David Ingram is shown dancing with the North Carolina Dance Theatre in "Romeo and Juliet." This photograph appeared on the front cover of the August/September 2008 edition of "Pointe" magazine. "Romeo & Juliet" was choreographed by Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux (NCDT's artistic director). (Photos by Jeff Cravotta)
A full-page photo of a male dancer from Kingsport, Tenn. appeared in the August/September 2008 edition of POINTE magazine. David Ingram is shown dancing with the North Carolina Dance Theatre in Romeo and Juliet.
Earlier this year, Ingram taught master classes for students at Ballet Arts Academy in Bristol.
Ingram joined North Carolina Dance Theatre last season and quickly became one of the stars of the company. He danced Herr Drosselmeyer in Nutcracker and Romeo in Romeo & Juliet. These roles are in addition to contemporary pieces in which he excelled. This season, Ingram not only dances with the company, but he has taken on the role of instructor for the Boy's Scholarship Class at the North Carolina Dance Theatre School of Dance. This class is for young boys who would not normally be able to afford to train at the school. Ingram's wife Alexis works with the North Carolina Dance Theatre School of Dance as an administrator and instructor.
Ingram began his early dance training in Kingsport, Tenn., with Dorothy Ratcliff and Theresa Weatherford, and later at the Kingsport Guild of Ballet where he studied ballet with Karen Gibbons-Brown and modern dance with Esteban Pono. After graduating with honors from Butler University in Indiana, with a BFA in dance, Ingram went on to study dance and choreography with numerous schools, companies and summer programs across the U.S.
When he joined the Louisville Ballet in Kentucky, he worked with such choreographers as Adam Hougland, Ben Stevenson, Robert North, Val Caniparoli, Twyla Tharp, and Domy Reiter Soffer.
Ingram's own choreography has been performed at The Fort Wayne Ballet, The Yard in Massachusetts andThe Kentucky Governor's School of the Arts.
While training, Ingram says, "I had heard of North Carolina Dance Theatre and their repertoire. While dancing with the Louisville Ballet, I heard about the amazing work environment at Dance Theatre and very much wanted to work with [NCDT artistic director] Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux and Patricia McBride. When I auditioned with NC Dance Theatre, I knew I had to dance with the organization. I feel very fortunate to be surrounded by such great dancers and teachers. I learn so much from them daily and I look forward to what lies ahead."
REVIEWS
September 2007: The North Carolina Dance Theatre opened its 2007-088 season with "Manhattan Moves South," featuring works by three Manhattan-based choreographers. According to The Charlotte Observer, "In Dwight Rhoden's 'Artifice,' the circus becomes unhinged. A ringmaster manipulates a human menagerie of sleek and agile characters, and they fight back. Rhoden's choreography is as fluid and unpredictable as the images in fun-house mirrors, and NCDT's dancers bring it sharply and exuberantly to life -- especially newcomer David Ingram, who dances like he's shot from a cannon."
November 2007: When the troupe performed its annual "Innovative Works" program, The Charlotte Observer wrote: "[In "The Neighbors"] a man appears. Judging by the fidgeting, splayed fingers of his right hand, something is haunting him....David Ingram conveyed nearly as much distress through that tormented right hand as he does by hurling himself through his climactic solo, where Uri Sands' choreography yanks him up, down and across the stage."
Summer 2008: Ingram also was featured in a review entitled "Ballet Goes Beyond the Boundaries" in The Chautauquan Daily in New York: "By far, the most moving dance was [Sasha] Janes' 'Battle Mind,' a solo danced by David Ingram to music by Robert Schumann, with an added segment of the only recorded music of the entire evening, British pop singer Billy Bragg singing 'Tender Comrade,' which drove home the question, 'What will you do when the war is over?' The dance movingly portrayed the emotions, memories and thoughts of a soldier as he returns from the war, ending with tragic results. Ingram danced powerfully, always accurate, yet with a feeling of reckless abandon which swept the audience deeply into his dance."
