4 dancers prepare to bow out

Get ready to say goodbye to four of N.C. Dance Theatre's leading members at this weekend's performances. 


The four dancers -- Alessandra Ball, Rebecca Carmazzi, David Ingram and Justin VanWeest -- have combined 30 years' experience with NCDT. Their decisions to move on from the company show how  dancers feel the pull of families and relationships. After all, they may play fairy-tale characters onstage, but they're still human. 


Alessandra Ball:  After the career milestone of starring in "Sleeping Beauty" in March, Ball has a personal milestone. She's s getting married and joining her new husband in the Northeast. This is her eighth season with NCDT. "I came here when I was 19," Ball said in a statement, "so I grew up here. I learned everything I know about being a professional dancer here." 


Rebecca Carmazzi: Her decision can be summed up three words: Jaidyn, Taurin and Rykar. Those are her three children with NCDT's Sasha Janes. "I have been a professional dancer for 20 years, and now I am ready to concentrate on my kids and become the best mom I can be," Carmazzi said in a statement. "Being a professional dancer is very demanding physically and you have to be in  amazing shape to do it. ... That's really hard with 3 kids." This weekend, closing her 10th season with NCDT, she plays the scheming Marquise de Merteuil in Janes' "Dangerous Liaisons." 


David Ingram: He's moving to Indiana to rejoin his wife, Alexis, who last year took a teaching post with the Fort Wayne Ballet. Ingram will teach there, too, but he'll visit Charlotte next season to choreograph a work in NCDT's annual Innovative Works program. He said the highlight of his five season with NCDT was working with NCDT's Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux and Patricia McBride in Balanchine's "Apollo." In "Liaisons," he'll play the other main schemer, Valmont. 


Justin VanWeest: He's moving to San Francisco to be with his girlfriend, former NCDT dancer Kara Wilkes. A native of Mebane,  he's one of several NCDT dancers raised in the Carolinas. "This company and city have been my home and ... will always be close to my heart," VanWeest said. He'll wrap up his seventh season by performing in "Liaisons" and the other work on the program, Dwight Rhoden's "Artifice."