Ballet School to Spin Into a Company

The founders of Channel Islands Ballet School are working to form the Ventura County Ballet Company, school owner Kathie Noblin said Tuesday.

Noblin, who will serve as executive director, said the success of the school’s “Nutcracker” production in November encouraged her and partner Clarissa Boeriu to form the new company. The school, which split from Channel Islands Ballet Company last August, sold about 1,000 tickets for each of its two performances, Noblin said.

“We proved ourselves very strongly [in November]. We [the school] had larger audiences [than the ballet company], and we had an extremely successful ‘Nutcracker’--paid all our bills,” she said. “And people were just raving about our work.”

The school and the company parted ways after the company decided not to rehire Boeriu as director for its “Nutcracker.” As a result, all but a few of Boeriu’s students chose not to audition for the company and instead danced in a production quickly mounted by the school and the students’ parents.

The Ventura County Ballet Company has formed a board of directors with about 25 members, several of whom once served on the Channel Islands Ballet Company’s board.

“Everybody is extremely supportive and happy,” said Boeriu, who will be the new company’s artistic director. “Nobody turned us down to be a board member.”

The new board, which will meet for the first time Saturday, has drafted its bylaws and hopes to gain state and federal approval for the company’s nonprofit status by May.

Meanwhile, Chairwoman Kathy Nishimori said Channel Islands Ballet Company is still assessing its future but “absolutely” plans to mount another “Nutcracker” around Christmastime.

“We’re working on plans of what we want to do, and it’s not consummated what exactly is going to happen,” she said.

After saying the company was not completely happy with its 1998 “Nutcracker,” Nishimori declined to comment further on its plans.

“We are interested in providing good quality performances and dance in the community, and we’re not interested in getting into what we’re doing and what they’re doing and a back-and-forth,” Nishimori said.

Noblin said the Channel Islands company has no corps of dancers of its own and has traditionally been linked to the school in the minds of audience members.

“The only reputation they have is our work, and when people realize that our work is under this new name, the audience will come over to us,” she said.

“They are basically ballet brokers,” Boeriu said. “They hire people from Wisconsin or God-knows-where to do what they’re doing.”

Like the Channel Islands company, the Ventura County company will anchor its schedule with a holiday “Nutcracker.” A spring performance in May and performances for school groups will round out the year.

If the Ventura County Ballet Company can get approval for its incorporation by May 23, the date of its spring performance, it will dance under its new banner, Noblin said.

To fund its performances and educational outreach, Noblin said her new company will begin applying for grants and seeking private and corporate donations. The group will focus on keeping ticket prices low.

“It’s just getting the arts to the people at a price people can afford,” she said.

Between 175 and 200 girls--and a few boys--are enrolled at the Channel Islands school, which plans to change its name to reflect its association with the new company, Boeriu said. The company will hire professional dancers for its principal roles.

Without the Channel Islands school as its official studio, the Channel Islands company will continue to use dancers from studios around the county, Nishimori said.

“We are not tied into any particular school. We weren’t when we did ‘The Nutcracker’ last year, and we won’t in the future,” she said.