After years of freelance projects worldwide, Eric Trope will join Ballet Des Moines in July. (Photo: Leigh Ann Esty)
By Michael Morain
Ballet Des Moines has hired Eric Trope to be its next artistic director, starting July 1. He’ll replace Tom Mattingly, who stepped smoothly into the role four years ago and will continue on for three more as a resident choreographer.
After more than a decade as a dancer with the Miami City Ballet and Philadelphia Ballet, Trope (pictured) recently served as an interim artistic director for the Lexington Ballet in Kentucky and spent the previous few years as a freelance dancer, choreographer, teacher and repetiteur — someone who coaches dancers to learn a choreographer’s movements — for major festivals and companies across North America and Europe.
He participated in the dance workshop for Steven Spielberg’s “West Side Story,” appeared in “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and frequently teamed up with Justin Peck, who this week won his third Tony Award for his choreography in “Buena Vista Social Club.” Trope has staged Peck’s work for national ballet companies in Finland, Spain and the Czech Republic.
“I’ve learned a lot from other companies,” Trope said. “I go into these big state-funded companies with 60 or 70 dancers — massive operations — and it’s very intimidating. I have to force myself in those circumstances to learn how the system works, to learn what the dancers take to and what they don’t.”
Ballet Des Moines, by contrast, has just 11 principal dancers and as many apprentices and trainees. But it also has unusual artistic freedom.
“Lots of companies have to answer to boards with specific opinions” about what to program, Trope said. “When I asked Tom, ‘So, who do I run my season past?’ He said, ‘You decide for yourself.’ That was a big appeal to me. That’s rare.”
When he interviewed with the company this spring, he could see “it was doing things differently,” he said, noting its approach to the ballet business resonated with his own. “It doesn’t have to be toxic. It can be collaborative. You can create art from kindness, from a shared experience. It doesn’t have to be some painstaking process.”
Mattingly (pictured) said he came to Des Moines four years ago for similar reasons. In the wake of the COVID pandemic and Black Lives Matter movement, dance companies across the country started placing more emphasis on outreach and diversity. Here in Des Moines, Mattingly programmed a slate of works choreographed by women, especially women of color, who are still relatively underrepresented in the dance world.
Under the leadership of executive director Blaire Massa, the company has toured statewide, completed a nearly $5 million capital campaign and moved into new headquarters downtown.
“I’ve been here four years, but I think there’s been more than four years of growth. Every year we’re just building and building and building,” Mattingly said. “Having Eric come in with a fresh set of eyes to see what’s possible, it’s going to be exciting to see the next era.”
Meantime, the company plans to formally introduce Trope to the public on Thursday evening at Water Works Park. The program is part of its statewide summer STEM tour, with science and art activities organized in part by the Science Center of Iowa and NASA Iowa Space Grant Consortium starting at 5 p.m. followed by a ballet performance at 6:30 p.m. at the Lauridsen Amphitheater.
