Kennedy: Dance prodigy remembers her mentor

Barry VanCura, the founder and executive director of Ballet Tennessee, passed away two years ago this week.

He was 64.

He died on Jan. 11, 2013, while doing what he loved, preparing to teach a dance class, according to his obituary. Reports at the time said it was heart failure.

For Candace Ricketts, one of the many talented young dancers produced by Ballet Chattanooga, VanCura’s death was a blow.

Ricketts said VanCura was her mentor and also a grandfatherly figure in her life. He told her that her talent and work ethic could propel her to the higher ranks of American dance, she said.

“When Mr. VanCura died, I was devastated and confused,” said Ricketts, 18, who is now training with the Charlotte (N.C.) Ballet. “I didn’t know how to go on.”

But if dance teaches anything, it’s perseverance, the ability to absorb a grinding workload while fighting off self-doubt. To dance professionally one must be confident enough to stare down impossibly long odds while remaining humble enough to learn.

“What we recognized most is that she (Ricketts) had a deep desire to dance,” said Anna Baker-VanCura, who has carried on as Ballet Tennessee’s executive and artistic director after her husband’s death. “If the dancer doesn’t have desire, it doesn’t matter how talented they are. The determination to hang in there in good times or bad is what defines if a dancer goes forward.”

Ricketts said Barry VanCura encouraged her to audition for prestigious dance programs at some of the nation’s ballet meccas. She was the only student at Ballet Tennessee in 25 years to be accepted into New York City Ballet’s prestigious summer intensive program, her family says. She spent a summer with the Boston Ballet in 2012, before VanCura died.

Still, for a time after her mentor’s death, Ricketts said she felt like her future might buckle under the weight of unrealized potential.

“It was very hard,” she remembers. “I had relied on him so much. I started questioning my dancing ability.”

Fortunately for Ricketts, the VanCuras’ guidance had given her enough of an entree into the dance world that she was able to find her footing. Ricketts is now studying with the Charlotte Ballet under Patricia McBride, whose 30-year dance career with the New York City Ballet blossomed under legendary choreographer George Balanchine. To be part of that lineage is to be connected to dance royalty. Last month, McBride, whom Ricketts affectionately calls “Miss Patty,” was recognized as a Kennedy Center Honors recipient.

Ricketts said she feels lucky to be a full-time trainee in Charlotte, but she’s also giving up a lot, such as her high school prom and her high school graduation. At the moment, she’s doing long-distance home-school studies. She sandwiches her academic work around five to 10 hours a day of dance — she attends 18 dance classes each week on top of performance rehearsals.

At this point, Ricketts doesn’t have a career as much as she has a head start. Her time as an unpaid trainee in Charlotte will end this summer and she will be back auditioning to move up the ladder — perhaps as an apprentice dancer in Charlotte, perhaps somewhere else.

“My goal is to be a professional dancer at a big company,” she said.

Today, she is the baseball equivalent of a teen phenom hoping to be drafted by a big-league club. If she gets a chance to dance professionally, college might come later, she said.

Meanwhile, Ricketts said she is still inspired every day by her memories of Barry VanCura’s gentle encouragement.

Her Twitter profile reads: “Love to dance. Love God. Always love you, Mr. VanCura. RIP.”

Ricketts explained, “He always told me, ‘You can do it. You can do it. You can make it outside a small city.’ … I think about how far I’ve come to be here in Charlotte, and I’d like to think he’d be proud.”

Something tells us that he would be.

Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645. Follow him on Twitter @TFPCOLUMNIST. Subscribe to his Facebook updates at www.facebook.com/mkennedycolumnist.