Much like Oakland itself, where he lived his entire life save for two years of military service, choreographer Ronn Guidi was scrappy, ambitious, creatively restless and unconventional, traits that help explain his outsized impact on the world of dance.
Against all odds, he turned Oakland into a ballet outpost that reconfigured the artform’s relationship to part of its glamorous past. Along the way, Oakland Ballet, the company he founded in 1965, became a proving ground for dancers who went on to thrive in the illustrious environs of New York City Ballet, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Joffrey Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, and San Francisco Ballet.
Guidi died at the age of 85 on Thanksgiving, a week after he fell in the apartment where he’d lived since a fire last year damaged his longtime home in the Oakland Hills. He remained busy. Unwilling to be sidelined by the pandemic, he continued to teach dance classes via Zoom until last month.
A fine choreographer whose “Nutcracker” served as Oakland Ballet’s financial cornerstone for decades, Guidi set out with a bold mission, determined to restage seminal works from Sergei Diaghilev’s famed company Ballet Russes (1909-1929) that were on the cusp of being lost. Oakland Ballet staged celebrated productions of Bronislava Nijinska’s “Bolero,” “Le Train Bleu,” and “Les Biches”; Mikhail Fokine’s “Scheherazade” and “Petrouchka”; and Leonide Massine’s “La Boutique Fantasque.”
“He wasn’t just shining a light on these classic works, but on the artists who created them,” said Graham Lustig, Oakland Ballet’s artistic director for the past 12 years. “Massine and Bronislava Nijinska’s daughter Irina, he somehow got them to Oakland. They came here and worked with the Oakland Ballet on these fabled ballets.”
Guidi’s quest caught the attention of bigger and better known companies and sparked a wider revival of the Ballet Russes works. But as dedicated as he was to connecting to ballet’s history, Guidi also carefully tended its future, commissioning new works by leading choreographers and carefully tending to the next generation of dancers.
He founded the Oakland Ballet Academy in 1968, and it served for years as a conduit of talented dancers for his own and other companies. The school is now an independent entity, and Oakland Ballet has its own Oakland Ballet School.
Guidi loved to teach and was always on the lookout for new talent wherever it might surface. Ron Thiele was a freshman at UC Berkeley and pitching for Cal’s baseball team when he came upon a dance class Guidi was teaching. Thus began his 28-year tenure with Oakland Ballet.
“Ronn came over and said ‘Take your boots off and let me see your feet,’” Thiele said. “I stuck around to watch the class and started dancing three days later. He had an uncanny way of inviting people in who might not have ever considered dancing and created an environment where everybody was working together. Ronn gave Oakland a company that reflected the community in which it lived.”
He also insisted that dancers connect with the music. In a 2006 story reporter Kellie Hwang captured a scene of Guidi scolding dancers at a “Nutcracker” rehearsal for “Waltz of the Flowers.”
“How can you dance properly if you don’t know the music?” he asked. “You all need to take responsibility to live inside the music. Good dancers, successful dancers, know their music. The dancer and the music must become one.”
That unitary vision encompassing the dancer, the music and the dance, included everyone. Decades before Lustig took over Oakland Ballet’s helm in 2010, he came by a rehearsal in 1987 when he was passing through the Bay Area and met Guidi. It was apparent even then that the company welcomed dancers from every background at a time when this was extremely uncommon.
“He’s an unsung hero in that in the 1970s and ‘80s he had a diverse company that looked like the community,” Lustig said. “Judy Tyrus talks about being a Black sugar plum fairy for Oakland Ballet’s ‘Nutcracker.’ She started her career here and went on to Dance Theatre of Harlem for 20 years as a principal ballerina.”
Guidi stepped down from Oakland Ballet unexpectedly in 1998. In a rare second act, he returned to the company in 2007 when it was on the brink of extinction after its 40th anniversary season left it buried in debt. He exited again suddenly two years later, but he had brought Oakland Ballet back from the brink.
Upon his exit he created the Ronn Guidi Foundation for Dance, a nonprofit that provides funding for other small dance companies.
A Catholic Mass will be celebrated 10:30 a.m. Monday, Dec. 13, at Divine Mercy Catholic Church in Oakland. In lieu of flowers, his family requests people consider a donation to the Ronn Guidi Foundation for Dance.
He’s survived by his sister Yvonne Guidi-Evans and her daughters, Renee Weiland, Denise Davila, Michelle Rodgers. He’s also survived by the sons and daughters of his late brother, Louis (Snooky) Guidi, Jerry Guidi, Debbie Guidi-Roddick, Lori Stubblefield, Marty Guidi and their spouses. He also has 10 great and seven great-great nieces and nephews, and hundreds of dancers and students who trained under his affectionate eye.
Contact Andrew Gilbert at jazzscribe@aol.com.