In 1986, Mary Beth Cabana established Ballet Tucson. Her hope was to bring professional-level ballet to Southern Arizona.
Ballet Tucson kicked off their 2026-27 mainstage season with “Spirit Garden and Other Works” Friday, Oct. 23 through Sunday, Oct. 25.
Margaret Mullin, Ballet Tucson’s artistic director since the spring of 2022, said the show highlighted different types of ballet, including more classical and contemporary styles.
“It’s a nice way to expose people to ballet, as far as people that are newer to the art form, because they get a sampler platter. In one evening, they get four different adventures,” Mullin said.
Season subscriptions are still available for Ballet Tucson and come with perks such as chances to come to the studio to watch rehearsals.
For their first show of the season, Ballet Tucson hosted the world premiere of a new piece called “Ovation.” It was designed specifically for their 40th anniversary to celebrate the company and school.
“It is featuring leading dancers from our professional company with Corps de Ballet students from our school, so they get a chance to be a part of this special 40th anniversary celebration,” Mullin said. “We’ll have 37 students, and then there’s a principal cast of six professional dancers. We wanted to really celebrate classical ballet. A friend of mine who is resident composer for the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, Dan Coleman, recommended Bach works to me. We’re doing a selection of Bach music. It’s very classic, and we have these beautiful, romantic tutus. All the students have new costumes. We’re trying to capture some glamour and elegance for the 40th,” Mullin said.
The piece was created by Mullin, Rehearsal Director Brik Middlekauff and Associate Artistic Director and Resident Choreographer Chieko Imada.
“In general, you don’t often get many choreographic collaborations for ballets. The fact that there’s three is definitely very unique. The movements are very classical ballet. The rest of the show is more unconventional ballet, so we thought we’d do something very classical for ‘Ovation,’” Mullin said.
The three choreographers worked with students from different class levels. Mullin had the chance to choreograph for graduating seniors.
“They are getting to do more complicated choreography. They’re in the first section of the ballet. So, they open the ballet, which is exciting for them. The curtain will go up on them… I really did push them a lot with the choreography… I definitely made it more adult for them so they could really feel like ballerinas,” Mullin said.
The School of Ballet Tucson offers training for dancers of different ages and levels. Many classes highlight different styles of dance, such as ballet, modern, jazz, tap and hip-hop.
Mullin grew up in Tucson and danced at the school from ages 9 to 18 before she moved to Seattle to pursue a dance career. She was there for 14 years before she returned to work with Ballet Tucson.
For their first concert, Ballet Tucson brought back Imada’s piece “Spirit Garden,” which paid tribute to the Día de Los Muertos holiday.
The company has done the piece a few times over the years. They premiered it back in 2016.
“Since it’s our 40th anniversary, it felt like a good time to bring it back again,” Mullin said.
For “Spirit Garden,” the dancers wore hand-painted unitards with skeleton designs.
“A really unique element is they actually are treated to glow. There’s a portion of the piece with a black light, so you’re seeing the glowing bones,” Mullin said.
“Spirit Garden” featured artwork from Southwest artist Lawrence Lee and music from Tucson band Calexico and flamenco guitarist Misael Barraza-Diaz.
Ballet Tucson previously choreographed to Barraza-Diaz’s music for their piece “Desert Dweller.” The guitarist has also performed with the company in the past.
Mullin said Ballet Tucson tries to collaborate with local artists and musicians when they have a chance.
“We are Southern Arizona’s only professional ballet company, and we really care about our community. We have such a great arts community here, so any chance we can, when it makes sense, we try to find ways to do unique local collaborations,” Mullin said.
During the concert, Ballet Tucson offered an encore performance of an abstract piece called “The Storm Before the Calm” by Maya Hughes. It was the audience winner of their “Steps Forward” emerging choreographers’ showcase.
“Dancers from our own professional company apply to create works. We select eight of them, and then the audience gets to vote on their favorite piece of the evening, and the winning work gets an encore. As an emerging choreographer, it’s always great to have on your resume that you presented a piece onstage with a professional company,” Mullin said.
The dancers were given a small budget for their pieces.
“As an emerging choreographer, when you’re making a new work, usually somebody doesn’t hand you a gigantic sum of money to make that. We try to provide that experience of how to source things. (Maya) scoured the Internet, and everyone’s wearing these long, emerald green rompers that are quite pretty. She also incorporated white dress shirts for the hustle part of the piece, where everyone is in the grind,” Mullin said.
Mullins said that Hughes’ piece really resonated with audience members at the showcase.
“It’s a burnout story about how our society pushes everybody so hard to succeed, and everyone’s stretched to the max and pushing themselves to the max. I think what really touched the audience was that it gives optimism around leaving that part behind, getting more in touch with ourselves and having more connections with people around us. The choreography is very strong. She has a great use of space with the dancers. She uses her stage well,” Mullin said.
Hughes is a Corps de Ballet dancer who started her formal training at the School of Ballet Tucson at age 3. She is also a graduate of the University of Arizona’s dance program.
For their recent show, the company also brought back Seattle choreographer Kiyon Ross’ piece “[NO HOLDS] barre’d,” a tutu ballet with a twist.
“It’s funky and a little sassy. Everyone’s wearing a tutu. There are ballet bars onstage, but that’s the extent of the classical element. It’s a little more edgy. There are even dancers flipping on the bars. So, it’s very athletic,” Mullin said.
In the piece, the tutus are visually striking, in fluorescent yellow, pink and orange colors.
Mullin said throughout their seasons, they try to highlight different choreographers so that audiences get exposed to different styles of ballet and subject matter.
“I was really fortunate during my dance career in Seattle. The company I danced for was a really big company, so I got exposed to a lot of different choreographers. I got to meet a lot of amazing choreographers. I’ve reached out to many of them since taking over Ballet Tucson to bring their works to Tucson, as well as doing our local creations,” she said.
Mullin added that during her tenure as artistic director, there has been significant growth and change in the company and school.
“Since we’ve emerged from the pandemic, we’ve really made a lot of changes to our repertoire. We have a great group of dancers now. We’re at 32 professional dancers, which is amazing. When the professional company first started having a more regular season when I was in the school, there were only 10 dancers. To go from 10 to 32 is a big step. It definitely has changed what we’re able to do onstage and also out in the community as well,” Mullin said.
Each year, the company puts on five productions. The 2026-27 season will also include performances of “The Nutcracker,” “Carmen and Other Works,” “Appalachian Spring and Other Works” and “Hansel and Gretel.”
Ballet Tucson regularly engages with the Tucson community through pop-up performances, community dance classes, Best Foot Forward dance classes at Title I schools and the Ballet Banter lecture series. They also provide free performance tickets to underserved kids.
This year, they offered three students from the Best Foot Forward program scholarships to attend their ballet school and continue their dance training.
“That’s another program that we really want to grow. It’s creating that link from the Best Foot Forward program to our official school for those students that are interested,” Mullin said.
This year, the company is launching a preprofessional program for students at the top levels at the school.
“It’s optional for them to participate in it, but they get additional performance opportunities. They get mentorships. They get seminars with professionals. It’s more curated towards dancers that are really interested in pursuing this as a path. In our inaugural year, we already have 20 participating,” Mullin said. “The majority are interested in a professional dance career, which is really exciting to see. And because they get the mentorships, they get to interact with our company dancers and our school leadership. Back in the day when I was graduating from school in Tucson, my whole generation, everybody wanted to get out of Tucson. We were the generation that fled if we didn’t go to the UofA. It’s nice to hear some of them are now saying they would be interested in joining Ballet Tucson.”
For more information on Ballet Tucson, go to ballettucson.org.
