Covenant Ballet Theatre of Brooklyn (CBTB) was founded by Marla Hirokawa in order to bring ballet to South Brooklyn. After dancing in Hawaii, California, and NY, Marla moved to Brooklyn. She saw that there were no serious ballet schools in Brooklyn so she decided to open one. With the help of the Schlissel family, Covenant Dance Studio was created in 1987.
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| Snapshot of the company |
The first year was hard but by the end of June 1988, the studio had about 50-75 kids. In 1989, Marla realized that she needed to give her students a chance to dance in a performance. She wrote her first ballet entitiled "Heirloom Doll" and incorporated her professional dance friends and the kids of the academy into it. The ballet was performed at Bay Academy, a local middle school .Soon she began choreographing on her professional dance friends and Covenant Dance Theatre was born. Marla wanted to have her students dance alongside professional dancers so her students could learn a bit more on what it is like to be a professional dancer. In 1989, Marla's new work "A Divertissement" was chosen to be performed in the Choreographers on Pointe Showcase.
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| "Heirloom Doll" |
The company's life was marked every two years by a new ballet, each one created by Marla. In 1991, it was "The Patroness" in which Roberta Solomon starred in the title role. Roberta, or Bert as she was affectionally called, was a former dancer. She reignited her dancing career with Covenant and became a wonderful asset to the company.
1993 Marla continued her storytelling with "A Time to Mourn, A Time to Dance" - in honor of her father who had passed away that year.
That year Bert's husband, Max came on board and performed the title role in "A Time to Mourn, A Time to Dance". It was his first performance in over 40 years! Soon after, he took on a main role working backstage. He was a master at props and a great resource for music.
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| Bert and Max in "A Time to Mourn, A Time to Dance" |
"Couleurs D'Amour" premiered in 1995, set to the music of Debussy and Satie (It was the precursor to Marla's recent "Van Gogh" ballet).
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| "Couleurs D'Amour" |
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| "Couleurs D'Amour" |
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| "Couleurs D'Amour" |
In 1994, the academy began to expand with Rebeccah Hope Brann joining the staff. She had been with the academy since she was six years old. But now she started to teach the pre-ballet classes. The next year, Sheila Ledgin joined the staff as the academy's primary creative movements and pre-ballet classes teacher. Suzanne Lemmon became the academy's modern dance teacher. Lucie Santoro joined the academy in 1997 as a volunteer. Soon enough she would become the project manager.
Before you know it, the company and academy was marking its 10 year anniversary.
Stay tuned to read about the next 15 years.
