Durante Verzola is coming home this month the way many of us want to return after a time away: as a respected, nationally renowned professional in his field. The last time Kansas City audiences saw the Lansing native on the stage, he was dancing the boy Prince in Todd Bolender’s The Nutcracker, where at 14 he already looked more like a full-fledged company member than a student dancer.
Since then, Durante has built an extraordinary career for himself—first as a dancer with Pennsylvania Ballet II and Suzanne Farrell Ballet, and now as a sought-after choreographer. Today, he serves as Miami City Ballet School’s resident choreographer, where he teaches and choreographs several works a year for the students.
Lately, too, he has been invited by an increasing number of American companies to create new works. And although he began his career as a dancer—having studied at the Kansas City Ballet School, Kansas School of Classical Ballet, Miami City Ballet School, and the School of American Ballet summer courses—it is his activities as choreographer that have earned him a spot in this month’s Dance Magazine—as part of its annual 25 to Watch. “Everyone’s dream is to be on that list,” Durante said. “I always imagined maybe it would be as a dancer, but to have it be for my work now, as a choreographer, is even more rewarding.”
It is also as choreographer that Durante returns to Kansas City Ballet this month, one of six dance-makers invited by Artistic Director Devon Carney to create works for the company’s New Moves program (January 29th through February 1st). His 15-minute Meditations joins new works by Duncan Cooper and Maria A. Konrad and by company members Amira Hogan, Joseph Boswell, and Cameron Thomas.
“New Moves is especially noteworthy in that each piece is indeed a world premiere,” said Devon of the initiative. “Nothing is repeated or restaged: It’s what makes it so special and unique.” Since its founding in 2014, New Moves has become a showcase where the company can enjoy “helping emerging choreographers become more established,” Devon said, “and providing a new space for new artists to debut their work in Kansas City.” Durante’s piece will use movements from Dvořák’s Piano Quintet No. 1—to be performed live by the Opus 76 String Quartet and pianist Jordan Voth.
Watching Durante’s choreography, one is immediately struck by its uncommon sensitivity to the music—something often found among those trained in the tradition of George Balanchine. “I’ve always had a deep love of music,” said Durante, who discovered the works of Balanchine at age 11 and was enthralled by the choreographer’s “perfect harmony between music and steps.”
He started listening to music early on, with great care: His mother, Patricia, is a gifted pianist, and as a boy Durante created home-grown choreography in the family’s home, sometimes with siblings as dancers, while Mom played. “My ear is open to music,” Durante said. “I’m able to hear certain things, and to translate music into balletic steps.”
From his father’s side (Eric Verzola is a first-generation Filipino American who served in Iraq as a Major in the U.S. Army) he observed dance as a force for building social fabric. Gatherings with his paternal grandparents in Festus, Missouri often included dance. “Music and dancing are an important part of Filipino culture: that is how they find enjoyment and community,” Durante said. “That part of the culture really resonates with me, and it has given me a deep love for and understanding of dance as a means of connection and expression.”
The spirit of Balanchine has followed Durante through life, beginning at age eight when he studied with former School of American Ballet student Marisa Paull Gorst. In Kansas City he trained with a company steeped in the legacy of Todd Bolender, a founding member of Balanchine’s first companies in the 1930s and ’40s. At age 16, he moved to Miami to study at one of the central hubs of Neoclassical dance: Miami City Ballet, a company also established by a former Balanchine star.
It was shortly after he arrived at Miami City Ballet School that Durante created his first fully choreographed work, A Light Exists in Spring, which caught the attention of the company’s artistic director at the time, Lourdes Lopez (herself a former star principal at Balanchine’s New York City Ballet). Lourdes programmed the work on the school’s first annual Choreographic Workshop, and when Durante completed his studies, she offered him one of the school’s coveted apprenticeships.
But with an offer to dance with Pennsylvania Ballet II (now Philadelphia Ballet) in hand, he felt it was time to begin his professional career. Two years into that stint, he joined Suzanne Farrell Ballet in Washington, D.C.: another company founded by a former Balanchine dancer. Each of these jobs offered once-in-a-lifetime opportunities: such as preparing Balanchine’s Tzigane at Farrell Ballet with the ballerina for whom it was created; or working with William Forsythe as understudy in The Second Detail at Pennsylvania Ballet; or dancing a Jerome Robbins pas de deux at Pennsylvania Ballet II.
Returning to Miami City Ballet in 2022, Durante has enjoyed great support from the School’s artistic director, Arantxa Ochoa, who he says “has given me many opportunities and has always believed in my talents.” With some 50 works already under his cap, he has been invited to choreograph for Miami City Ballet, Pennsylvania Ballet II, Ballet Dallas, Central Pennsylvania Youth Ballet, Ballet Chicago, Columbia (University) Ballet Collaborative, Goucher College, School of Pennsylvania Ballet, Kansas School of Classical Ballet, and many others.
Notable works include Sentimiento for Miami City Ballet, Strings of Play for New York City Ballet, Many A New Day for Ballet Memphis, and Symphony for Les Ballets Trockadero de Monte Carlo. He has also participated in New York University’s Center for Ballet and the Arts and the New York Choreographic Institute.
In 2020 Durante formed his own 501(c)3, Verzola Ballet, which so far he has used primarily for single projects. He sees the formation of a nonprofit as “more of a future thing: I want to have a group of dancers that I can bring together every so often, because my ultimate goal is to have my own school and company attached to it.”
For now, more than anything Durante loves to create new work. “There is so much music out there,” he said, “and there are always new ways of presenting classical ballet—even straying from traditional structure a bit.” Though his work is grounded in ballet, “I do like to have an element of surprise, putting dancers together you wouldn’t expect to see, for example.”
His devotion grows from a deep affection for the art form. “I love ballet so much that I don’t want to see it become stale or unimportant,” he said. “There are always ways of presenting it that can help it step into today’s world, that can make it a little more relatable.”
—By Paul Horsley
New Moves is this January 29th through February 1st at the Todd Bolender Center for Dance & Creativity. Call 816-931-8993 or go to kcballet.org. The program also includes Maria A. Konrad’s Spark, Duncan Cooper’s A State of Play, Cameron Thomas’ Soul States, Amira Hogan’s A Wish of Love Was What It Was, and Joseph Boswell’s Fantasia.
To reach Paul Horsley, performing arts editor, send an email to paul@kcindependent.com or find him on Facebook (paul.horsley.paul.horsley.105484) or X/Instagram (@phorsleycritic).
