Banking on KC – Kim Trudell of the Kansas City Ballet: Expanding Access to Dance
The links clicked within the podcast player window and the links below will take you to a site other than Country Club Bank’s.
Listen above or read the transcript below. You can also listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify as well as watching on YouTube!
Kelly Scanlon:
Welcome to Banking on KC. I'm your host, Kelly Scanlon. Thank you for joining us. With us on this episode is Kim Trudell, partnership specialist at the Kansas City Ballet and Todd Bolender Center for Dance and Creativity. Welcome, Kim.
Kim Trudell:
Hi, Kelly. Thanks for having me.
Kelly Scanlon:
We have this jewel here in Kansas City and so happy you're here to come and give us some insights, maybe into some things our listeners don't know about and what goes on behind the scenes. Let's start with the fact that it is a cultural icon here in the region. What inspires you and your position most about the impact it's having on Kansas City?
Kim Trudell:
I love seeing the way that Kansas City Ballet is a unifier for the community. The performances really bring people together. We just finished the Nutcracker, for example, and it's such a tradition for so many families and it becomes more and more so every year, and I love the way that families and friends and people come together at the Kauffman, and that's a wonderful time for people to experience something that's a shared experience.
Kelly Scanlon:
Well, and it's even generational in its impact. Parents will bring their kids, but when they were children themselves, they saw it. It's just become a tradition for so many families. Let's talk a little bit about its history. It was founded in 1957 and it's grown so much since then. So take us back to the founding in '57 and then bring us kind of through the years into what it's grown into.
Kim Trudell:
It was founded, as you said, 1957 by this remarkable woman, Tatiana Dokoudovska, and she envisioned a professional ballet company in our city. And now as it's grown, we are over 30 members in our professional dance company. Our artistic director is Devon Carney. We have an executive director, David Gray. We perform at the Kauffman Center. We have a second company, which is comprised of KCB II and our trainees, and that is about 25 members total. We have a professional dance school, we have partnership programs, and we reach over 20,000 students and adults every year. Talking about history, you
Kelly Scanlon:
Yourself though, you have a long history with the ballet. Tell us about that.
Kim Trudell:
So originally I was a student. I danced in high school and one of my teachers was a company dancer. Going forward, I became a teacher myself and I was on faculty with the ballet for over 11 years. I specialized in the children's division. I'm an early childhood educator, and so that's something I've always been really passionate about. And then during that time at Kansas City Ballet, I founded our Adaptive Dance program and actually this month is our 10th anniversary.
Kelly Scanlon:
Congratulations. What is Adaptive Dance?
Kim Trudell:
It's a program for dance for students with disabilities or anyone that just needs a more open environment for learning and just to make it as inclusive as possible. After I established that program, I had stepped away and started a non-profit and did some additional teaching elsewhere, and then eight months ago, I returned to the ballet as partnership specialist and now I get the wonderful opportunity of overseeing matinees for schools, sensory-friendly performances and developing new programs and partnerships to connect the ballet to the community.
Kelly Scanlon:
Outreach does play a huge role, a significant role in the ballet's mission. So one of those programs is Reach Out and Dance, or I think you call it the ROAD program. How does that benefit local students?
Kim Trudell:
That is a really incredible program that's been in place for about 25 years, very established, and we offer, it's during the academic year in elementary schools, third and fourth grade students, and it's during the school day. We have teaching artists that specifically work with the ROAD program, and we offer either 12 or 24 week residencies. It is an opportunity for students to have dance that maybe wouldn't come to a dance school per se, but they're getting that opportunity to have dance in their schools during the school day. These are public school students. That 12 or 24 week residency, it integrates with a STEAM-based curriculum based on national and state education standards. It's really an excellent opportunity.
Kelly Scanlon:
You mentioned the Adaptive Dance, you have the ROAD program. What are some of the other ones that you have?
Kim Trudell:
Yeah, our ballet school has classes for ages two and up, all ages and abilities, recreational and professional. We also have a variety of genres of dance beyond ballet. We have a summer intensive that attracts students from across the country. We have matinees for schools, which I've mentioned that offers students and teachers the opportunity to experience our performances at the Kauffman at a reduced cost.
Kelly Scanlon:
So making it more accessible.
Kim Trudell:
Absolutely. This year, for example, we had students and teachers come to Alice in Wonderland in the fall and then also at the Nutcracker, which was fantastic. Going back to Adaptive Dance, we have seven Adaptive Dance classes available. Three are at Bolender and then four are at our south campus, and five of them have a wait list, and a lot of our classes have a wait list.
Kelly Scanlon:
Very popular.
Kim Trudell:
Yeah, very popular.
Kelly Scanlon:
And as you say, they come in from all around the country?
Kim Trudell:
Yes, yes. And that's for our summer intensive, which is for a lot of our professional, pre-professional students. So a lot of opportunities.
Kelly Scanlon:
The ballet's performance, as you've mentioned some of them, the Nutcracker obviously is a cherished tradition, but they include traditional works, modern works. How does the ballet select its repertoire so that it can maintain a balance that appeals to a wide variety of audiences?
Kim Trudell:
Yeah, that's a great question. We have an artistic team that really thinks through that. They consider the classics like the Nutcracker, but also combining those with contemporary works. For example, we have groundbreaking choreographers that we have in our New Moves instead of taking place at the Kauffman, that is actually at our Bolender center campus. We have a primary studio that converts into a performance space. So that approach that the artistic team takes in doing our main stage performance with our classics, and then also so that honors our ballet's history, but then also keeping it fresh and relevant by doing the more intimate performance at the Bolender Center with those fresh contemporary works, it's a great combination. In addition to New Moves at the Bolender, we also have our debut of our family-friendly series at the Folly Theater. It's going to be Beauty and the Beast just under an hour, 55 minutes. It's narrated and again, really geared toward young families and we're-
Kelly Scanlon:
Well and at 55 minutes, that really is geared towards younger audiences.
Kim Trudell:
We're really excited about it. It's something we have been looking forward to for some time.
Kelly Scanlon:
Dance is often viewed as an elite art form, and that may be only the elite experience, but the ballet has really tried and worked very hard at making dance accessible to everyone in the community. You've mentioned it in a few ways, the way you take it into students. It also, it sounds to me like given the various venues that you use, that you try to spread it around the community a little bit so people maybe don't have to travel as far, but what are some of the other ways that you're very purposefully making it accessible to everyone?
Kim Trudell:
Yeah, something at the top of my mind daily is how can I lower the barriers to access, especially in my role. One thing, and we've mentioned this, we offer discounted tickets for matinees, for schools performances. We also partner with organizations like TeenTix, and that is offering discounted tickets to teens for $5. We've mentioned as well that we have a second company and perform lecture demonstrations for schools.
Kelly Scanlon:
What is a lecture demonstration exactly?
Kim Trudell:
So it is a performance, it's a narrated performance that is about 45 minutes, and it includes a class demonstration and an explanation of the distinction between a contemporary work and a classical work. And there are demonstrations that are really short and explained by our second company manager. And then at the end of that 45 minutes, there's also an opportunity for student interaction with the dancers and then also typically a short repertoire from a work. And it's just a wonderful combination of explanation and performance, and our second company does an excellent job of that for our schools and community organizations.
Kelly Scanlon:
What is it about dance that is so important and that people should be able to enjoy it and experience it?
Kim Trudell:
One thing that's really special about dance is that it is the one art form where our body is the instrument, and it allows us to express ourselves in a really unique way. And I think that we all can have the opportunity to experience it by seeing it when we get to see the wonderful performances that Kansas City Ballet does on stage, but then also getting a chance to explore it through our classes or our workshops. And that's something that, again, I'm always thinking about access, so having those dance experiences that are accessible, whether we're watching it or whether we're experiencing it ourselves, we should all really be able to have that opportunity, whatever that means.
Kelly Scanlon:
You are very intimately involved with the Todd Bolender Center for Dance and Creativity. I've not been in it, I'll admit that, but I've heard that it's a very stunning space. So talk to us about how that space enhances the ballet's work, whether it's training dancers, hosting community events, and some of the other ways that you use that space.
Kim Trudell:
We have seven studios in that space, which is really an incredible amount, so it allows us to have so many classes for students, and it's also the training facility for our company. As I mentioned earlier, that the primary studio converts into a theater for performances, which is really wonderful, and that's where that performance that I mentioned, New Moves is going to be happening next weekend.
Kelly Scanlon:
You opened a south campus at Meadowbrook, and you mentioned that very briefly. What new doors are being opened for aspiring dancers in the broader community with that addition?
Kim Trudell:
Yeah, the South Campus is a fantastic addition. It's at 95th and Nall. We have four studios there, which again, is just ample space. It's a beautiful accessible space. And so just more opportunities for classes, again, both recreational and professional. And also for our community this fall, one of our community partnerships is Girl Scouts, and we had two of our community workshops, which we related back to the theme of the main stage performances. And we had an Alice in Wonderland workshop there, and we also had a Nutcracker workshop there. And it was great to utilize that space for just different parts of our community to be able, in addition to being downtown, being able to be in the Johnson County area as well.
Kelly Scanlon:
I would think too that with some of the exposure that you are providing to students in particular, that they get their eyes opened a little bit to what goes on beyond the dancing, the sets and all the other different things that go into a production. Can you speak to that a little bit and maybe some of the reactions that you get from students when they see the other things involved?
Kim Trudell:
Yeah, so one of the things that I observe overseeing matinees for schools that really is so heartwarming is students, first of all, when they even just walk into the Kauffman and they have never been there before and you're just seeing them, their faces are just going straight up to the ceiling and their mouths are literally wide open. And if you've never been to the Kauffman before, it really is just an incredible space. And when they're actually inside the theater venue and the music starts, the Kansas City Symphony's playing, and our dancers get on stage.
And by the way, our dancers and our performers, they love our student audiences because they are the loudest. They clap the loudest, they're cheering, they're the best audiences. And so then when they come out, they're usually spinning around, they're twirling, their arms are up-
Kelly Scanlon:
They're imitating what they saw.
Kim Trudell:
Yes, they're imitating a lot of the movements that they've seen. And the teachers talk about how incredible the experience was and just how much their students enjoyed that. And for so many of them, it's their very first experience with dance, and that's really an incredible thing. We love that we get to be a part of that.
Kelly Scanlon:
I can hear the passion for what you do coming through here in our conversation. What is the most fulfilling part of what you do?
Kim Trudell:
I think that the most fulfilling thing is any opportunity that I have to connect someone to dance, whatever that is. Like I mentioned earlier, whether that is coming to a performance, whether that's bringing a performance to them, whether that is bringing them to a class, bringing a class to them, whether that's getting dance into their body or whether that's getting to experience dance in some way that we have our sensory friendly performances. I have teaching artists from our faculty going to senior living facilities, teaching dance. We have so many things that we are doing at the ballet to connect our community to dance, and that is what is the most fulfilling to me. I want, like I said, lowering the barriers to access. Everyone who wants to dance should get to dance. That's what it's about.
Kelly Scanlon:
When you talk about the sensory, we didn't really talk about that. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?
Kim Trudell:
Sure. Our sensory friendly performances, they take place at the Kauffman, and they started in 2018 with the Nutcracker, and it was an opportunity to have a performance for a neurodivergent audience that allows for sounds and sights that are a more open environment. And what we do is we work with the artistic team to consider any particular sounds or anything going on in the performance that might need to have any accommodations. And now with the Nutcracker, have something really consistent that takes place. It's really become a tradition with, we have a sensory friendly audience. Really just wonderful just hearing the stories from the families and individuals that attend. And what we've discovered is that, I think originally we thought this is really going to be geared toward families and children, and as I said, individuals that maybe need a different house experience like with the lights or the sounds.
Also found though that there are a lot of individuals who are in wheelchairs that just really need a smaller audience size because our typical performances like a full house is well over 1,500 people, whereas our sensory friendly performances at just under 600 and we just have a lot more room. It's a general admission. People can move around in their seats, and we have heard time and time again, just what this means to families and individuals to be able to experience the ballet in a way that is more open and allows them to be able to, and this is their wording, not mine, to be themselves.
Kelly Scanlon:
You talked about some of the community relationships you have with the Girl Scout and other collaborative relationships that you have, but for listeners who want to support the ballet, who might want to get involved besides experiencing a performance, what opportunities are available, whether it's volunteering, donating, you name it?
Kim Trudell:
Yeah, there are so many ways to support the ballet. You can volunteer, you can get involved with the Guild or Bolender Society. You can be a corporate sponsor, or if you're a young professional, we have a group called BARRE KC and of course, come to our next performance. You're always supporting us when you do that.
Kelly Scanlon:
It sounds like you have some wonderful ones coming up here soon. So Kim, thank you so much for coming and sharing some of this background on the ballet and how it's evolved and how really ingrained it has become in the community, especially among our youth, it sounds like. We appreciate it.
Kim Trudell:
Yeah. Thank you, Kelly.
Joe Close:
This is Joe Close, president of Country Club Bank. Thank you to Kim Trudell for being our guest on this episode of Banking on KC. The Kansas City Ballet is more than a world-class performing arts organization, it's a community unifier through outreach programs like Adaptive Dance, sensory friendly performances, and the Reach Out and Dance initiative, Kim and our team are ensuring that dance is accessible to everyone. From inspiring the next generation of dancers to making performances welcoming for all audiences, the ballet fosters a love for the arts among Kansas Citians. At Country Club Bank, we believe in the power of the arts to enrich lives. Kansas City Ballet's commitment to accessibility and engagement embodies the values we cherish, building connections, creating opportunity, and enhancing the vibrancy of our region. Thanks for tuning in this week. We're banking on you, Kansas City. Country Club Bank, member FDIC.