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PrintBallet Flood Damage
If you would like to help, tax-deductible donations may be made by mail to Minnesota Ballet, 301 W. First St. #800, Duluth, Minnesota 55802; on-line at the ballet’s website, minnesotaballet.org; or by phone 218-529-3742.
Last week’s flooding caused damage to approximately 90% of the Minnesota Ballet’s performance sets and drops kept in its Duluth storage facility.
Damaged productions include “Dracula,” “Cinderella,” “Sleeping Beauty,” “Swan Lake” Act II, “Peter and the Wolf,” “Passions,” “Carnival of the Animals,” “Coppélia,” and the 1997 “Nutcracker” production. The ballet’s three studios, extensive costume collection, and sets of the present “Nutcracker” and “Midsummer Night’s Dream” productions are safe.
The four-day effort to remove sets from the storage facility began last Wednesday in 18 inches of water, with ballet staff and volunteers first rescuing the set of “Dracula,” the popular vampire production, which the ballet plans to present October 19-20 at DECC Symphony Hall.
Staff and volunteers hung more than 40 hand-painted drops to dry in the rigging above the DECC Symphony Hall stage, sprayed them with disinfectant, then hauled out the remaining set pieces from the storage facility and set them up to dry.
Ballet officials are uncertain how many of the drops and set pieces will be salvageable. These sets and drops were all hand painted and created specifically for the Ballet by regional and national artists and constitute a huge part of the Minnesota Ballet assets and livelihood.
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