Dip those knees, extend those legs: What it’s like inside an important Sacramento audition

As job interviews go, a ballet audition is very quiet.

And tense.

Sixteen would-be dancers gathered in Sacramento Ballet’s practice space last Saturday. They stretched, they brought water bottles — but they did not talk. There was no formal interview process. They didn’t meet with all the department heads. They didn’t talk about where they hope to be in five years. Instead, they did a plié. Turn those feet out, creating a 180-degree straight line, and dip the knees. And again. And again.

For an hour and a half, 16 dancers stood on their toes and showed Sacramento Ballet executive director Anthony Krutzkamp how quickly they could learn, and just how flexible and strong they are. Stefan Calka, a Sacramento Ballet dance coach, sat at the front of the room with printed resumes and head shots of dancers. Jill Marlow Krutzkamp, Anthony’s wife, watched with rapt attention.

Anthony Krutzkamp and Calka sifted through more than 600 applications from people who want to dance in Sacramento. The process started in fall; six more applications landed Friday night, just before the deadline. They still don’t know how many slots they’ll have to fill in Sacramento Ballet. That will depend on how many dancers leave for another job or retire. It could be a few; it could be none. Dancers have until April 1 to accept a contract for the next season.

The creative team spent days’ worth of time looking at every minute of video submission from every dancer. They’ve done Zoom auditions for dancers overseas. Putting on shows is their first job; developing a pipeline for the next wave of dancers is a very time-consuming second gig.

“Coming out of a pandemic, we said we’re gonna look at every video and only invite the people we’re interested in,” Krutzkamp said. “We just didn’t know it would come from everywhere. That’d be Australia, Southeast Asia, eastern/western Europe, South America, Africa. It’s crazy. So I’m tired. I fell asleep with a laptop in my lap last night, just going through the last little bit of what I can get through. But we did this right. We only have the people we want to look at.”

Before the dancers began their work Saturday, Krutzkamp did what he could to set expectations and let them know he’s a human being. He expects learning, not perfection.

“I am going to give directions. That never happens in auditions,” he told the dancers. “If I tell you to do something you have never done, don’t do it. I like your ACL. You like your ACL.”

With that, he nods to the piano accompanist in the corner. A song familiar to anyone who has ever been to a wedding started. The wooden piano clangs out, “Canon in D,” also known as Pachelbel’s Canon. You’ve probably seen a bride slowly walk down the aisle to it more than once. Jill Krutzkamp leaned over and very quietly whispered to a reporter, “We had it at our wedding.”

Anthony Krutzkamp slowly rotated around the class, gently offering instructions. Point your little toes down. Shoulders down. He watched but didn’t stare as dancers picked up his instructions. The staff watched how the dancers’ legs fit together. They watched how quickly they executed moves. Mostly, they watched how the dancers learned.

When Anthony Krutzkamp announced a saucier song, a dancer finally spoke up. “You want attitude?” she asked. “Spicy,” Krutzkamp said with a smile. And the piano started again.

It sounds stressful because it absolutely was stressful. Before the audition started, dancer Jackson Kettel, 28, stood outside the Clara arts center and marveled at the blue skies. “I haven’t seen a cloud since I got here,” said Kettel, who was visiting from Norfolk, Virginia.

“I love where I’m at. I’ve been there for a few years. I like to kind of keep myself fresh. Auditioning is just kind of healthy, I think. It’s also terrifying. So there’s always that,” he said.

Erin McMahon, 28, dances in Roanoke, Va. She laughed at Kettel’s description. Sounds about right. She’s engaged and will move to California to be with her husband, who has a job at a startup in the Bay Area. She’s drawn to Sacramento Ballet’s genre-bending style, which mixes classical, neoclassical and modern dance.

“I’ve had a lot of friends throughout the last few years who have danced at Sacramento, liked it and they did a lot of different things. I know a lot of people throughout the decade who have been here, so I figured it was worth a shot to apply.”

That would be music to Krutzkamp’s ears. He takes obvious pride in his ballet’s variety. “You can’t get bored,” he said.

The Krutzkamps and Calka know all about variety. They all danced professionally before landing jobs in administration. Now, instead of participating in the stressful tryouts, they lead them. And they try to give dancers an experience different from their own; no cuts during the middle of tryouts, for example.

Calka said moving into teaching just made sense.

“The last few years of dancing, I had already come to peace with all that I’ve done, all the roles and things I wanted to do. So I got to check those boxes off and have all those good things, and then it’s just being on the other side of the room.”

The room is, of course, tense. Anthony Krutzkamp circling slowly, watching the moves of four young men and 12 women.

After 40 minutes, a favorite emerged. A young woman near the front caught the eyes of Jill Krutzkamp and Calka. Anthony came over to ask about the young dancer’s name.

“She’s picking up nuances, timing and coordination,” Jill Krutzkamp whispered. “She’s super strong. She’s super smart.”

All this without an interview. Anthony Krutzkamp said he doesn’t need to hear about career ambitions. You want to dance in New York or San Francisco? Great. You like Sacramento? Also great. Dip those knees, swish those feet, get full extension on your leg.

“If there’s someone that wants to use us to become amazing, that’s fine. Because we got to be part of it. Right?” he said. “But … we have some pretty phenomenal dancers that I know are just going to be with us. They like it here. Right? And I’m happy to keep them.”

And if they leave? That just opens up a spot for someone who was in that room Saturday, sweating as they held an impossible position.

This story was originally published March 15, 2022 at 10:49 AM.