FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR MARIE HALE: JANUARY 1933 - AUGUST 2020

Anybody writing about the legendary Marie Hale has only one place that they must begin – the Mississippi Delta.  This fertile stretch of the USA has been the birthplace of many important things – social changes, trade, industry – but most of all, for Ballet Florida, it gave birth to the only person who could ever have taken the leaps of faith required to make a company like no other.

Born in Greenwood, Mississippi, Marie Stoner began what looked like a very ordinary life for a young Southern girl at the time – she was a cheerleader, attended Cotillion and sorority events and quietly began to plan her own path.  Nobody in her family (other than one distant Aunt who was only ever discussed in hushed tones and NEVER publicly) had been part of the theater or indeed any of the performing arts.  Marie was passionate about music and dance and could not imagine a life for herself that didn’t include them.  Starting her training in Greenwood she continued her training in College before meeting and marrying her first husband, the sculptor and artist Reuben Hale.  When Reuben was offered a job as a professor here in West Palm Beach, Marie began a new life here in Florida, raising her daughter Irma with the same passion for music and the arts.

She still needed an outlet for her own artistic passion, though, so after realizing that a performing career was probably not on the cards, she accepted a job teaching at Imperial Studios, run by the Kneelands in the basement of the Palm Beach Towers on the island of Palm Beach, Florida.  A story still to be told is that the Kneelands were at the hub of an exciting group of people who really changed the face of dance in the USA as much as Balanchine did.  From out of this cauldron came the Harkness company in New York and new methods of training that are still used today.  It was while at Imperial Studios that Marie met with her future partners Lynda Swiadon and Claudia Cravey – Lynda was also teaching there and Claudia had been the studios most accomplished student and performer.

The Kneelands, ready for new adventures, suddenly decided to leave Palm Beach.  Marie, faced with the closure of the studio, took the next leap of faith in her journey and together with Lynda Swiadon, took it on to run it themselves.  As part of her philosophy of training, Marie believed that performance was a vital teaching tool – to put a student on a stage in front of an audience added to the training in a way that nothing else could.  As only she is able, she wrapped Frank Hale, the owner of the Palm Beach Playhouse theater in Palm Beach, Florida, around her little finger and persuaded him to let her use the theater for free to stage performances by her students.  In fact, right up until it’s closure, she still had keys to the Playhouse!

Those performances became known for their high level of both style and presentation and many audience people were unaware that the shows they were watching were cast from students, not professional dancers.  The time had come for another leap of faith!  Since the lease on the basement of the Towers was up for renewal, Marie put together a group of her students, converted a building in West Palm Beach into a studio, moved her classes over there and took the first steps in forming what would become Ballet Florida.

A budding lifelong friendship with the Venezuelan choreographer Vicente Nebrada allowed Marie to make a major coup for the first performances of her fledgling company.  She persuaded him to create a brand-new staging of the full-length ballet Romeo and Juliet for her small group of dancers, using minimal sets and costumes.  She made the arrangement of the music herself and voila – the company was born and on the path to success.

Over the years, Ballet Florida continued to commission, and perform works by Nebrada, but he was just the first of many, many choreographers who, enamored by the energy, drive and commitment of the dancers and their Director, either allowed the company to perform existing works or created new ones specifically for them.

There was another company in South Florida born the same year as Ballet Florida.  It was a carbon copy of the New York City Ballet, both in style and repertoire.  They brought the familiar to their audiences.  

What Marie did with Ballet Florida was bring the new – she challenged both audiences and her dancers to accept different styles of dance, both en pointe and in flat shoes.  She asked them to embrace all kinds of music from classical orchestral to ultra-modern electronica while bringing the world's most accomplished choreographers, as well. 

She took audiences and her dancers on an exploration of everything that dance could be/become, rather than letting them stagnate in the past!