Houston Ballet Trustee, Lynn Wyatt, Donates Generously to Ensure the Show Will Go On

Immediately after Hurricane Harvey, long-time Houston Ballet Trustee, Lynn Wyatt, stepped in to make sure Houston Ballet dancers could continue dancing and carry on with performances. With the company's home venue, The Wortham Theater, closed until May 2018, Houston Ballet will have to utilize alternative venues for upcoming its 2017-2018 Season. The company was in need of a portable dance floor to ensure their health and safety in an alternative venue, and without hesitation, Mrs. Wyatt generously underwrote a specialized, portable dance floor to meet that need while enhancing the dancers' performances as well as travel with Houston Ballet when the company goes on tour.

"I know how important the right dance floor is to the health and safety of our beautiful dancers. The arts are the soul of Houston," said Lynn Wyatt. "I couldn't let Hurricane Harvey steal our show."

For more than 30 years, Mrs. Wyatt has been a passionate leader at Houston Ballet. She served as a key member of the search committee that brought Stanton Welch AM to Houston Ballet, and they became fast friends. Mr. Welch credits her warmth and friendship with helping Houston to become his adopted home. Their friendship has flourished over the years and she continues to be a staunch supporter of his creative vision and, especially, his new work.

"I'm so grateful to my longtime friend, Lynn Wyatt, for her incredible support of Houston Ballet," said Stanton Welch AM, Houston Ballet Artistic Director. "Hurricane Harvey has devastated the Theater District, including Houston Ballet, but her generous gift has ensured that our dancers will continue to be able to perform for our beloved city."

Hurricane Harvey's impact on Houston Ballet has been significant with the loss of performances, expensive adaptations to recreate its scheduled repertoires in new theaters and the loss of props, shoes and more stored in the Wortham Theater. With support from the community and dedicated patrons, like Mrs. Wyatt, Houston Ballet continues to move forward and works to heal itself and Houstonians through its artful productions.

Houston Ballet has evolved into a company of 59 dancers with a budget of $33 million (making it the United States' fifth largest ballet company.) With a state-of-the-art performance space built especially for the company, which is the largest professional dance facility in America, Houston Ballet's $46.6 million Center for Dance opened in April 2011, with an endowment of just over $74.1 million (as of July 2017).

Australian Choreographer Stanton Welch AM has served as Artistic Director of Houston Ballet since 2003, raising the level of the company's classical technique and commissioning many new works from dance makers such as Christopher Bruce, Alexander Ekman, William Forsythe, Ji?í Kylián, Trey McIntyre, Julia Adam, Edwaard Liang and George Balanchine. Executive Director James Nelson serves as the administrative leader of the company, a position he assumed in February 2012 after serving as the company's General Manager for over a decade.

Houston Ballet has toured extensively both nationally and internationally. Over the past fifteen years, the company has appeared in London at Sadler's Wells, at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, Russia, in six cities in Spain, in Montréal and Ottawa, at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in New York at City Center and The Joyce Theater, at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris, at The Arts Center Melbourne State Theatre in Melbourne, Australia, in Los Angeles at The Music Center's Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and in cities large and small across the United States. Houston Ballet has emerged as a leader in the expensive, labor-intensive task of nurturing the creation and development of new full-length narrative ballets.

Writing in Dancing Times in June 2012, dance critic Margaret Willis praised Houston Ballet and highlighted the fact that "During his own tenure, (Stanton) Welch has upped the standard and Houston Ballet now shows off a group of dancers in splendid shape. With fast and tidy footwork, they are technically skillful and have strong, broad jumps and expansive, fluid movements. The dancers' musicality shines through their work, dancing as one with elegance and refinement - and they are a handsome bunch too!...if ballet were an Olympic sport, see Houston Ballet well on the way to achieving gold."

Houston Ballet Orchestra was established in the late 1970s and consists of 61 professional musicians who play for Houston Ballet's performances at Wortham Theater Center under Music Director Ermanno Florio.

Houston Ballet's Education and Community Engagement Program reaches over 60,000 individuals in the Houston area annually. Houston Ballet Academy teaches over one thousand students every year, and approximately 50% of the current company was trained by the Academy.

For more information on Houston Ballet visit houstonballet.org.

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