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LOUISVILLE MAGAZINE 2.15 81 can move through some challenging leaps. "You can't let your technique control you," Curran tells them. "You've got to be in control of your technique." When Curran doesn't teach, other senior stafers (known as the ballet master and ballet mistress) run the class, while he plans future productions or meets about marketing or fundraising. Curran decides which works to perform, hires dancers and choreographers. Since he started this job in September 2014, he has found time to lead class about twice a week, but he wishes it were more often. "For no other reason than I love teaching," he says. "Class every morning is a chance to explore your body, work out what is working, what isn't working. I remember as a dancer it being a semi-religious, meditative time. And so to be able to facilitate that for other dancers, to create a feeling in the class, to create that kind of culture and atmosphere, is something that I enjoy." urran was born in Canberra, Australia's capital. He started dance lessons as a young child at the behest of his grandmother, whose husband had been a dancer, and he took to it immediately. When he was 13, he left home for Sydney to continue his dance education. At 19, he joined the Australian Ballet, the national company based in Melbourne, and became a principal dancer — a ballet company's highest rank — at 25. He spent 16 years with the company, performing up to 200 shows a year. Lucinda Dunn, another former principal dancer with the Australian Ballet, danced with Curran for a decade. "He knew exactly what his partner was doing at any given moment. He knew when I would breathe," Dunn says. "Robert wasn't solely interested in his position, but was interested in how he made his ballerina look." "It was stressful because you were responsible for someone else's performance as well as your own," Curran says. "But (it was) much more rewarding — the feeling of knowing that someone is dancing better, with more release and more freedom and more joy because you're there to look after them." All those years of lifting another person over his head took a toll on his body. "It was the favorite part of my job and is what damaged me the most," Curran says. "I have lots and lots of back pathology. Part of it just from wear and tear, but also some of it from those risks that he gray drapes on the massive windows hang wide open at the Louisville Ballet's primary studio downtown on Main Street. It's a chilly winter morning, and sunshine beams onto the scufed and springy black dance surface. About 35 members of the company stand at barres arrayed in fve lines along the length of the room. Tey wear layers: sweat pants, feece vests, leg warmers, and thick, pufy slippers. Tey've all spent the weekend as snowfakes and Russian dancers in Te Nutcracker, but now it's time to practice basic skills, to tune up their bodies. (On Feb. 13 and 14, the ballet will put on A Cinderella Story, with a jazz/bebop score by Richard Rodgers.) Pianist Mary Crawford waits at the upright in the corner, ready to accompany the class, as she's done since 1980. Artistic director Robert Curran, a trim 38-year-old with casual but elegant posture, greets the dancers quietly and signals to Crawford to begin a gentle waltz. He's in sweatpants, a tank-top under a T-shirt, and soft black dance shoes. He counts of sequences of simple moves — "plié," "tendu" — and strolls throughout the room, ofering the occasional "good" or "beautiful" or murmured correction. (Te ballet didn't make dancers available for comment.) He barely raises his voice above conversation volume, even though the room is huge. He wears his dark hair short, the way many men do when it starts to thin, and he strokes his close-cropped beard as he watches the dancers. Tey balance on their tiptoes, frozen and breathless, more eyes closed in the room than open. A minute later, a dancer watches herself in the mirror and adjusts the angle of two fngers on her left hand. Te boss is watching. Te class intensifes and the moves become broader. Dancers shed clothing, creating little piles of sweatshirts and socks on the foor. Teir job is to make difcult feats look efortless, but here in class, the efort shines through like sweat stains on tights and leotards. Curran asks Crawford to adjust her tempo so the dancers Ever on His Toes T C By Tara Anderson Photo by Mickie Winters New artistic director Robert Curran plans to take the Louisville Ballet to "unexpected" places. you take onstage — going a little bit too far, throwing someone a little bit too high." After retiring in 2011, he formed a small, contemporary-focused company called JACK Productions with three other dancers. Te mission, Curran says, was "telling diferent stories — stories that visual artists tell all the time, with paintings or flm, but that dance doesn't really take on." Te Louisville job is his frst as an artistic director. But he's been preparing for a role like this since before he retired, completing business and teaching degrees while still performing. Te Louisville Ballet, which formed in 1952, has only had a handful of artistic directors. Alun Jones was in charge for 24 years before Bruce Simpson took over in 2002. More than 80 people applied for the position when Simpson retired last summer. As part of Curran's campaign to get hired, he prepared a 40-page vision document and a 10-year repertoire plan, which mentioned a strong commitment to contemporary ballet in general and new work in particular. "Tis company needs to be recognized for the amount of new work that they present and promote and experiment with — and to some degree fail with — in terms of being brave and bold and trying something new," he says. For April, Curran has selected three works, including a world premiere by one of his colleagues from Australia (he inherited the rest of the current season after Simpson left). Curran won't reveal any details about next season, the frst to be entirely programmed under his direction, but he says it will still include classics. (Subtext: Nutcracker isn't going anywhere.) "When you see the traditional works alongside the contemporary works, you gain a heightened appreciation of them both," he says. "But it's my responsibility to get the balance right." He is still adjusting to life as a retired dancer. Tough he used to exercise for seven- plus hours a day, he now hits the gym at 6 a.m. for an hour of cardio and strength work. He lives alone in a home downtown, within walking distance of the Brown Teatre and the Kentucky Center, two of the ballet's performing venues — although he hopes to expand where we can see ballet. "It could be a supermarket, it could be an abandoned storefront, it could be under a tree somewhere," he says. "Anything that is unexpected."