By Patrick Neas

KC Arts Beat

“To dream the impossible dream, that is my quest.”

So says the titular hero of Cervantes’ comic masterpiece Don Quixote.

At one time, it seemed an impossible dream that the Kansas City Ballet would ever perform some of the biggest ballets in the repertoire, like Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Jewels or Don Quixote,

But the dream has become a reality, as the Kansas City Ballet, under its current artistic director, Devon Carney, has been mounting all of these masterpieces in superb productions. Now Don Quixote with music by Ludwig Minkus will receive its first performance March 21 to 30 at the Muriel Kauffman Theatre, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts.

According to Ramona Pansegrau, the Kansas City Ballet’s music director, the company needed to grow in various ways before it could tackle these great works of the repertoire. Joining the company 18 years ago, she has been an integral part of the Kansas City Ballet’s growth, which has allowed it to take on these huge, iconic works.

“I first came here with Bill Whitener (Carney’s predecessor) in a small building with a much smaller company,” She said. “They had only done a couple of full-length ballets, basically because they were also performing at the Lyric Theatre. The stage was really small, so we couldn’t do any of these big, wonderful productions.”

Pansegrau says that over the last decade, Carney has transformed the Kansas City Ballet with the addition of a second company and apprentices.

“We have more dancers we can put on stage,” she said. “We have the beautiful Muriel Kauffman Theatre to perform in and the dancers are technically much more proficient than when I first arrived nearly two decades ago. So it’s very exciting to be able to do these well-known, world-wide classics.”

The staging for Don Quixote will be done by Anna-Marie Holmes, an internationally renowned choreographer and dance teacher whose specialty is staging large scale ballets. Holmes has sterling credentials, including dancing as soloist with the Winnipeg Ballet, teaching at the Royal Danish Ballet and founding the International Academy of Dance Costa do Sol Portugal. 

Holmes was also the first North American to dance with the Kirov Ballet in St. Petersburg. She is bringing her intimate knowledge of the Russian ballet tradition to her staging of Don Quixote.

“I learned a lot of ballets there,” Holmes said. “My teacher, Natalia Dudinskaya, taught me all of the techniques of the Russian dancers.”

Pansegrau says she notices the distinctive Russian touches Holmes is bringing to her staging.

“I think you’ll see the bravura technique, for one thing,” Pansegrau said. “The lifts, the jumps, the partnering, the turns. That’s all Anna-Marie’s tradition, and it’s beautiful, beautiful to see. It’s classic, classic ballet. I’m absolutely loving it and the dancers are loving it, Getting input from Anna-Marie with corrections, things to help them grow as dancers, all of that’s happening at the same time as we’re putting on this ballet.”

“I’m working them hard,” Holmes adds, “and they’re getting better every day.”

It was Dudinskaya who helped Holmes get the music for Don Quixote out of Russia.

“I then had the opportunity to take that original score and make an arrangement that absolutely fit Anna-Marie's vision of the ballet, with all of the pieces of music in the order she wanted, with all of the repeats,” Pansegrau said. “My score’s been done by six different companies around the world, but this is my first opportunity to actually conduct my own score, so I’m very excited to finally get to do it.”

The music is by Ludwig Minkus, a Viennese composer who was a child prodigy violinist. He eventually moved to Moscow to conduct the Bolshoi Ballet, where he composed his first ballet, Don Quixote, in 1869. It was a huge success.

“The Tsar absolutely loved this ballet to the point that he made Minkus court composer,” Pansegrau said. “He was in that position for nearly 20 years. Minkus has some wonderful output of music. Unfortunately, there was somebody else in town at the time, and that was Tchaikovsky. Minkus was only a ballet composer and Tchaikovsky, of course, with an incredible spread of music, from ballet to concerti to symphonies, the public didn’t take Minkus quite as seriously as Tchaikovsky, so his music was a bit buried. But it so worth hearing.”

“This is a very lively ballet,” Holmes said. “It’s full of Spanish character dance, tambourines and smiling and jumping and turning. So it’s a lot of fun for the audience.”

Although Don Quixote is the main figure in the ballet, Pansegrau says the ballet has two storylines going on at the same time, one involving Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, who are on a journey, and the other, two young lovers, Kitri and Basilio, in the port of Barcelona.

“Kitri’s father wants her to marry the rich man in town, named Gamache, but Kitri’s in love with Basilio, so automatically you have a triangle,” Pansegrau said. “But then Don Quixote comes into town, gets hit on the head while he’s tilting at windmills — and, yes, we do have a windmill —and he imagines Kitri as his Dulcinea. So now you’ve really got a mess. And that is how the story goes with a wonderful, joyous, happy ending.”

In addition to executing some of the most virtuosic and athletic moves in all of ballet, the dancers also have to be able to act.

“That’s what makes the art form so beautiful, the fact that it can show emotion and show physicality at the same time,” Holmes said.

“When I was at Boston Ballet with Anna-Marie, I met her daughter, the seven year old Lian Marie,” Pansegrau said. “She is an actress now, and was actually here for a week coaching the dancers on acting so that the story is clear. She did a fantastic job.”

Pansegrau and Holme’s friendship goes back to their time together at Boston.

“I was with Boston Ballet, and Ramona came along as the company pianist,” Holmes said. “We actually even lived in the same building, and we became very good friends. I directed the summer school in Jacob’s Pillow, and she was the premiere pianist there. So we’ve just been friends forever. And while I’m in Kansas City, I’m staying in her beautiful home.”

This is not the first time Holmes has been in Kansas City to work with the Kansas City Ballet.

“I worked many years ago with Tatiana Dokoudovska (the founder of the Kansas City Ballet) and I also did another production here with stars from New York,” Holmes said.

“This was in the 60s, and there are actually news articles of some great big party at the Kempers for the stars that were here, and Anna-Marie actually rode an elephant up the hill to their house,” Pansegrau said. “When I came to Kansas City 18 years ago. Anna-Marie said to me, ‘Oh, I’ve been to Kansas City, and I rode an elephant.’ And I said, ‘Uh-huh, sure.”

It’s about time that Anna-Marie returned to Kansas City, riding an elephant or not. And how lucky we are that this time she’s helping stage what promises to be an eye-popping, ear-thrilling, landmark performance by the Kansas City Ballet.

“People who like athletic things will love this ballet because it is very athletic,” Holmes said. “It’s not too long, and it’s very joyous, which we all need nowadays.”

Pansegrau adds, “If you want a light-hearted, family-oriented fun story for two hours and 15 minutes of escapism, this is definitely your ballet.”

7:30 p.m. March 21, 22, 28 and 29 and 1:30 p.m. March 23 and 30. Muriel Kauffman Theatre, Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. 816-931-8993 or kcballet.org.