When One Door Closes…

Cedar Lake shut down, and suddenly its dancers were thrust back into the job hunt.

Cedar Lake in Richard Siegal’s My Generation. Photo by Julieta Cervantes, courtesy BAM.

The dance world lost a cherished company when Cedar Lake Contemporary Ballet took its final bow at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in June. Just two months prior, its founder, Walmart heiress Nancy Laurie, announced the company’s closure, leaving its 16 members stunned and jobless. “Finding out about Cedar Lake’s final days was shocking,” says Jon Bond, who danced with the company for eight years. “I thought I would finish my career there.”

When it came to finding a new job, it seems natural that many of the dancers from Cedar Lake, a company that had become known for bringing European choreographers to the U.S., would gravitate towards companies with similar contemporary repertoire. This fall, Bond started dancing with Nederlands Dans Theater. Matthew Rich and Joseph Kudra have joined BODYTRAFFIC in Los Angeles, and Guillaume Quéau and Daphne Fernberger are at Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company (formerly The Forsythe Company).

Others are taking the time to explore less traditional routes. Ebony Williams hopes to continue working as a freelance dancer in both the concert and commercial dance worlds. Ida Saki has joined the cast of
Sleep No More, under a performance schedule that will allow her to finish her degree at New York University, from which she took a leave of absence upon joining Cedar Lake. Joaquim de Santana and Vânia Doutel Vaz have joined the cast of Sleep No More, as well.

Saki was sad to see the company go, but is excited to find out where the next stage of her career will take her. “It was my dream company, so it was so surreal to be a part of it,” she says. “For now, I’m happy and growing.”