Kathleen Rathbun continues to share her passion for ballet

By Mary Beth Roach |  Photos by Chuck Wainwright

 

When Kathleen Abbey Rathbun was a young girl, growing up in Syracuse’s Valley area, she wanted to take tap dance lessons and meet the legendary Gene Kelly.

Her mother had other plans.

She decided her daughter should take ballet instead.

“My neighbor took ballet, so my mom thought that was probably the next best thing,” she said.

That decision some 50-plus years ago would help change ballet in the Central New York area in the decades to follow.

“The minute I entered the dance studio I knew I was where I was supposed to be,” Rathbun said.

She knew it was something she wanted to do for the rest of her life.

“Ballet presents numerous challenges and rewards. Achieving perfection is elusive,” she explained. “Ballet requires flexibility and intelligence to learn and remember choreography. Dancers must also possess athleticism, artistic sensibility and a strong commitment to rigorous training. We are trained for years to make incredibly difficult steps look effortless, yet exciting, at the same time. The goal is to transport the audience through movement, acting and exposing our souls to portray and promote a feeling — whether it’s love, joy or hate, sorrow, etc.”

Today, Rathbun, 64, is the owner and artistic director of Ballet and Dance of Upstate NY, which will celebrate its 30th year anniversary in 2025.

She has developed a curriculum to guide her students to reach their full potential.

“My goal is to do my best to make sure those students with professional drive and potential get the opportunities they need,” she said.

She oversees and organizes various stage productions, which include, among other things, auditioning dancers, developing choreography, choosing costumes and sets and running rehearsals — all while juggling the administrative tasks of running the school.

“We have an incredibly knowledgeable and passionate teaching staff,” she said, adding that many were and are professional dancers who, she said, know what it takes to succeed in this industry.

She joked that as a ballerina, she only had to worry about herself; now, she has to worry about everything else.

“Now I am helping other dancers fulfill their dreams as a ballerina or a male ballet dancer by taking care of everything else,” she said.

 

Her starting ‘Pointe’

When Rathbun was a young teen, her family moved from the Valley to LaFayette and after graduating from LaFayette High School in the late 1970s, she attended Julliard on scholarship and then became a ballet dancer with the Princeton Ballet Society of New Jersey.

A back injury about 18 months later caused her to leave the company. She returned to Syracuse. She met the love of her life, Marty Rathbun. He comes from a family of five boys who lived across the street from her cousin, who has a family of six girls.

“I told my cousin the night I met Marty that I would marry him,” she said.

The couple has been together for 40-plus years and lives in Onondaga Hill.

She returned to dance, running the dance department at the Metropolitan School of the Arts in Syracuse and Syracuse University. But she still wanted to run her own school in order to, she said, share her passion for ballet and “cultivate future artists.”

In the late 1990s, she was able to realize two of her dreams. In 1995 she opened the school. A year later, she founded the Syracuse City Ballet and became its artistic director, allowing her to re-introduce this art form to Central New York audiences.

“I wanted to reinvigorate audiences to ballet performances. From balletomanes [ballet enthusiasts] to people who had never attended a ballet before, I wanted to share my passion for this art form,” she said. “I want to open a new world for audiences to experience incredible athleticism, combined with artistry. I wanted them to experience the beautiful dramatic century-old historical stories, as well as present new works. I wanted to create a magical experience that the audience would never forget.”

To do that, she brought in guest artists while she trained her corps of local student dancers, giving them the opportunity to dance alongside professionals, she explained.

“Whether it was a flying carpet or a large spider climbing down a web in “Aladdin,” or audiences helping to bring Tinkerbell alive through magical flashlights in “Peter Pan,” we created something very special,” she said.

Shows were sold out; they earned rave reviews; and the company’s Nutcracker became a holiday tradition for decades. She attributes success in large part to volunteers who help chaperone and make costumes “and everything in between; her husband and other family members; and students’ families and friends.”

She recalled that in the beginning, the new company couldn’t afford a guest artist, so she danced the role of Wendy in Peter Pan. She recalled that in one scene in that production, Wendy flies in, is hit with an arrow and falls. As Rathbun was lying there, she said she heard her youngest, Claire, a toddler at the time, sobbing “Mommy” from the audience.

Fast forward to 2016, as the company marked its 20th anniversary with that classic, Claire played Wendy. While at her mother’s studio, Rathbun said she sometimes instructed Claire, but often would have other teachers work with her.

Claire went on to dance professionally with Washington Ballet and performed at The Kennedy Center, played White Cat in Broadway’s “Cats” and the touring Broadway show “Anastasia.

However, she has returned to Syracuse to marry, start a family and continue to promote classical ballet. She continues in her mother’s legacy as a dancer with CNY Ballet and a teacher-coach at Ballet and Dance of Upstate NY.

In 2021, the leadership of the Syracuse City Ballet wanted to change artistic direction and it would create significant upheaval for Rathbun and the local ballet community. A year later, a new artistic director was named and Rathbun was out of the company she helped to build.

Then over the winter of 2023-24, controversy rocked the company again. Several of its dancers went out on strike, citing unsafe working conditions. They were fired by the company, and went on to form a new company, CNY Ballet. Rathbun has opted not to comment on the situation and focus on her school at 932 Spencer St.

With about eight teachers and more than 100 students, ranging in age from 3 to 60-plus, the school offers classes in strengthening; contemporary, modern, tap and jazz dance; and of course, ballet.

Over the years, many of her students have advanced from the program and pursued professional careers in dance with ballet companies across the country and in Broadway shows.

To see her students achieve these accomplishments, she said, “it’s really, really an amazing blessing to cultivate and nurture students and to help bring their inner artist to life.”

“The discipline, resilience and dedication learned in ballet are transferable to many areas of life, from academics to personal relationships, helping individuals succeed in various domains,” she pointed out. “Ultimately, ballet is a holistic art form that promotes physical health, mental resilience, emotional expression and creativity. Whether pursued professionally or recreationally, the discipline of ballet offers lifelong skills and perspectives that enrich personal growth.”

And while she may no longer be performing on stage, the mother of three and grandmother of five needs to remain in shape to teach the classes and oversee the school’s operations.

“I think just doing it keeps you in shape. I also practice Pilates; then run around a lot with my grandchildren,” she said, with a laugh.

When asked about her favorite ballet to dance and teach, she said that while every ballet has its own incredible qualities, “Swan Lake” has a special place in her heart.

“It is an incredibly difficult ballet for everyone involved. The corps de ballet must be so precise while performing technically difficult steps. The lead ballerina plays two roles both of which demand impeccable technique and because the two characters are complete opposites she must be a world class actress,” she said.

Rathbun will continue to bring joy to her dancers and audiences. The school is taking part in a holiday show by singer-songwriter Jessica Lynn at The Palace Theatre in Syracuse on Dec. 10.

As for the future, she said she wants to focus on her students, bringing all these kids to the next level, designing programs, further enhancing the teaching staff and helping those of her students who are interested to train for the Youth America Grand Prix, which she compared to the Olympics of ballet. YAGP is an internationally-respected organization that develops world-class dancers.

And she aspires to create a residential ballet program in which students could attend from all over, be housed in the community, spend part of the mornings in school and then use the balance of the day for dance instruction, training, practice and outreach into the community.

“I believe ballet and dance should be available to everyone. The effects that the arts have on our youth is truly life changing and priceless,” she said.