Kansas City Ballet took great leaps under his guidance. After 25 years, he’s retiring

Jeffrey Bentley has guided the Kansas City Ballet through its most momentous changes since the company was founded in 1957.

Since becoming its executive director in 1998, Bentley has helped bring on board two outstanding artistic directors, William Whitener and Devon Carney, moved the company out of the Westport Allen Center and into the stunning Bolender Center and its performance onto the stage of the Muriel Kauffman Theatre.

After a career of remarkable achievements, Bentley has announced that he will step down as executive director in June 2023.

“Next year, it will be 25 years, and there’s only so much goodness one should keep to oneself,” Bentley said. “You really feel like you have an obligation to turn it over to the next generation.”

Dance has been a part of Bentley’s life since he was a small child being raised by a single mother in Patterson, New Jersey. Whenever she could afford it, she would often take her young son across the river to attend performances at the City Center in New York City. It was there that Bentley discovered the magical world of ballet.

“The first time I saw a ballet, it was Jacques D’Amboise and Melissa Hayden doing ‘Apollo,’ and for some reason, it struck a bell,” Bentley said. “It wasn’t ‘Nutcracker,’ it was ‘Apollo.’”

After showing a precocious appreciation for the modernist ‘Apollo,’ which features music by Stravinsky and choreography by Balanchine, Bentley began taking ballet lessons in New Jersey. When he was 16, he moved to New York to study with the American Ballet Center, which was the school of the Joffrey Ballet at the time. For a year, he went to the School of the American Ballet, and then went back to the Joffrey School.

“I was actually invited by Mr. (Gerald) Arpino and Mr. (Robert) Joffrey to join the company as an apprentice,” Bentley said. “That was thrilling.”

But the same day he received his invitation from the founders of the Joffrey Ballet, he also received a letter that would put his ballet plans on hold.

“I was living on the Lower East Side of New York, and got my draft notice in the mail,” Bentley said. “This was back in 1966, and the Vietnam War was going on.”

It wouldn’t be long before Bentley found himself in Vietnam working in military intelligence. But the muse of dance apparently followed him to Southeast Asia.

“I literally saw an advertisement in the newspaper, an English translation of Vietnam’s daily news, and it said, ‘Ballet instructor wanted,’” Bentley said. “They had a French woman who had been teaching there for many years, and she decided to go back to Paris when the war was heating up, and they were looking for someone to take care of about 25 Chinese children.”

For eight months, Bentley taught ballet in a tiny studio on the second floor of a laundry. After his military service was over, he returned home at the age of 24.

“I could have gone into training for a professional career in ballet, but I decided dance careers are so short, so I went to Seattle following a girl,” he said. “It’s still my adopted second home. I taught ballet while I was going through the University of Washington.”

Bentley worked at a grocery store and taught ballet to make money while going to college on the G.I. bill. He eventually got a job with the state arts council in Olympia, Washington, and then continued his arts career with the Seattle Repertory Theatre. He would eventually return to dance, working for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet.

While there, he hired William Whitener to be its artistic director. Whitener would later return the favor.

“Bill left the company at a certain point and I left shortly thereafter, and he called me from Kansas City and let me know that the executive director’s job was available and would I be interested At that point I was between gigs, and I said, ‘Sure.’ So I helped Bill get the job at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, and he helped me get this job in Kansas City.”

When Bentley joined the Kansas City Ballet, they were rehearsing in the Westport Allen Center, not an ideal location for a company that wanted to expand and grow.

“I knew that part of my job, whether I liked it or not, was to get the company out of the Westport Allen Center,” Bentley said. “But I had nothing to do with getting us another space because they threw us out. They had sold the building to a for-profit educational organization and we had to find a new space.”

After being at the location for 16 years, within 60 days, the company had to pack up and move.

“And we did,” Bentley said. “We ended up where the loading dock is now for the Kauffman Center. It was a long-abandoned building that was formerly a typewriter company. We moved into there temporarily. Well, it was supposed to be temporary but ended up being seven years.”

Bentley and Whitener were a dynamic team, growing the company and expanding the repertoire.

“Bill was exactly the right artistic director at the time,” Bentley said. “We were in in the Lyric Theater, which was an old building and had a lot of problems, but it was a good showcase for the kind of repertory that Bill enjoyed bringing in. It was a whole genre of dance that we had not been familiar with in Kansas City before, like Twyla Tharp and some of the other artists of his era. During Bill’s 18 years, he really gave his signature to this company.”

Bentley says that Whitener and his successor, the current artistic director, Devon Carney, built on the outstanding legacy of their predecessors, the founder of the company, Tatiana Dokoudovska, and Todd Bolender.

“Madame Dokoudovska was about the great Russian tradition, followed by Mr. Bolender, who was about the great neoclassical Russian tradition, which translated that Russian tradition to American audiences,” Bentley said. “And he was followed by Bill Whitener who was the next generation of dance in this country. Now, of course, we have Devon, who has all of that in his valise, the great classics he was dancing with Boston Ballet and also a big commitment to the mixed repertory.”

The Kansas City Ballet took a quantum leap when the company started performing in the Kauffman Center and rehearsing in its new home, the Bolender Center for Dance and Creativity, which was formerly the power plant for Union Station and is now one of Kansas City’s architectural marvels.

“We were finally able to utilize someone with Devon’s experience. He’s danced the principal roles in all the classic ballets, ‘Swan Lake,’ ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ ‘Cinderella,’” Bentley said. “Now we had a stage and an orchestra pit and a fly and an auditorium that really allowed us to stage these large classics.’”

Bentley considers his greatest accomplishment to be leaving the Kansas City Ballet in good financial health, debt-free and with a culture that is conducive to creativity.

“The job of the executive director is ultimately to make sure the resources are in place to be able to fulfill the vision of the artistic director,” Bentley said. “That’s a combination of practical things, like buildings and endowments, but it’s also about having all of us grow together. I really want to think that the environment that I’ve helped create — and I did not alone create this — has raised people up. We have people who like to work here, and when they leave, they feel that they’ve been mentored and tutored and that they’re now ready to move on to their next career moment.”

Asked what he considers the greatest challenge of his tenure, Bentley was quick to respond.

“The last two and half years,” he said. “My goodness, every ballet company, every arts organization and everybody have been challenged by COVID. In terms of audiences starting to come back, having dancers on stage, having that wonderful orchestra in that pit, that’s all returning. We’ve had great houses for ‘Oz,’ great houses for ‘Dracula.’ So I think we’re well on our way.”

Bentley says he hasn’t had time to contemplate his post-retirement plans, although he says he might move to Florida, his partner’s preferred choice, or his beloved Pacific Northwest. But wherever he ends up, he’ll be keeping an eye on the Kansas City Ballet and wishing it all the best.

“I’d like the Kansas City Ballet to have the resources to do whatever ballet the artistic director wants to be done,” he said. “I want a company big enough and fine enough and of such excellent quality to be able to attack any choreography. I would like that to be the dream. Make sure the resources are in place so they can be utilized for the purpose of this company’s mission, which is to make dance accessible to all.”

For more information, kcballet.org.

Te Deum: ‘Divine’

Among its many aesthetic splendors, the Orthodox Church is renowned for its sublimely ethereal choral music.

Te Deum led by Matthew Christopher Shepard will present “Divine,” a program of selections from the Orthodox All-Night Vigil service and the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, June 11 at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church and June 12 at Village Presbyterian Church. Justin Matthews, a priest with Hoy Trinity Orthodox Church in Overland Park, will be the soloist.

The concerts benefit Reconciliation Services, an organization whose mission is “to cultivate a community seeking reconciliation to transform Troost from a dividing line into a gathering place.” To learn more about Reconciliation Services, rs3101.org.

7:30 p.m. June 11 at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, 1307 Holmes St., and 3 p.m. June 12 at Village Presbyterian Church, 6641 Mission Road, Prairie Village. $20-$25. te-deum.org.

You can reach Patrick Neas at patrickneas@kcartsbeat.com and follow his Facebook page, KC Arts Beat, at www.facebook.com/kcartsbeat.

This story was originally published May 31, 2022 at 5:00 AM.