12-02-2014 Audio Interview

In the second half our interview James Jordan describes the way the “flow” returned. How again – unexpectedly – he was called by Todd Bolender to return to the Kansas City Ballet Company as its ballet master and how he worked to grow into that role which he held for 23 years. This year James will be Honorary Chair of the Company’s Black Tie Gala, staging the last performance of Bolender’s Nutcracker and receiving its Pirouette Award and the thanks of a grateful company for his extraordinary 30 years of service. He explains that, fearing that the ballets of Anthony Tudor would be lost, he spent his own money to follow Donald Mahler, Senior Repetiteur of Tudor’s Ballets, so he could learn and document the ballet’s as Mahler staged them around the country. In this interview he also explains how he became ballet master for the Sarasota Ballet Company and describes its next ballet; Sir Frederick Ashton’s La Fille Mal Gardee, and talks in detail about the process of putting a ballet together with its score.