En Pointe: A Major Pirouette at the Richmond Ballet

RICH: [NUTCRACKER – Dance of the sugar plum fairy] Welcome to RVA’s Got Issues, a podcast about politics and public affairs in and around Richmond, Virginia. I’m your host, Rich Meagher. On this episode, RVA’s Got Issues with dancing. No, not like Footloose. Instead, we’ll talk to the incoming and outgoing artistic directors of one of the most important cultural institutions in the region, the Richmond Ballet. Then, RVA’s got questions about litter. Whatever happened to anti litter campaigns? Finally, for our community spotlight, we’ll talk with Alice Minium, the founder of Open Oversight Virginia. She provides the answer to the question, Who’s watching the Watchmen in RVA? RVA? All that coming up on RVA’s Got Issues.

 

RICH: On this episode, RVA’s Got Issues with dancing. The Richmond Ballet has been a cornerstone of the region’s art scene since Stoner Winslett helped establish it back in 1984. Now she’s handing off the reins to her lieutenant, Ma Cong, who just took over as artistic director this summer. We’re excited to have them both here in the studio. Stoner, Ma, welcome.

STONER: Thank you so much.

MA: Thanks for having us.

RCH: Stoner, let’s start with you and your connection to the Richmond Ballet. What do you think the Richmond Ballet means to the city of Richmond and really to the region as a whole?

STONE: actually, the Richmond Ballet was founded in 1957, and was a student company until 1975 when they founded the school, the Richmond Ballet. And that was the big turning point, I think, for the community their goal was that young Richmond kids would not have to leave Richmond to go to New York or North Carolina School of the Arts to be trained to a professional level And out of that training and the expertise of the young dancers came the professional company. Now we’re the State Ballet of Virginia, and we’ve, performed in New York five times. We’ve performed in Chicago, We’ve performed in London, we’ve performed in China, and Beijing, and Shanghai, and we like to think we’re one of the best ambassadors for Virginia out there,

[NUTCRACKER, March dance of the reeds]

RICH: but it’s still like what I especially like is that community connection is still there. I mean, every winter we’re planning our calendar around which Nutcracker show are we going to see because my kids friends are in those performances, right? It’s still that connection to the community is there even at the same time. You’ve got that world class performance structure.

STONER: Absolutely. Ten years into the professional company mission, I realized that I really wanted to give back to the community. And I started a program called Minds in Motion that is in fourth grade classrooms. pre COVID, we were up at about 28 schools. Now we’re at 15but every fourth grader in the school takes it and they all come together and do a culminating performance at the Dominion Energy Center. And that is a beautiful thing to see in the community.

RICH: So how has your vision for the ballet evolved over this time, having been involved in it since the 1980s? You

STONER: when we look back at the original mission vision statements that the Richmond Ballet Board and I adopted in 1988. It’s pretty much the same. And I think that’s part of our success, is consistency. we have always wanted to awaken, uplift, and unite human spirits. And I’m just really excited to see how Ma, who embraces that same mission vision, takes the reins and takes it to a new place.

RICH: Ma, just in terms of your background, you grew up in China. you were dancing with the national ballet in China, and probably could have stayed there and been very successful, but what brought you to the United States and what’s been different about your experience here as opposed to dancing in China?

MA: when I learned that I’m really interested, being a dancer, I was age 10 and you know, in the 1988, at that time, everybody only knows Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, and that’s it. And one thing I realized is that, the artists in China does not have a freedom. To speak out and you have a very much limitation and you cannot create freely. And I start to think that what can I do to fulfilling my dream as an artist? And then that’s where I decided, you know, coming to U.S. and become a citizen and I was a principal dancer at the time. Um, Tulsa Ballet for a while, then started to become in transition into a choreographer, lesson choreographer. And so it’s kind of like a dream. I would love to see that if this sort of a, uh, dream that I, I had for myself, that it can be shared, can bring more opportunities to the kids like myself, you know, back then. So that give them the tools and, uh, um, the energy and the passion that to help them to grow

RICH: And so how are your ideas reflected in the work that’s going to be done, like what kinds of of things are Richmonders gonna expect from the mock hung Richmond Ballet.

MA: the highlight of next season that one of them is, Lambarena.

[LAMBARENA ENTERS IN]

It is a very unique program as a dancer myself back then in early 2000 that I had the opportunity to perform this work. It’s a very unique work based on a classical ballet technique, but, choreographed with, Western African dance And we had an African, dance consultant coming into the studio to train all the dancers for the African dance before even the ballet steps being taught.

MA: Also, I’m bringing one of my,very exciting work. It’s called a Pentaptic. It’s moving five panels on stage, and it’s a collaboration with a live painter on stage with the dancers, and they will be doing a movement around a painting. At the same time, painter will be finish a painting in about 20 minutes every night. So, um, Also in that program, I’m bringing, uh, first ever Christopher Wilden’s work. Um, Christopher Wilden is a world renowned choreographer and, um, uh, his work has been seen many different, uh, world leading companies before. So his work never been seen here. So I’m really excited. We’re able to get his work After Rain here included into that program. And that’s just one of the production, of course. And then we have, of course, our very famous Nutcracker and Holiday Tradition, and also we’re going to have a Virginia premiere of Cinderella, of Ben Stevenson’s Cinderella. It’s the same choreographer as Dracula, which is, we have done in this past February.

RICH: Let’s talk about the transition here. Stoner, why now? And why Ma?

STONER: Good questions. I am the founding director of the professional company back from 1984. I’m also a mother and I’m also the mother in a way of that ballet company. And I feel so blessed that the board and I, I’ve been hand in hand with this really wonderful Special, spectacular, moving, constructive, fabulous relationship for 44 years now. And they told me that I couldn’t leave until I found somebody. And so we didn’t do your typical search and the board hires. So I’ve been keeping my eyes open for a long time. I heard about Ma, and he was still a dancer at Tulsa Ballet, and that was back in 2009. And I brought him into the New Works Festival, and he did a sketch of a piece called Erste Walls, and it 10 minute sketch, and I liked it a lot, asked him to come back and make it into a 20 minute ballet, which he did. And he’s now done 10. new ballets for us, including his last one, Opah. So over the course of that time, we got to know each other, and I felt like In many ways, we couldn’t be more different. I mean, I’m a girl from South Carolina and he’s a guy from Western China. But we don’t want Richmond Ballet to be the same under Ma. as it was under me because we’re different people and we’re different artists and it will look different. It should look different. We should be excited about that and we should celebrate that. So I’ve chosen someone in the communities, whose art we are dying to see. And we know a little bit about it because we’ve been seeing it for a while, but we’re going to see it full blown in his artistic direction of the whole institution.

RICH: So Ma, how does that feel being asked to step into this role?

MA: I think, uh, my first reaction is definitely I got really big shoes to fill, I think. Stoner has been really, uh, put all the energy, all the passion that she has and for nurturing this company for over 44 years. And many colleagues that have been, you know, in contact and everybody’s been saying to me that, you’re so lucky that your enrichment and, taking the, artistic directorship from Stoner. But at the same time, I got a lot of great ideas. I think that I’m going to push this organization and, just really, uh, continue to uplift our human spirits in our community. right now. I’m currently thinking about what I would like to build for the next 5 to 10 years, right? I’m thinking about the 3 words right now for the company’s log will be, um, bold, diverse, And elegant.

RICH: We’re talking with Stoner Winslett and Ma Cong, the previous and current Artistic Director of the Richmond Ballet. We’ll hear more about what’s coming up in the future of the ballet when we come back on RVA’s Got Issues.

RICH: This is RVA’s Got Issues. We’re back with Stoner Winslet, the outgoing artistic director of the Richmond Ballet and her successor, Ma Kang. Stoner,

STONER: I mean, it sounds like you’ve done a lot of planning. You’ve done a lot to sort of get your ducks in a row internally to try to make this as seamless as possible. But even forgetting the leadership transition, what do you think is the biggest challenge for the ballet going forward? I think the biggest challenge for the ballet is, resource development. when I started, I was the first full time employee. I don’t mind telling you they paid me 10,000 a year. The budget was 164,000. It was a pretty lean operation. Well, I’ve grown it over 44 years to 135 employees, an almost 7 million budget, but the programming has grown just as much, and it’s still a pretty lean operation. Our donors love us, because we get so much out of every single dollar that we have, and I think we always will.

STONER: I think it’s time for the ballet to move to the established artistic institution that it is, and to gain the community support, the state support, the national support, um, to really Shore up the underpinnings of it and make it strong and make it possible for Ma to take it to the next level. Ma, do you see challenges like that on the horizon?

MA: I think one of the to do lists that I, we all have for this organization is Um, able to try to engage every possible donors that can support us because, we as a human cannot live without arts. my teacher used to tell me that, the art is the food for the soul. This is something that I’m very passionate, you know, including. The programming, including how to invest energy to help the younger students to be able to have a very positive experience to come to dance, you know, can chasing their dreams and to have passionate donors that actually they can. Pull every single dollars that they have to support the ballet.Otherwise, yes, it will become a very, very challenging

RICH: So Stoner, looking back on your illustrious career here at the Richmond Ballet, and, uh, what do you see as your legacy in Richmond?

STONER: I know, even on the darkest days, that, my partnership with the community leaders here and the other artists and administrators has made a tremendous difference in this community. And I’ve always felt that dance is one of those things that can pull people together because it’s a language of movement. Ma will have to keep trying to move towards that one because that’s In my opinion where we need to be we need to be together one.

RICH: What can our listeners do to help as you move forward into this leadership role?

MA: number one, they have to really have the interest to know who we are and what we do. And then next thing is please come to join us. Let’s dance together and come into our building and watch some rehearsal viewings and knowing behind the scenes. You’ll be part of this arts organization and you’ll be part of this company And we can move forward together. So yes support is absolutely so incredibly important And we’re hoping in the future were able to build a very very strong endowment So that I were able to do beautiful things together.

[CUE LAMBARENA]

RICH: Stoner Winslet is the outgoing Artistic Director of the Richmond Ballet. Ma Kang is our new Artistic Director. Thanks to you both

 

RICH: On each episode of RVA’s Got Issues, we’ll answer a question from listeners like you. Something you want or need to know about your government or community. On this episode, RVA’s Got Questions about litter. Our producer, Amber Coles, is back with a question from a listener. Hi Amber.

AMBER: Hey, Rich.

RICH: So Amber, what you got?

AMBER: We have an anonymous listener question and they ask, I would like to know why litter seems to be in abundance, especially on the on and off ramps leading to a major road. Also, are people lazier about tossing trash out their car windows? What has happened to anti litter campaigns? question

RICH: it’s a good don’t notice litter that much, uh, until this question was asked, and now it seems like I see a lot of it. Amber, do you know anybody who litters?

AMBER: Unfortunately, I did know a person who littered my grandma who passed last year was an avid like lottery ticket scratcher. And when she didn’t win, she started to just toss them out of the window.

RICH: I do not see lottery tickets very often, but now, particularly since this listener asked this question, you look around and actually if you’re looking for litter, it’s a lot easier to see it. And it still remains a problem. Before your time, There was a famous TV ad about this. Um, it was a crying Native American man surrounded by litter

NARRATOR: Some people. I have a deep, abiding respect for the natural beauty that was once this country. And some people don’t. People start pollution. People can stop it.

RICH: Like, I still remember it decades later, even though I found out later the Native American was played by an Italian American, not a real Native American, but still, it made a big difference. It was this big anti litter campaign and here right in Virginia, there are litter campaigns or anti litter campaigns. Uh, at the state level, the VDOT, the Virginia Department of Transportation has a whole website, Virginia is for lovers, not litter. Yeah, now more locally, there’s a regional government organization called Plan RVA. They help to coordinate action among local governments and they have a Don’t Trash Central Virginia campaign with local partners like Don’t Trash Henrico or Don’t Trash Ashland.

AMBER: So we have a lot of these campaigns, but like who’s actually doing the

RICH: Right, every year there are events. Uh, the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, which is a non profit group, has this project Clean Stream every April, and that’s all over the Chesapeake Bay watershed, which is huge, like runs up to, to Maryland. But here in, in Richmond, in RVA, lots of folks meet at places like Reedy Creek, and they pick up a bunch of trash there. And then finally, just in terms of the roadways and the on ramps, there are still those adopt a highway programs where, businesses, community groups can commit to removing trash,

AMBER: Is that what that is? I never knew. I always thought it was like you buy a portion of it or you give money to someone else to do the thing and you have the sign that says, this is my part of the road.

RICH: right. I thought that was the case too, but it turns out that VDOT and others actually want you to go and clean up the highway. In fact, uh, I think VDOT’s website says, like, you have to document your cleanups, because if you don’t tell us you’re doing it, we might take away your sign. Like, you can actually lose your sign if you don’t document it. Take care of the highway the way you committed. So there are people cleaning up the highway, right? There are people who are trying to do it. They may not get to everything and everywhere, but there are anti litter campaigns and efforts to clean up.

AMBER: And you can also like make your own groups to like volunteer and pick up trash just on your own without any prompting.

RICH: Exactly right. And if you reach out to some of these organizations, they’ll even give you some supplies to help. Amber, what if listeners have their own question about local government?

AMBER: If you have your own, question, listeners can go to our website, rvasgotissues. vpm. org and click on the ask a question

RICH: That’s right. Click away. Thanks, Amber.

AMBER: Thanks, Rich

 

RICH: There are various police forces in RVA, from city and county departments to sheriffs and state police. But while we know they can keep tabs on the public, Now, there’s a way for the public to keep tabs on the police. On this episode, we’re shining our community spotlight on Alice Minium. She’s the founder and director of Open Oversight Virginia, a non profit web resource that promotes police transparency. Alice, I think a lot of people take their local police for granted. Oh, police, they keep us safe, you know, they might pull me over for speeding sometimes, but that’s it. but some people have more negative encounters, right? How does open oversight help with that?

ALICE: Um, resources and ability to be aware of their police department and what they’re doing. Um, because like you said, that’s a thing a lot of times we just assume we can’t have. And also the attitude of police are just a given, they protect us, isn’t always the same in different areas that we go to.

RICH: and it’s also, these are public servants, right? They’re government employees. But we think of them as a kind of separate category. If you told people, oh, you know, every public employee is perfect and we don’t need to know about them or think about them, they would probably wonder what you’re saying, people have that idea about police, don’t they?

ALICE: Yeah. And it’s funny because they’re the one profession that has the legal authority to, you know, take your life, incarcerate you. I think a lot of people would agree that they deserve more oversight. Um, when it comes to not just keeping the public safe, but keeping us safe from misconduct on their part.

RICH: so this website, started around the time of the George Floyd protests, right? That was what kind of clued you in that something like this was necessary?

ALICE: there are a lot of similar projects nationwide that kind of came out around that time, most of them started as spreadsheets, and a lot of it was just getting, Information gathered on the ground from interactions, and a lot of people realized around the same time how useful it would be to sort of just have access to these basic facts in case we ever needed them in the future,Yeah, so the about police that’s hard to get elsewhere, what, what specific information are we talking about

RICH: the key like foundation of the website is the identities is who these officers are, what units they work, what their badge numbers are and information that you need to if you have an encounter with an officer to it. Sort of understand what happened to you. And if you want to take action to do so, Where do you get this information from? readily available? Oh, so you have to FOIA it. and then we we sort of enrich it with a lot of other public resources. But because of the nature of the site, we don’t ever publish anything that’s not from the government So that in case it was ever questioned, we would know that it’s right. so how do these police departments and officers feel when you ask them for this information, whether through asking initially or then a FOIA request?

ALICE: initially and across the board, the attitude is pretty hostile. It’s kind of assumed that, um, I have negative intentions or just want to get in their business. And I think it’s my business. I think it’s all of our business. And, um, It, it’s, it’s, um, the opinions vary, but the fact is the law says that we have access to this, and, um, it’s essential, and, um, we’ll see for it if we have to, and we have now twice, and there are some police officers in some departments who don’t view us negatively, and who, like, love what we do, so it really, really goes either way.

RICH: again, it really, it really depends. Um, it gets this information all.

ALICE: They like me less. Um, it’s, it’s a little embarrassing because I can get this information all across the state, but in my own cities where I have the hardest time. it’s always, to say an uphill battle would be putting it mildly, I sometimes have to have people file requests for me, because I get so much difficulty when it’s our

RICH: So do you have an example of a case or an officer, that would demonstrate why we need this information?

ALICE: Sure. Um, so this so he was a bald guy and a friend of mine, had an encounter, with him at, the sit in, do you remember? Yeah, at City Hall. Yeah.

RICH: Is around the time of the George Floyd protests? Yes.

ALICE: Yeah, it was that one night and then he, he just like, had this reputation of sort of being a little unhinged. He would come in, he would hit you, he was not a good guy. It seemed evident. It’s like, who is he? I started doing research in those videos that we had of him to sort of try to figure out their names and to match up these guys. I googled him, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. He was sued a year prior for, racial profiling at a traffic stop. before that, two years prior, he had a complaint from, um, Someone for twisting his arm when he went inside the jail. He’s been sued at least three times just from like what’s public on Lake Pacer. And so There are demonstrable patterns of behavior that I think if we were all aware of, um, could mitigate some of that harm.

RICH: It sounds to me like what you’re trying to do in part is just tell stories. of the whole gamut of experiences with police, not just for some folks.

ALICE: Yeah, exactly.when something happens that might lead to scrutiny or something traumatic, there’s a lot of movement on the part of the perpetrators or the government or whoever to sort of say what happened and how things were. And I think we’ve learned that those stories aren’t always entirely honest. it’s definitely worth questioning and if, I think it’s a good idea for us to all have our own control on the facts and not just defer to these agencies

RICH: And so what’s next for Open Oversight and the work that you do?

ALICE: right now we are building out some more data resources We’re working with trying to make the dispatch data more accessible so that people can have real time tools. Kevin. Is working on, a map of the FLOT cameras around the city, since that’s something people ask for.

RICH: So, Kevin Finity, you also work on Open Oversight. Uh, what’s your role with Open Oversight? Open Oversight.

KEVIN: So I mostly handle a lot of the database. Just reorganizing it and cleaning it up and making it into a consistent format.

RICH: And so what’s with these Flock cameras? What are those?

KEVIN: flock is a relatively new company. Who’s started pushing these automatic license plate reader cameras, which basically take a picture of every car that drives by, all day, and sends them all to their cloud infrastructure where police officers or anyone with a license later can just go view and track where all of the vehicles have been moving all over town. In theory, they’re supposed to only use this for actual criminal cases they’re pursuing, but, you know, that’s left up to the discretion of the department.

RICH: And so it’s sort of unchecked surveillance and maybe not everyone knows that this is happening.

KEVIN: Yeah, they’re just a black pole with a solar panel on top and a tiny little web camera. Um, and they’ve just quietly been putting them up all over town.

RICH: And so you’re starting to map these on an actual map, right? So you can see where they are.

KEVIN: so far we only have a couple, honestly, because, you know, they’re user submitted, so uh, It’s depending on people finding them and submitting them.

RICH: You’ve talked a little bit about the technical stuff that you’re working on. think you mentioned to our producers about building relationships. What does that mean?

ALICE: that’s it. That’s another like probably even a bigger thing is connecting with people who use our tools or who people who have a shared stake in this and um, helping figure out what they need and how we can give it to them. We’re working with RTAP on some things right

Rich: And what’s our

ALICE: Richmond Transparency and Accountability Project, We’re working with some other orgs nationally, the most fun things that we’ve been doing are, um, a couple of us have been going out and doing cop watch, which has been fun. Um, so we get to, Go into areas that like we wouldn’t usually go because that’s where a lot of times police are and see these interactions and like just document them like on our own and that has been really Really informative, for understanding this information that we get, like, to see it play out.

RICH: what should our listeners do if they want to find out more about the officers in their community?

ALICE: It would be go to OpenOversightVA. org slash browse. And there is a box where you can search by name and you can search 30. everything that we have is also downloadable. It’s like a spreadsheet if you want it that way. So at the bottom of the website, there’s something says download department data if somebody just wanted a list. And if Anybody has trouble, they can email me and I will help them. It is alice at openoversightva. org.

RICH: Alice Minium is the founder and director of Open Oversight VA. Thank you so much. Thank you,

ALICE: Thank you for having me.

 

RICH: That’s our show. Thanks to our guests, Stoner, Winslet, Ma, Kong, and Alice Minium. RVA has got issues, but we need you to tell us what those issues are. Submit a question or tell us about something exciting going on in your community at our website. RVAsGotIssues. vpm. org. Join us next time when RVA’s Got Issues with, well, if you want to know, subscribe to us wherever you download podcasts. While you’re at it, tell a friend about us, share a social media post, or even leave a review on your favorite podcasting platform. Let’s get everyone in RVA listening. RVA’s Got Issues is produced by Max Wasserman and Amber Coles, and edited by Steve Lack. Our theme music was composed by Alexander Hitchens. Meg Lindholm is our executive producer. Steve Humble is VPM’s chief content officer. I’m your host, Rich Marr. Thanks for listening.