Vitacca Ballet’s FEM4 Places Artistic Gems on the Houston Stage 

For their fall offering, Kelly Ann Vitacca knew that she wanted her namesake contemporary ballet company to bring exciting female creators to the Houston dance scene. “To do a whole woman-created evening is something special for us,” says Vitacca. “I looked for who might be in line with our creative image, and creators who would be very new to Houston. This is an opportunity to bring those artistic gems and fresh ideas to our city.”  

The creators Vitacca selected are Micaela Taylor, Cherice Barton, Beth Twigs, and Tina Kay Bohnstedt. “All four women are truly profound in the craft and it’s a huge honor to bring them to Houston.” 

Michaela Taylor, through her organization TLCollective, works in a genre she calls Expand Practice that pulls movement from the inside out, resulting in what she calls “expressions of one’s authentic self.” In practice, what this looks like is starting the movement journey in unlikely places. Vitacca describes one rehearsal: “Micaela talks about the use of her eyes and her face. Their movement all came from what their faces were doing. They didn’t look like themselves. Micaela has her own technique that she brings to the table and the company had to understand that technique in a short creative process. They were super charged by that creative push.” 

 Taylor’s piece in the program is called Waltz in the Dark, and she describes it as “being behind the veil of a highly valued image. A breaking down of a construct that has long been viewed unbreakable.” Taylor’s work has been performed at Jacob’s Pillow, the Vencie Bienale, the Ford Amphitheater, and the Venice Bienale. She has worked with Gibney Dance, was resident choreographer of BODYTRAFFIC, and is currently working with the Paris Opera. She also choreographs and directs dance films. Says Vitacca of Taylor, “She has this edge and so much nuance and specificity to her work, I knew it would be a good challenge for our dancers to have that creative process. We are thrilled to be the first org to bring her to Houston. Her voice is so profound and it should be on stage here in our city.” 

Charise Burton is another internationally renowned dance artist featured in FEM4. Her work has been in films, on television programs, and she has worked with talents from Gwen Stefani to George Lucas. She has presented work on Broadway, at the American Ballet Theater, DanceLab NYC, and Julliard. And she approached Vitacca to work with her in Houston. 

“It’s a huge honor to have her in our space,” says Vitacca, and explains that Cherice was told about Vitacca in conversation with creatives from Chicago’s Hubbard Street Dance (who have a choreographic connection with Vitacca Ballet through Robyn Mineko Williams) while at a performance at the San Francisco Ballet. Vitacca is thrilled to be putting Houston on the map in these discussions. “It is super cool the way our community is starting to know about us and talk about us. Cherice is incredibly genuine in her work, and extremely real. One of her strengths is bringing that humanness to her work.” 

Barton’s process with the Vitacca company dancers was, like Taylor’s, unconventional, and lead by authenticity and transparency. 

“Cherice asked them to write to her in advance, before [her residency], to tell her a little about their life. The writings she got were very honest, from what I heard,” Vitacca shares. “And she shared about herself. She was incredibly and beautifully, gorgeously open with her own self before she even got here, and that laid this really welcoming environment” for the company artists, who quickly “locked in” to Barton’s creative process. In this case, that process included doing voice work as personas they had developed under Barton’s leadership. These audio pieces are a part of the resulting show, titled Swipe, which looks at relationships, authenticity, and dating apps. 

For Beth Twigs, working with Vitacca is a return to Texas after dancing with Ballet Austin for almost a decade in the 2000s and 2010s.  Working with ballerina Melody Mennite – in her first year with Vitacca after a long and distinguished run with Houston Ballet – is even more of a full-circle moment, as the two native Santa Cruzans share dance origins at the Santa Cruz Ballet Theater.  

Since her time in Austin, Beth journeyed through studies and cities, spending educational and edifying time in San Francisco, London, and Seattle. She now focuses her work on the pleasure and rigor of the dancing body, dynamics between dancers, exploration, and empowerment. This is far from an exhaustive list of her professional interests. 

Describing Twigs’ work, Vitacca says, “I would say her work is a hair more abstract and avant-garde. It’s engaging; you’re interested in what comes next. I saw that in her work [The Psychosomatic Experience of Obligation: A Study] at Austin Dance Festival. And sure enough, she created a work that is moody, completely relevant. It is going to make you curious.” Twigs’ Choreographic Research is an intriguing entry point into her process, and I encourage readers to take a look. 

Of Twigs’ process with the Vitacca company dancers, Vitacca says that Twigs “talking about this world that she saw in her head that she was able to describe to the company and invite them into in a very collaborative experience.” The result is a piece titled in defense of the power hungry. 

Tina Bohnstedt has served as ballet mistress with Vitacca for several years. Having trained in Munich and Moscow, she toured extensively as a dancer before coming to Houston as ballet mistress for Diablo Ballet. Bohnstedt has taught and choreographed locally for Houston Ballet and Dominic Walsh, as well as other local and international powerhouses. The piece she is presenting is a familiar favorite, In an Apartment, freshly placed on dancers Melody Mennite and Coltin Snyder. Vitacca includes this piece in the program because, “It is a favorite of mine. It’s highly romantic, which deserved a moment in this program because that’s part of who we are as women, feeling love, feeling passion. This is one of those works that most everyone in the audience will be able to connect to.” 

With the exception of Micaela Taylor, the artists will be present at performances and Friday’s performance includes Vitacca Ballet’s annual Curtain and Cocktails event when the audience is invited to join cast and choreographers onstage after the show. Vitacca is eager to discuss the program and to hear what Houston audiences like and value, and what they have learned and taken from the impactful performance they just saw. She says, “I want the audience to be open and ready to see something fresh here in Houston, and I would love to talk to them about whether what we’re doing is hitting home.”  

Come to see and then stay to be heard! The FEM4 program will give Houston plenty to talk about. 

FEM4 
Friday, November 1 + Curtains & Cocktails 7:30pm  
Sunday, November 3 2:00pm 
Zilka Hall 
Hobby Center for the Performing Arts 
800 Bagby St #300, Houston, TX 77002 
Tickets: www.vitaccaballet.org