Then and now: Akron celebrates 50-year legacy of the Heinz Poll Summer Dance Festival

Akron has plenty to be proud of as it celebrates its 50-year legacy of presenting free professional dance performances in city parks this summer, starting July 26 at Forest Lodge Park in West Akron.

The longtime tradition of providing outdoor dance as a free gift to the Akron community began in 1974, when German choreographer Heinz Poll's Chamber Ballet at the University of Akron went professional.

His company, renamed the Ohio Ballet two years later, began its Summer Festival at Cascade Plaza in downtown Akron in 1974, performing on a wood stage built from donated lumber.

"We were actually pioneering something there. We laid a wood floor because, of course, it had to be springy, a little bit, on truss work. And then we put a Marley [dance] floor over that," said Jane Startzman, a former Ohio Ballet dancer and director of the Heinz Poll Summer Dance Festival.

In the early years, lighting instruments were on towers, and crews put heaters under the stage floor so it wouldn't get wet from moisture after the sun went down.

Backstage was a flatbed truck with steps built to reach the flatbed.

"It was crazy, but man, it was fun," Startzman said.

Startzman, who started as an apprentice with Poll's student Chamber Ballet in 1969, said in the Ohio Ballet days, the company performed in at least three Akron parks. Over the years, park performances expanded to communities including Hudson, Warren, Youngstown, Wooster, Ashtabula and Medina.

See performances: Heinz Poll Summer Dance Festival celebrates 50 years

By 2003, the dance stage in the parks became much more high-tech, created by a rented, Transformer-style tractor-trailer called Mr. Stage. Its sides slide up and out to make the roof, and the floor pulls down, unfolding into a 40-square-foot stage.

A stage roof better protects dancers from rain, and the stage lighting is more theatrical than the simpler illumination the early performances in the parks were able to provide.

Each year, erecting the dance stage is like creating a small city — three times in three different Akron parks in recent festival years.

The city of Akron supported Ohio Ballet's outdoor summer festival since the beginning. After Ohio Ballet folded in 2006, the city continued that rich dance festival tradition by sponsoring the event since 2007, led by Heinz Poll Summer Dance Festival co-founders Startzman and then-Deputy Mayor David Lieberth.

Now, the outdoor festival features a different dance company each weekend, kicking off this year with Ohio Contemporary Ballet at Forest Lodge Park July 26 and 27. It continues with GroundWorks DanceTheater Aug. 2 and 3 at Firestone Park and ends with Dayton Contemporary Dance Company Aug. 9 and 10 at Goodyear Heights Metro Park.

Other esteemed guest companies from beyond Northeast Ohio over the years have included Pilobolus, Martha Graham and Ballet Hispanico.

"We are something on the dance scene to be proud of and Akron should know it," Startzman said of the festival.

"It's taking exceptional dance with exceptional technical values into different neighborhoods," she said. "As far as I know, that is still unique in the United States, doing it that way, and for free — offering a gift to people of the arts for free."

For more festival information, see akrondancefestival.org .

Here's the rundown for three weekends of dance performances in the parks.

Ohio Contemporary Ballet

As part of Akron's celebration of 50 years of summer dance, each park performance night will include the 13-minute film "Soaring" about Poll's life. The film was written and produced by Ohio Contemporary Ballet Artistic Director Margaret Carlson.

Ohio Contemporary Ballet will take the stage at 8:45 p.m. July 26 and 27 at Forest Lodge Park, 260 Greenwood Ave. The troupe will perform Richard Dickinson's contemporary "Carmen," set to Bizet's music. Other dances will be the pas de deux from Gerald Arpino's 1981 "Light Rain" and Tommie-Waheed Evans' 2013 "Dark Matter."

GroundWorks to take final Akron bows

This year's festival is a milestone moment for GroundWorks DanceTheater of Cleveland, which will give its penultimate performances at Firestone Park Aug. 2 and 3 after 25 years creating contemporary dance in Northeast Ohio and beyond. Performances will be at 8:45 p.m. at 1480 Girard St.

The five-member company, founded by former Ohio Ballet dancer David Shimotakahara, will close shop after a final, free performance Aug. 10 at Cain Park in Cleveland Heights. The small contemporary dance company faced continually growing financial shortfalls and the prospect of unsustainable costs with a succession plan, Shimotakahara said.

"The cost of new leadership − the capacity that would take administratively − the cost of sustaining that just didn't seem feasible," said the Cleveland Heights resident, who danced with the Ohio Ballet from 1983 to 1999.

"The dancer part for me is the hardest part, and the emotional part is these artists that I just admire and adore. In many ways we were in such a good place, artistically, programmatically," Shimotakahara said of Ahna Bonnette, Madison Pineda, Teagan Reed, Victoria Rumzis and Matthew Saggiomo.

Twenty-five years ago, Shimotakahara formed his contemporary dance company with dancers who, like himself, had ballet roots.

"I'm eternally grateful to Heinz [Poll] for what he started in Akron. Certainly Heinz Poll Summer Dance Festival is a direct legacy of his vision and I'm just so proud that GroundWorks was able to be a part of that and helped to continue it," he said.

Poll was ahead of his time with his chamber-sized ballet model that did modern, contemporary and classical ballet work, Shimotakahara said. As a result, the dance artist chose to explore contemporary work more deeply with GroundWorks.

Over the years, GroundWorks presented dance in non-traditional ways, including performing a dozen times in the historic Ice House on North Summit Street in Akron. During COVID, the company also performed in Akron on the top level of a Goodrich parking deck and did a drive-in dance at a downtown parking lot , with audience members in cars creating a box-like configuration around the performance space.

At the Heinz Poll Dance Festival, GroundWorks will say farewell to the Akron community with the world premiere of "Monk," a tribute by Shimotakahara to the genius of jazz great Thelonius Monk.

"His work is a metaphor for finding beauty in imperfection. It has inspired my thinking about the messiness of life, accepting the things we aren’t, and making the most of what we are," the choreographer wrote in his program notes.

Also on the program is the world premiere of the theatrical piece "The Sixth" by Olivier Wevers, founder of Whim W'him Seattle Contemporary Dance.

In mid-July, GroundWorks was continuing work in Cleveland on Antonio Brown's "kick-butt" new work called "Systems Engaged," which also will have its world premiere in Akron. The piece will feature an original music and sound collage by Brown.

Shimotakahara, whose career accolades include being voted “One of 25 to Watch” by Dance Magazine in 2002 for his work with GroundWorks and earning Summit Artspace’s Arts Alive Award in 2023, said he'll take his time to decide his next steps.

He thanked the Akron community for supporting him throughout a career that he loves and is passionate about.

"It's been a privilege to be able to perform for and just have my work appreciated and supported by the Akron community for this long a period," Shimotakahara said.

Dayton Contemporary Dance Company

Rounding out the festival, world-renowned Dayton Contemporary Dance Company (DCDC) will perform at 8:45 p.m. Aug. 9 and 10 at Goodyear Heights Metro Park, 2077 Newton St. Works will include William B. McClellan Jr.'s "The Story Unfolds," the modern dance classic "Mourner's Bench" by Talley Beatty, Shonna Hickman-Matlock's "Moments of Indecision" and Crystal Michele's "Body Talk" excerpts, which weave literature, music, movement and African-American traditions.

Arts and restaurant writer Kerry Clawson may be reached at 330-996-3527 or kclawson@thebeaconjournal.com.

This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Then and now: Akron celebrates 50-year legacy of the Heinz Poll Summer Dance Festival