At age 14 our next guest left South Carolina and joined a ballet company in Russia and directed in the Philippines. During the pandemic he co-founded Swans for Relief with Misty Copeland, bringing together 32 of the world's leading ballerinas to raise funds for dancers when the stages went dark. And last year he moved back home to our state to help rebuild a professional ballet company which almost disappeared after the historic floods of 2015. Mike Switzer interviews Joseph Phillips, artistic director of the Columbia Classical Ballet.
TRANSCRIPT:
Switzer: Hello and welcome to another edition of the South Carolina Business Review. This is Mike Switzer. At age 14, our, next guest left South Carolina and joined a ballet company in Russia and directed in the Philippines during the pandemic. He co founded Swans for Relief with Misty Copeland, bringing together 32 of the world's leading ballerinas to raise funds for dancers when the stages went dark. And last year he moved back home to our state to help rebuild a professional ballet company which almost disappeared after the historic floods of 2015. Joseph Phillips is artistic director of the Columbia Classical Ballet. Joseph, welcome to the program.
Phillips: Hi, thank you for having me.
Switzer: First of all, give us an overview of the ballet company and how you got involved with this.
Phillips: They offered me the job about a year ago. I was in California and I said the most important thing, the company is a school. So we set up the school within that time like it took about a year to set up. And we opened up at 1610 Hardin street right in the heart of Five Points because every major non profit ballet company across the United States has a school and that revenue helps fund the company.
Switzer: All right, and so besides the school, what is happening with the ballet now?
Phillips: Right now we're opening Don Quixote at the Koger center. We have one show October 2nd. It's at 7:30. that's a full length Don Quixote production. I brought a dancer from the Mariinsky Theater to help set it. The Mariinsky Theater is really the birthplace of all classical ballet that we know of today is a company that I danced in in Russia. I call one of my colleagues and say, hey, do you want to come to Columbia, South Carolina? And they were like, well, where is that? I said, you know, I want to bring the original choreography here and then us develop it. So got my colleague all the way from Russia and brought him here.
Switzer: What's the calendar look like after this performance?
Phillips: Well, after this performance we, we go into Nutcracker. Every professional ballet company does Nutcracker. We have that first weekend, December at the Koger. And then after that we have some other small shows that we're going to actually host at our new studios at 610 Harding Street. I don't know if anybody knows that old Hiller Hardware down in Five Points. But it's that, that's a beautiful open space. Then we go into our life Chance gala where it's a benefit performance for our company. And then we, we choose another not for profit to help here in the Midlands.
Switzer: All right, now share with us then what your challenges have Been so far.
Phillips: Mostly it's getting people to, to understand exactly what it is we do and why a school is so important to a company which is without a school you don't have an audience because especially in cities of this size, the school is the audience. So our parents pay for their kids to go to our school and those kids, because they love ballet so much, they tell their parents and their parents tell their. So it's building like basically a community. Imagine this, if you, if you bring your kid to play soccer, you're more willing to bring your kid to go see a live soccer game with professionals. You know what I mean? So if you bring your kid to do ballet, this classical ballet, you're more willing to go see a live performance. So that's how we build our community and our outreach and, and that's kind of hard for, was hard for me to explain when we first started because people say, well you just put on a show and people show up. No, people don't show up for ballet. You have to, people have to be educated in dance to be able to want to go see dance.
Switzer: And of course there are other, there are other dance schools in the area and other ballet companies. So I guess competition is an issue as well.
Phillips: I don't think because we are the first in Columbia to actually have a nonprofit under one umbrella. That was the main thing which Columbia was missing is that you and I know it doesn't seem. Why would it be important? Why would it not be important? But there's something about knowing that the money that you kids are paying to a school goes to support the whole organization and not just one person. Because you have a lot of private schools that perform with the non profit ballet companies. And so when you have a for profit ballet school and a non for profit company, those don't mix as well as having both to non for profit. So that's we're the first of our kind here in Columbia, I would say, to do that. So our audience may be not m small at first, but it's going to build and build and build.
Switzer: Well Joseph, thank you so much for spending time with us today.
Phillips: Thank you for having me.
Switzer: Joseph Phillips is artistic Director of the Columbia Classical Ballet and we will have a link to his company posted at our webpage so you can learn more. South Carolina Public Radio. Just look for our show and you can find us wherever you find. Podcasts with the South Carolina Business Review. This is Mike Switzer.
The views expressed on the South Carolina Business Review do not necessarily reflect those of South Carolina Public Radio.
South Carolina Business Review transcripts are intended to accurately represent the original audio version of the program; however, some discrepancies or inaccuracies may exist. The audio format serves as the official record of South Carolina Business Review’s programming.
