On Sept. 19, 2020, Barbara Crockett celebrated her 100th birthday—a tremendous milestone by any calculation. She also celebrated nearly a century in the dance world as a performer, teacher and founder of arts organizations that continue to offer top-level dance education and performance—in Sacramento and beyond.
“My mother has been one of the important strongholds of classical ballet in the country for over 70 years,” says Allyson Deane, Crockett’s daughter. Crockett, along with her husband Deane Crockett, Allyson Deane and Deane’s husband Don Schwennesen, co-founded the Sacramento Civic Ballet Company and Deane Dance Center—one of Sacramento’s premiere dance schools.
“She and my dad gave Sacramento a professional level of training and performing that (the city) had never had before,” Deane adds. “They taught me not only good classical ballet technique, but also their work ethic. My mother so believed that everyone should get the best and do their best no matter their desired future.”
“She and my dad gave Sacramento a professional level of training and performing that (the city) had never had before,” Deane adds. “They taught me not only good classical ballet technique, but also their work ethic. My mother so believed that everyone should get the best and do their best no matter their desired future.”
Born in 1920 in the Bay Area, Crockett joined the San Francisco Ballet—the country’s oldest professional ballet company—in 1936. She married fellow dancer Deane Crockett, with whom she moved to Sacramento in 1945 to start the Crockett Dance Studio and, not long thereafter, the Sacramento Civic Ballet Company. That company laid the groundwork for the capital’s first professional ballet company, the Sacramento Ballet, founded in 1954.
Crockett served as the Sacramento Ballet’s company director until 1986, when another well-known dance figure, Ron Cunningham, took the helm.
“I first met Barbara 35 years ago when I had left Boston Ballet after 13 years and was freelancing along with directing other projects,” says Cunningham, who, with his wife Carinne Binda, were co-artistic directors for the Sacramento Ballet for 30 years before the board ended their tenure in 2018.
“Barbara was looking for her first director to take the Sacramento Ballet into being a fully professional ballet company,” Cunningham says. “Barbara met me in a lovely serene park and we talked for several hours. I absolutely fell in love with her on so many levels and, of course, the job interested me. Carinne and I journeyed to Sacramento to meet her company and were enormously impressed with the training she had delivered to her students and the high level of performance they had achieved.”
That high level of training and performance has been Crockett’s hallmark, both as a dancer and dance educator. Deane reports that one of her mother’s favorite memories is from a tour of the Western U.S. around 1958 in which she and fellow dancers Alan Howard and Grace Doty got stuck in the snow, lived off candy bars and even went to the hospital with the flu—getting out just in time to get on stage and perform.
As an educator, Crockett has always been focused on hard work and attention to detail. Deane says her mother “would be willing to work 20 years on one correction for a dancer to be sure that the dancer—who may or may not want to become a dancer—would benefit from that correction.” Crockett is credited with producing some of the strongest pointe dancers in the world, as well as well-rounded performers who are versed in multiple dance genres and techniques (which Deane and Schwennesen continue through the diverse curriculum at Deane Dance Center).
Crockett was also instrumental in forming the Pacific Western Regional Ballet Association, part of the national nonprofit Regional Dance America, which provides training and scholarship opportunities to pre-professional dancers and choreographers. Crockett’s students have gone on to dance all over the world, including at the Joffrey Ballet, American Ballet Theater and San Francisco Ballet (where her daughter also danced as a principal).
Recognition for Crockett’s immense contributions to the dance world has taken many forms, including a California Senate resolution bestowed by Darrell Steinberg when he was president pro tem, and awards from the Sacramento Regional Arts Council, Sacramento History Center, Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission and many more.
Just as it was her goal in the 1950s, Crockett hopes to see the Sacramento ballet world flourish and continue to give the region “a high level and high quality of professional ballet.”
“It has been nothing but a blessing to have the understanding, support and leadership of my mother as I maneuvered my way through the wonderful ballet world,” Deane says.
A sentiment, no doubt, shared by many.
For more information, visit sacballet.org.
Jessica Laskey can be reached at jessrlaskey@gmail.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram: @insidesacramento.
