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Jack R. Lemmon joined the Louisville Ballet
in 2003 as Executive Director. Previously, he served as Executive
Director for Ballet Idaho, the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago and
Tulsa Ballet and as General Manager of Ohio Ballet, Akron,
Ohio. He has also served as Program Administrator of the Dance
Program of the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington,
D.C. He worked with the Dance Program for nearly seven years,
first as an Arts Administration Fellow, and subsequently as
Program Specialist and Program Administrator.
Mr. Lemmon serves as an executive committee
member of Dance/USA, the national service organization for
professional dance, and chairs a Managers’ Council. In addition,
he is Chair of GLI’s Arts & Cultural Attractions Council
and serves on the board for the Partnership for Creative Economics.
Mr. Lemmon holds a B.M. in music education
and performance from Coe College in Cedar Rapids (Iowa) and
an M.F.A. in arts administration from the University of Utah
in Salt Lake City.
Bruce Simpson joined the Louisville Ballet in
2002, bringing with him over 30 years of experience in the
international ballet world. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Mr.
Simpson studied at the Scottish Ballet School, making his
professional debut with Scottish Opera. Upon joining the Wuppertal
Dance Company, he toured throughout Germany and Belgium. In
1970, he joined South Africa’s State Theatre Ballet (previously
known as the Performing Arts Council of the Transvaal), which
became his home for the next 30 years.
After his promotion to principal dancer in 1975,
he performed an extensive repertory specializing in the great
classical roles, including Swan Lake, Romeo and
Juliet, The Sleeping Beauty, Giselle, La
Fille Mal Gardée, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Cinderella
and La Sylphide. He danced leading roles in The
Three Musketeers, Anna Karenina and Soft Blue
Shadows by André Prokovsky; The Merry Widow, Rosalinda
and Papillon by Ronald Hynd; Don Quixote by Rudolf
Nureyev; and The Taming of the Shrew by John Cranko.
Appointed Ballet Master in 1983 and Senior Ballet
Master in 1985, Mr. Simpson continued to perform with State
Theatre Ballet until his retirement from the stage in 1998.
He was also répetiteur, teacher and coach, refining productions
of the Company’s repertoire of over 60 ballets. He has worked
with some of the greatest dancers of our time, including Natalia
Makarova, Sir Antony Dowell, Dame Margot Fonteyn, Ivan Nagy
and Sir Fredrick Ashton.
Mr. Simpson has been a guest of the major dance
companies and schools throughout the world. In 2000, he was
invited to lead Texas Ballet Theater, where he was commissioned
to create new productions of The Nutcracker and Swan
Lake. Mr. Simpson was the jury co-chair at the 2006 USA
International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Miss.
Helen Starr has danced and taught in 36 countries
on five continents. She was born in Kent, England, and trained
at the Royal Academy of Dance and the Royal Ballet School.
Graduating into the Royal Ballet, she toured extensively as
a soloist and assistant ballet mistress. During this time,
she worked with Sir Frederick Ashton, Sir Kenneth MacMillan,
Dame Ninette de Valois D.B.E., John Cranko, Leonide Massine
and Rudolf Nureyev.
Miss Starr joined the London Festival Ballet,
now English National Ballet, and was made a principal dancer
after dancing Odette in Swan Lake. Her roles included
the leads in Giselle, Coppélia, Les Sylphides,
Scheherazade, Prince Igor, Noir et Blanc,
La Sonnambula, Bourree Fantasque and The
Sleeping Beauty. Her partners have included such luminaries
as John Gilpin, André Prokovsky, Peter Schaufuss, Peter Martins,
Frank Augustyn, Alexander Lunev and Mikhail Baryshnikov, with
whom she danced La Sonnambula, the pas de deux from
Le Corsaire and Petrouchka.
Recognized nationwide as a fine ballet teacher
and coach, Miss Starr has staged ballets in Europe and the
United States including Swan Lake, The Sleeping
Beauty, Coppélia, Giselle, Les Sylphides,
La Fete Etrange, Ashton’s Les Patineurs, plus
original productions of Cinderella and Romeo and
Juliet. Her roles with the Louisville Ballet have included
Odette in Swan Lake, Princess Aurora in The Sleeping
Beauty, Giselle, Juliet, Hanna Glawari in The Merry
Widow, Colette in Paradise Gained, Desdemona in
The Moor’s Pavane and Hecuba in The Trojan Women.
Jeff Holland Cook has been the conductor for
the Louisville Ballet since 1990. From 1986 to 1991, he was
both Associate Conductor and Resident Conductor of the Pittsburgh
Ballet Theatre. He was Music Director of the Mansfield Symphony
Orchestra for nineteen years and continues this relationship
as guest conductor for the summer season. He was Music Director
of the Wheeling, W. Va., Symphony for twelve years.
A native of Chicago, he is a graduate
of Northwestern University, Ohio State University and the
New England Conservatory of Music. His early training includes
studying with Sir John Barbirolli and Pierre Boulez.
Maestro Cook has frequently guest conducted
both in this country and abroad, including appearances with
the Rhode Island Philharmonic, North Bay Festival, Anchorage
Symphony and Orquestra Sinfonica Nacional in the Dominican
Republic. He has enjoyed conducting for such musical stars
as Leonard Rose, Roberta Peters, the Canadian Brass, Lorin
Hollander, Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg and Judy Collins.
Born in Vienna, Austria, Mr. Kern studied with
the Ballet School of the Vienna State Opera and at the Academie
de la Danse de Princess Grace, Monte Carlo.
He has received many awards, including the Rudolf
Nureyev Scholarship Award, the Paris International Dance Competition
– prix d’interpretation and an Award for Artistic Achievement
from the New York International Ballet Competition.
Mr. Kern has performed as a soloist and principal
dancer with the Vienna State Opera Ballet, Basel Ballet, the
Joffrey Ballet, Ballet Internationale and Charleston Ballet
Theater. He has danced leading roles in most of the major
classical and romantic ballets and won critical acclaim for
his interpretation of roles in ballets by Sir Frederick Ashton,
Cranko, Massine, Nureyev, Neumeier, Spörli, Balanchine, Kilian
and many more.
Under the guidance of Irina Kolpakova and Vladilen
Semyonov, he became a teacher and coach. He has been the Associate
Artistic Director of the Channel Islands Ballet (California)
and a guest instructor with schools, colleges and companies
around the USA, Europe and Japan.
Elena M. Fillmore, a native of Fallon, Nev.,
began her dance training at the age of 13. She studied with
such distinguished instructors as George Zorich, Melissa Lowe,
Jory Hancock, Michael Williams, Amy Ernst, Susan Quinn and
Sam Watson. Ms. Fillmore graduated with honors from the University
of Arizona, receiving both her B.F.A. and M.F.A. in dance.
She has danced professionally with the Louisville Ballet,
BalletMet (Columbus, Ohio), Colorado Ballet and, most recently,
as a member of Moving Collective. Ms. Fillmore has also danced
internationally with QuinnWilliamsJazz, with LaJAZDANZ and
with the musical theatre production Space Dream (Berlin,
Germany).
As a graduate student at the University of
Arizona, Ms. Fillmore received the 2000- 2001 Outstanding
Teaching Assistant Award. She has taught at dance schools
across the country as a guest instructor and at Kentucky’s
Governor’s School for the Arts.
Ms. Fillmore was named Interim Director of the
Louisville Ballet School in 2008.
Michael Harris, a native of Tennessee, returns
for his twenty-first season as Director of Operations. As
such, he directs and manages all aspects of the production
departments. He is also responsible for theatrical scheduling,
music and repertory licenses, guest artist contracts, production
rentals, and production and operations budget control. In
addition, he serves as facilities manager for the Company
and School locations and oversees the management of the scene
shop and warehouse facilities.
Prior to his current position, Mr. Harris was
Production Manager for nine seasons. Before employment with
the Louisville Ballet, he served as production manager for
several independent feature films, stage manager for Iroquois
Amphitheater, and chief electrician at the Amphitheater and
Stage One. He is a graduate of Western Kentucky University
with degrees in English and journalism.
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Michael Ford is a native of Louisville and an
alumnus of Bellarmine College. He has worked with the Louisville
Ballet since 1974 and has been Resident Lighting Designer
and Stage Manager since 1978. Michael has served as Technical
Director and/or Lighting Designer for Iroquois Amphitheater,
Metroversity Dance Series, Miss Kentucky Pageant, Sphere One
Dance Company, Stage One, Metroversity Summer Theater and
Corning Summer Theater in Corning, New York. He has been Guest
Designer for the North Carolina Dance Theatre and the American
Ballet Theatre at the Met. Mr. Ford has designed dance productions
for such well-known choreographers as Erik Bruhn, Choo-San
Goh, Bruce Marks, Lynn Taylor Corbett, Robert Gladstein, Ron
Cunningham, Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux, Adam Hougland and André
Prokovsky. He has also designed lighting for and toured with
Mikhail Baryshnikov.
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A native of Wisconsin, Dan Fedie is entering
his twentieth year as Costume Master. He earned his B.S. in
speech and theatre from the University of Wisconsin – LaCrosse
and an M.F.A. in costume design from the University of Illinois
Champaign/Urbana. Design credits include A Time To Remember;
Gloria; If ya ain’t right, git right!; upon
your held out hand; and continuum for the Louisville
Ballet. Mr. Fedie has also designed for Stage One, Kentucky
Shakespeare Festival and 1900 productions in Chicago.
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This is Leslie’s third season with the Louisville
Ballet. She began her career twenty-five years ago as a stage
management intern at Actors Theatre of Louisville and has
been working professionally in the Louisville area ever since.
For thirteen years, she was the Production Stage Manager for
Stage One: Louisville’s Family Theatre, touring regionally
as well as to New York City and Off-Broadway. Other local
credits include the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival, Derby Dinner
Playhouse, Music Theatre Louisville, Actors Theatre of Louisville
and The Kentucky Center. Leslie also teaches stage management
classes at the University of Louisville.
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