For Smuin Ballet’s Terez Dean Orr, Small Companies Mean Big Opportunities

You’ve been with Smuin Ballet for 17 years, the majority of your career. What has kept you there?

I love how small the size is—there are 16 of us. There is so much opportunity. We do, on average, 60 shows a year, and every dancer is dancing all of those shows. Because this is such a short-lived career, I want to perform as much as possible, and here I’ve been able to do work I could only dream of, like Jiří Kylián, Helen Pickett, and Anabelle Lopez Ochoa. And we’re such a tight-knit group. Ballet companies can be very dramatic, and I have never experienced that at Smuin.

I also love having a female artistic director—first under Celia Fushille and now Amy Seiwert.  It’s amazing to work under such strong yet nurturing artistic voices.

What do you enjoy more: performing or being in the studio?

I love the performance—I love still getting nervous and that adrenaline of it. But I would say my favorite is the process. I love watching a piece unfold. Understanding someone else’s language through movement is really interesting, then trying to see how my body and physicality responds to it.

What have been some favorite ballets over your time with Smuin Ballet?

Kylián’s Petite Mort was, hands down, a dream—just trying to chase down that feeling on opening night, women standing in the back and men with the swords. It was epic. I also love working with Trey McIntyre. In my first season I did his Naughty Boy, and it was the first ballet where I was really given the chance to dance and carry a piece. And I’ve absolutely loved working with Amy Seiwert. We’ve established a really beautiful communication as choreographer and dancer—it’s really collaborative and open.

What role taught you the most about yourself as a dancer?

We do not usually do story ballets, but last season we did Michael Smuin’s Zorro! I didn’t want my character to be a damsel in distress—I wanted her to be strong and powerful. I had to carry a sword and learn sword fighting. It was very classical, and while we are all classically trained, we do more contemporary repertoire. Getting back to that technique was a change.

James Kudelka’s Man in Black is also one of the most challenging ballets I’ve danced, between the rhythms, dancing in cowboy boots, and not leaving the stage for 25 minutes. The ballet has grit and purpose—every section is simple and pedestrian, yet highly emotional. The goal is to not let Johnny Cash’s music ride the acting, and the feeling between each dancer needs to be authentic.

You and your husband (former Smuin dancer John Speed Orr) produced multiple dance films during the pandemic and co-founded a production company, Jettison Creative, with a fellow filmmaker. How did that come about?

I was teaching in the kitchen and needed something else. The night before shelter-in-place, we met with our filmmaker friend Elliot, who had never worked with dancers. He told us to start with our iPhone and create phrases and choreography. Every day we would send him footage and he would edit it together. It got to the point we were taping the iPhone to our ceiling. Together, we all created a few really fun pandemic dance films. It was the catalyst to open up what is now Jettison Creative, our production studio in San Francisco.

I am not a choreographer, but our goal is that every year one of us has to do a film so that we don’t stop how we initially started. My dance film was accepted into the San Francisco Dance Film Festival this year. 

What does your ideal day off look like?

Sleeping in. Then I’d walk to get breakfast somewhere. John and I would get into his ’89 BMW and drive up the coast to visit his family—they have a flower farm and they sell at the farmers’ market. I’d take the day to get out of the city and smell the fresh air and the flowers. Then, finally, we’d come back, right at that golden hour, and get Italian food.

What is your favorite part of life in San Francisco?

The food culture. I love to cook, I love to eat, and I love to eat out, and San Francisco is a mecca of delicious and different cultural foods. I also love that, after a day of rehearsal, I can go to the beach or to the mountains.

Do you have a specialty in the kitchen?

I will go to my Hungarian roots—I make a mean chicken paprikash. I don’t follow recipes, it’s more about the feel.

What advice would you have for students wanting to be professional dancers someday?

Stay true to yourself. Love yourself and what you’re doing. Know that what you’re doing is very rare and hard and special. Push yourself, but also settle into the beauty of what you have.