Evaluator Daniel Simmons

Bruce Simpson, incoming artistic director of the Louisville, Kentucky Ballet, formerly with the Fort Worth-Dallas Ballet, and Daniel Simmons serve as the two Evaluators for The VII International Jackson Ballet Competition. Their is a role, originally unique to Jackson, and a task both remarkable, and time consuming, commencing immediately following Round One. Theirs is the task to meet with the competitors weeded from Rounds One and Two, reading the jurors’ evaluators and discussing the dancers’ reactions to the comments.

Messrs Simpson and Simmons travel each morning to Bellhaven College for conferences with the dancers who sign up for the evaluation at half-hour intervals, talking to the competitors from nine in the morning until five in the evening.

Daniel told me it includes all the competitors for Round One, even those progressing into Round Two. "That’s 100 dancers who each get comments from thirteen jurors," Danny remarked, rolling his eyes a bit. "Thank God for my computer."

It is not an easy task to explain to a dancer with a tear-streaked face why she didn’t make it to Round Two. Now that the number of dancers has dropped to thirty-four for Round Three; there are explanations for an additional twenty-six. "We read the comments to the dancers. Of course, I am careful in how I phrase some of the harsher comments. The majority of comments are quite constructive, and most of the competitors comprehend.

"The sessions are without their coaches. For one dancer, however, I specifically asked the coach to come. I asked the dancer to take off her shoe and showed her where she was not working the foot at the base of the Achilles tendon. She is young enough so that diligent attention and exercise can improve that flaw. You could see the illumination and understanding in her eyes and expression.

"We don’t have the time to spend on much correction, but I would love to have a workshop which could incorporate methods to overcome some of the shortcomings the jurors have written to the dancers. Since the dancers are at least fifteen, it means that the correction needs doing assiduously. But I guarantee you, if a dancer is determined and the teacher also, it is not impossible."

Daniel has a special spot in my heart, not only since he danced with San Francisco Ballet, but also because he has pursued his pedagogical knowledge of ballet so assiduously. "I come from the area outside of San Antonio, Texas, and knew I wanted to dance with San Francisco. I kept after my mother to let me go to San Francisco to study."

Daniel not only studied and danced at San Francisco Ballet at a time when I was the San Francisco correspondent for Dance News. He got permission from Lew Christensen to dance in Les Grands Ballets Canadien production of Tommy, where he watched Hae Shik Kim in her memorable role as The Acid Queen. "I loved her in it, spent six months in the production, and was glad to return to San Francisco."

Ballet can scarcely be considered a democratic art, so the task of presenting information from seasoned observers can be daunting. What helps Daniel accomplish his role is his own experience in becoming aware of how muscle, ligaments and ballet technique work together in the formation of a classical dancer. He spoke of taking a class with Joan Lawson in England, where she asked him to remove his trousers. "She drew circular lines up my leg at regular three or four inch intervals with a thick black grease pencil. When she finished, the light bulb went off in my head that I had not been working with my little toe!" His comment reminded me of a Jin Shin Jyutsu practitioner having a similar experience with Mary Burmeister during her first training session, with a finger exercise designed to loosen a major blocked energy. Embarrassing, perhaps, but enlightening and beneficial, surely.

I remember in the early Eighties Daniel was interested in additional schooling in the Russian method. With the assistance of Olga Guardia de Smoak, he visited Tblisi, Georgia, in the Caucasas, while Chabukiani was still alive. It is to this dancer that the contemporary male dancer owes many of today’s bravura pieces in the classical repertoire, the slave’s variation in Le Corsaire pas de trois in particular. We in the West usually see it as a pas de deux, and it was one of the great Fonteyn-Nureyev show pieces in their well-remembered partnership.

Daniel spent an interesting six years in Walnut Creek teaching three young remarkable young dancers, Elizabeth Loscavio, Shannon Lilly and Cynthia.Giannini. "A special course of schooling was arranged for them by Giannini’s father, a school principal. Their bodies were not ideal, but I worked with them six hours a day, and after dancing with San Francisco, Elizabeth and Shannon have gone on to careers in Europe and England. Cynthia danced several years with the Joffrey"

Daniel left the Bay Area three years ago to head the Ballet Academy affiliated with Cincinnati Ballet. He speaks, like the company’s artistic director, Victoria Morgan, of vision, an exciting, a key word for artistic growth and excellence. If my intuition is at all accurate, we will begin to see some exceptional talent being shaped by that city along the Ohio River.

This piece is part of Ballet.co's overall Jackson Competition coverage. The competition runs from the 15th to the 30th June 2002 and we plan daily reports to keep you in touch:
Jackson Reports index page