Sharen Bradford
Audio By Carbonatix
Diana Crowder was born for the barre. The artistic director and founder of Pegasus Contemporary Ballet, Crowder repeatedly uses the word “passion” when describing her feelings for her chosen career.
Entering the world of ballet at just 3 years old, she developed a fascination with dance that many young girls share. Unlike most kids, though, it simply didn’t dissipate over the years. By 11, the Connecticut native knew she wanted a career in the industry and had convinced her parents to allow her to board at the National Ballet School in Toronto.
“It’s tough trying to dissect what was at the core of me that was just so driven and enamored with this art form,” Crowder says. “My mom had friends who would say, ‘How can you send your daughter away?’ and she would say, ‘How can I hold her back?'”
By 18, Crowder had launched her professional career with the Tulsa Ballet, eventually joining the corps at the Texas Ballet Theater, where she performed in classics such as Swan Lake, Sleeping Beauty, Romeo and Juliet and The Nutcracker for five seasons. Despite her love for the art form, she felt something was missing. She longed to work with contemporary choreographers and expand her horizons, so she went freelance in 2017, traveling to dance everywhere from Seattle to New York City and even appearing in a music video.
“I got to do all these different experiences, and I fell in love with contemporary ballet and using ballet as a creative tool,” she says. “That’s a big part of what contemporary ballet is, using this technique and classical language that’s technical and challenging and using it as a creative tool in spaces where you’re producing new work. I fell in love with that.”
When COVID hit, Crowder realized dancing alone wasn’t enough to fulfill her. She had already explored management with her work in smaller troupes, learning to facilitate and produce as well as pirouette. By organizing marketing events and social media, she realized her path included much more than just performance.
Diana Crowder wanted to dance and to produce, so she started Pegasus Contemporary Ballet.
DFW Dance Photography
“When everything shut down, we didn’t know what was going to happen,” she says. “I helped produce a few projects with colleagues, and as things started to open up, I was ready to use that skill set more. At the same time, I was really passionate about contemporary ballet and using it to express the ideas of choreographers from different backgrounds.”
Thus, Pegasus was born. Choosing the name for its mythological representation of strength, speed, and artistry and its place in Dallas iconography, Crowder incorporated the company in the spring of 2021. She approached four young dancers she admired and, as she recalls, “Miraculously, they said yes. We didn’t even have a website yet, but they believed in that dream as well.”
By the fall of that year, they were up and running with programming that blended multiple disciplines in a fresh mash-up of ideas and aesthetics. The site-specific Suite featured dancers in costumes painted by artist JD Miller performing at Samuel Lynne Galleries. Another piece, Represented in Movement at the Moody Performance Hall, was an interdisciplinary hybrid of dance and visuals in conjunction with the DASH Ensemble. Pegasus has also done a great deal of community outreach, mounting free introductions to ballet classes in Main Street Garden Park downtown and performing “Pints on Pointe” at Pegasus City Brewery.
Throughout all of her initiatives, Crowder feels that bringing dance to unlikely sites or teaming with unexpected partners will set Pegasus apart from other companies.
“We can take contemporary ballet and express it in multiple ways,” she explains. “I like doing a combination of beautiful proscenium concerts and also more intimate venues we can express things in a more immersive way.”
And she’s carrying that philosophy through the next year of programming. The schedule for 2023 will include a collaboration with three yet-to-be-revealed local musicians for Synergy: Dallas Music in Motion at Moody Performance Hall in the spring, followed by Fall Into Dance with two world premiere works at Latino Cultural Center in the autumn.
Crowder envisions her troupe growing in time as well, from its current five dancers to 18. She hopes to foster a myriad of choreographic voices as she provides a supportive community for her dancers to earn a livable wage as they spread their artistic wings.
Currently wearing the hats of artistic director, marketing director, development director, social media manager, and box office manager, Crowder might be expected to be missing her days on the stage. Yet her enthusiasm for the art form and her company’s future is palpable, and she’s just as excited by the possibility of seeing her blue-sky idea grow bigger and bigger.
“I think there’s this certain sense of always something to pursue – it’s never perfect, and it’s never going to be perfect,” she says. “To work so hard at that and share it with an audience is what I fell in love with at 11. But another thing that is exciting about contemporary ballet is it gives you an opportunity to work with artists in other genres so that you can create something more beautiful than the sum of its parts, be it visual artists or contemporary musicians, or costume designers or actors. The sky’s the limit, and the possibilities are endless.”
