Silas Farley, a retired New York ballet dancer who surprised many when he left the company at the beginning of his dance career last year, will succeed Jenifer Ringer as director of dance programs at Colburn School in Los Angeles on July 1, said the school with on Wednesday. He will become Dean of the Trudl Zipper Dance Institute, and Loen Callaghan, former director of the North Carolina Dance Theater School and Miami City Ballet School, will succeed James Fayette as Associate Dean.
Ringer and Fayette, who are both former City Ballet Headmasters, began their tenure at Colburn School in 2014, raising the profile of the dance department in both teaching and professional circles. In a phone interview, Ringer said she and Fayette want to spend more time with their young children and be close to their family in South Carolina, but will keep a relationship with school and return frequently to teach.
Ringer said that 26-year-old Farley, who created a piece with the students during the school’s virtual summer intensive course and choreographed part of his virtual production of “The Nutcracker,” immediately came to mind as the head of the school. He was also proposed as a candidate by Sel Kardan, President of the Colburn School.
“It felt like the right next step,” Farley said in a phone interview from Dallas, where he spent the past year as an artist-in-residence in the dance department of the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University.
The Colburn School, Farley said, is already a world-class center with a music school. “And the hope is that the name is synonymous with the best dance training,” he said, “as if the Paris Opera Ballet School and the Paris Conservatory were in one place.”
Farley, who said he has always wanted to be a leader in the dance world, does not allow himself to be discouraged from entering an important position at a young age. He said he knew he would be helped by Callaghan, who was the director of the ballet school he joined when he was 9 and with which he still has a close relationship.
“She will be an amazing contributor and teach me about the budgetary, administrative dimension of being an art guide,” he said.
Since his early teens, Farley has been observing, reading and learning all about ballet, choreography and dance history. He began teaching at the School of American Ballet in 2012 and has taught at many institutions including Ballet Austin and the Boston Ballet School. He has also been a board member of the George Balanchine Foundation since 2019 and, since last year, the most knowledgeable and sociable presenter of City Ballets “Hear the Dance” podcast.
“He’s young but he’s been teaching for a long time, and I love how passionate he is about dance and dance history,” said Ringer. “He wants to learn both and has a wealth of expertise.” She added that she was excited that Farley “as a man of color in the role will be a beacon in the dance world”.
Farley said he wanted to promote the freedom of choice among Colburn School students and develop whole dancers. “I don’t want automata that are programmed to perform dance steps,” he said. Dance history, he added, should be an integral part of a dancer’s education, “not a 30-minute-a-week add-on”.
Diversity issues would need to be addressed on all fronts, what types of ballets are performed, what music is selected, who teaches and who has access to school. “The wider a network, the richer our art form,” he said. “Ballet is a big tent with a big hug, and there’s space to welcome everyone.”
