.

NEA funding is a vital resource that invests in our creative culture and our local economy. With the help and advocacy of Americans for the Arts, please join us by doing your part in order to stress to our local and national legislators the critical importance of continuing to fund the arts. You can:

1. Sign a national petition in support of the NEA

2. Send a customizable message to your elected US Representative and US Senators and urge them to oppose attempts to eliminate the NEA.

3. Post on social media to rally support to save the NEA using the hashtags #SavetheNEA and #ArtsAdvocacy. On behalf of everyone at Ballet West – the dancers, the staff, and the Board of Trustees – thank you for your help and continued generous support of our organization.

It really matters… now more than ever.

 
Adam Sklute
CEO & Artistic Director