Eugene’s Fermata Ballet Collective is transforming the local ballet scene by telling the story of those who normally might not have their story told, its founders say. Fermata’s mission statement is to “diversify ballet by creating renewed paths in the dance experience and create collaborative performance opportunities.” 

Eugene’s Fermata Ballet Collective won this year’s Business Recognizing Arts Vision and Achievement  (BRAVA) visionary award for artists or organizations that are changing the arts community for the better, presented by the Arts and Business Alliance of Eugene. Fermata has 12 resident artists and routinely collaborates with others around town. This year, Fermata is slotted to work with six outside artists, two guest faculty members and 10 miscellaneous collaborators. 

Ballet as an art is infamous for its lack of diversity. In the early days of ballet, including people of different races, gender identity and body type was unheard of. “We’re actively trying to rewrite those norms from leadership to the casting of dancers,” says Alaja Badalich, one of the founding members of Fermata in 2020.

Fermata is run by a board of directors who try to set themselves apart from other collectives. “We’re radically doing something different, and I think it’s caught attention in the best way possible,” they add.

With the pandemic at an all-time high at the time, plus massive demonstrations taking place across the country, Badalich says they felt it was more important than ever to establish a dance collective that personified the resilience and resistance against racism, homophobia and transphobia through dance. “Our collective is intentionally inclusive, prioritizing representation across race, gender identity, body type and ability,” Badalich says. Fermata means a musical pause of undefined length, which Badalich says represents the uncertainty in the world during 2020.

To dance is to tell a story, and Fermata has a unique way of doing it. The process of coming up with a dance begins with the dancers. They can come forward and present an idea or story that they feel needs to be heard. Then, the team works together with the choreographers to create a dance that tells that story.

Badalich says they tell their stories through dance by asking themself a question and forming a narrative by answering that question. “I think the gift of Fermata is that the intention is so clear that you can decide what it means to you,” Badalich says.

Steph Young, Fermata’s treasurer, says they work with their dancers to develop an intensity that can be translated into dance to express the emotion that comes with the story being told. “I have my dancers sit and listen to the music multiple times because that’s how my mind creates a connection with the scoring,” Young says.

Fermata is a nonprofit organization. Young says being a nonprofit helps provide more opportunities for the community to come together and learn more about dance. “A lack of funds is not a reason to not engage in one of our events, and being able to be a nonprofit really allows for people to give us those donations of just simply space,” they say. 

Fermata is flexible about their performance spaces and takes part in different events around town. This year, they’ll be performing at Founded Fest, Eugene Pride, the Rebelle Summer Soiree and participating in the Summer Choreographic Workshop series. “We’ve done seasonal workshops where we cultivate choreography and this will be our first season that we’re able to reuse some of that repertoire from one of our workshops to perform it at an event which will be at Found Fest on June 8,” Young says.

As a relatively new collective, Fermata is just getting started. “I would love for us to, like, keep expanding our programming, our outreach, community partnerships,” Badalich says. Young says they hope Fermata will be able to expand their educational program, helping new artists explore their talents. “We’ve had our first seminar with lighting design, and we’re aiming to expand that with all varieties of knowledge within performing art,” Young says. 

Fermata performs at this year’s Arts and Business Alliance of Eugene BRAVA awards 5:30 pm May 20 at the Hult Center. Tickets are $35 at ArtsBusinessalliance.org/calendar.