In a large warehouse behind a dance studio, Eric Otto contemplates three shades of gold to paint wooden swords.
Will the one with the most shimmer look best from on stage? wonders the Toledo Ballet’s new artistic director.
He’s finalizing the staging, props, and costumes for the school’s upcoming 82nd annual Nutcracker performance.
“It's a huge task to … ensure everything is in its place for these productions to come alive,” Otto said in the room filled with sets costume racks, and a huge crafted nutcracker head.
“I love everything that's involved,” he added, back in a purple-walled studio, “trying to piece the big puzzle together.”
Otto relocated to Ohio from New York this summer, beginning as artistic director and head of curriculum on Sept. 1, just days before the school’s fall session would begin.
Family business
Otto “was born into a dancing family.” His mom ran a ballet school in Westchester, New York, and all four boys of her seven children pursued dance professionally.
Living any dancer’s dream, Otto studied ballet from age 7 to 17 at the famous School of American Ballet, which trains dancers for the New York City Ballet company.
He went on to dance professionally with several companies and performed on Broadway in The Phantom of the Opera. He also choreographed shows like Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty for different companies.
Nearing the end of his short professional career, Otto knew he wanted to continue to teach and choreograph.
“Ever since I was in diapers, I had been around ballet and dance,” Otto said. “Why would you do anything else when you're a master of something?”
Otto comes in as artistic director at a time of transition and growth for both himself and the Toledo Ballet.
“I wanted to go to a place that I knew had potential to grow,” Otto said. “I wanted to bring my knowledge and instill that in the students and … hopefully one day growing into a small professional ballet company with a thriving ballet school.”
He’s filling the vacancy left when the Toledo Alliance for the Performing Arts decided in January not to renew the contracts for Toledo Ballet artistic director Lisa Mayer-Lang and her husband, resident choreographer Michael Lang.
Guest teachers taught master classes and summer intensives, TAPA president Zak Vassar said, adding that the organization didn’t expect to find the right fit as soon as it did.
“In our conversations before we hired [Otto], he just revealed himself to be a really capable teacher, a really capable human, very impressive father and husband, and just everything that we could hope for,” Vassar said.
The decision to pursue new leadership was to better match TAPA’s vision for the Toledo Ballet, Vassar had said at the time. Otto said he saw that “our visions kind of aligned.”
“I could see they really wanted a fresh new perspective, a fresh change, to come in here and to really help bring their vision alive,” Otto said. “I think they saw my enthusiasm and passion … and I saw the love and the commitment and the need.”
Otto’s first-year goals, he said, are to “bring a cohesive curriculum to put on beautifully constructed professional, classical ballet productions” and to increase student enrollment.
Several parents and students upset with TAPA’s decision left the school, but Vassar said Toledo Ballet’s enrollment is “pretty consistent” with previous years.
TAPA formed in 2019 as a merger of the Toledo Ballet and the Toledo Symphony Orchestra. The ballet’s relationship with the symphony was a “huge draw” for Otto.
“However enticing it may be to work with [music director Alain Trudel], I feel like we're still in a growing phase,” Otto said. “Once I have those professional dancers, then I can work with him and then we can go out and do a lot more in collaboration with the symphony.”
Vassar is looking forward to the two organizations working together as much as they can.
“We're inspiring each other through music and movement and then also our audiences by kind of putting those genres together,” he said.
The road ahead
Otto sat at the front of the dance studio in a recent rehearsal, taking the occasional bite of celery or red bell pepper, and mirroring the dancers' quick footwork beneath his chair.
Through each routine they rehearsed, he jotted notes to help with the “cleaning process,” and worked with individuals and small groups to sculpt and perfect their performance.
The dancers commit to an hour and a half of Nutcracker rehearsal for six days a week. But it's hard when they're also involved in other extracurriculars at school or in the community, he said. Gauging their energy, he sometimes gives them a day off or ends rehearsal early, or may “ease up" on technique classes.
“I want my dancers to be happy and healthy and be able to give me one hundred percent,” Otto said.
Hayden Graham, 15, performs as Clara, the female protagonist, in this year’s Nutcracker. She said Otto is moving the Toledo Ballet forward by bringing in new ideas and styles.
“His style of teaching is really instructive and helpful to the development of our dancing,” the teenager said. “I've seen results just in this period of time, which ... makes me want to return and keep working.”
While encouraging repetition and hard work, Otto ultimately wants his dancers to “go out there and dance and have fun.”
“When I first walk into the theater and I hear the symphony playing and I see the sets and the costumes and my dancers, it really comes alive and I really feel like I'm at home,” he said. “At the end of the day, that curtain goes up, it's live theater and anything is possible. And that's where the magic is. At some point I have to let go and it's in the hands of the dancers.”
The Toledo Ballet's 82nd Nutcracker performance, the show’s longest-running annual production in North America, will be at the Stranahan Theater on Dec. 10 and 11. Visit toledosymphony.com/events for tickets.
December’s show was choreographed by the international principal dancer Eris Nezha. The first show Otto choreographs himself for the Toledo Ballet will be the spring production, which will be a new full-length ballet and will be in collaboration with Toledo Symphony.
Otto described himself as a neoclassical choreographer who also explores contemporary work. He likes fast and musical movements.
“I want the audience to feel entertained, and I want them to walk away exhilarated,” he said. “I think that's who I am as a person, I'm very enthusiastic and passionate so my choreography comes out that way. But I also like to push myself and see what else I can do.”
In addition to leading show rehearsals, Otto also teaches six ballet technique classes each week. Being in the studio with young dancers, “I feel like it’s a vacation,” he said.
His favorite age group to teach is the 7 to 10 range, because he can teach them a lot while still — “a kid myself” — being silly with the class. Not only is he looking forward to having fun in the moment, but Otto is excited for the fun of watching students grow.
“In five years from now, they're going to be the advanced students,” he said. “It takes time to grow and nurture, but I’ll really feel probably at three to five years like, ‘Wow, I'm starting to see the fruit of our labor.’ ”
Otto also wants to make strides in increasing and maintaining boys’ enrollment, citing the notion that ballet is for girls.
“The goal for me is to try and keep them interested here. They've been trying to keep them engaged through doing our productions,” he said. “There's so much to learn, and so much to offer for the young boys to be dancers.”
Otto said he hopes to teach a boys’ class next semester, to share with them his excitement and experience.
With his own son, Quinn, 10, Otto “managed to squeeze him into the Nutcracker” on the premise that he won’t be pushed to continue dancing if he doesn't like it.
“My hope is that he just learns to appreciate it,” Otto said. “I don't necessarily want him to be a ballet dancer [but] I see it and I just want to be able to offer it to him.”
Otto’s hope for his son is the same for every dancer who spends time at the Toledo Ballet.
“At the end of the day, I just want my students to walk away from their time here knowing that, ‘He instilled in me a love for ballet, for dance, for the performing arts,’ ” Otto said. “Alongside the typical stuff, the musicality and the teamwork … I just want them to walk away like, ‘He showed us how to love dance.’ … I lead with my heart.”
First Published November 5, 2022, 3:00 p.m.
