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Further Demise


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After Hartford Ballet imploded, what was left renamed itself Dance Connecticut and continued as a school with more or less (lately less & less) of the same people... for a while their website professed intentions of a professional company, but beyond producing Kirk Peterson's American Nutcracker at the Bushnell with ABT Studio company for leads and students filling in the corps, nothing was ventured other than assisting in the presentation of other dance companies at the Bushnell.

Those of us at the school have been getting a lot of mixed messages about the future of the school. Apparently it had run out of money sometime around March and unbeknownst to most of us, some angel has been covering the salaries of the teachers and accompanists [fabulous accompanists]. Apparently the University of Hartford has "bought out" the school. For several years there has been some arrangement between the school and the University whereby the BFA students took classes. I'm not clear what exactly the University has bought. I understood that the facility (pretty nice facility with several big studios) was owned by the City of Hartford and leased at a pittance to the school, with the school bearing labor expenses, insurance, etc.

However, even though a complete summer schedule had been worked out, as of today it seems there will be no classes until the fall because the University bureaucracy doesn't want to deal with the transition in such a short amount of time, preferring to spend the summer working out whatever they're planning to do.

It seems a sad squandering of resources (teachers, accompanists, studios, students, community interest). Once upon a time someone built up quite an institution out of nothing and dancers were trained who went on to perform with major companies (ABT, Royal Ballet).

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