Civic Ballet's New Artistic Director has Danced Around the World

Tours of Europe, multiple awards and works danced all over the U.S. are some of the high notes in Gina Patterson’s extensive portfolio, three decades of accolades and experiences she’s bringing to San Angelo as the Civic Ballet’s new Artistic Director.

Patterson has been a guest dancer at the San Angelo Civic Ballet off and on for over nine years now, and has gotten to know the staff and dancers over that time. She’s worked closely with the current artistic director, Meghann Bridgeman, and is now putting in time she has a available to ease the transition when she officially takes over on June 1.

“I’ve really believed in what she (Meghann) was doing and I’ve always really wanted to support her in whatever way,” Patterson said. “She invited my husband, Eric, and I…and we both guested as dancers the very first time when she was bringing artists in and since then we’ve come at various times to either teach or choreograph.”

Tanya Pfluger, Executive Director of the San Angelo Civic Ballet, said that Bridgeman made many accomplishments while she served as artistic director, including growing the academy and streamlining it through an adopted syllabus.

“…all the children learn from one syllabus, from creative movement all the way up to—and she was instrumental in initiating a pre-professional level of dance for our older dancers,” Pfluger said.

Patterson, who has traveled the world as a professional dancer and choreographer, said the level of skill and talent cultivated at the local ballet is impressive, and she credits Bridgeman for building the academy up to what it is today.

“I can say that San Angelo really has something special here in the ballet because the students are so strong,” Patterson said. “I think the culture that she’s created speaks highly of this organization. You don’t have that everywhere.”

Patterson is from the Pittsburgh area, but has lived in Austin off and on for the past 20 years, with a stop in Florida as well, where she met her husband, Eric Midgley. She started dancing at the age of four, but it wasn’t until her dance teacher took her to see a Swan Lake Production when she was around 12 that she discovered her love for ballet.

“I did get bored,” Patterson said. “I was doing gymnastics and music and singing and all this kind of thing…[My mom] took me to every little school and I didn’t like it until she took me to a tap school, and that got me reinvested in dance.”

Each year, Patterson said, her dance instructor took a group of seniors on a trip to a large city, like Pittsburgh and New York. When she was 11, Patterson was invited to go with the group to New York, and upon their return took her first ballet class. 

“The following year…I got on the bus and went with them and saw Swan Lake, and that was really it,” she said. “I said, ‘I need to that. I want to do that. How do I do that?’”

After talking to her instructor, Patterson joined a dance company in her small town similar to SACB and began dancing immediately. She trained intensively and started progressing, winning awards and experiences as she grew.

“I kind of started out with a bang,” she said. “I won a National Society of Arts and Letters award [at age 15 or 16], so I was invited by the Pittsburgh Opera to tour Germany and Switzerland with them as a singer and dancer. That really set the course for my life.”

When she finished high school, Patterson’s parents wanted her to go on to college, but at that point she was set on a career in dance. With the support of her teachers and the thought that she could always go back to school if she wanted to, Patterson auditioned for a position in the Pittsburgh Ballet Theater and was hired.  

After a year in Pittsburgh, Patterson again auditioned for another dance company, this time at Austin Ballet, and moved to Texas. The plan was to stay for a year, she said, but that quickly developed into a career.

“Now, 30-something years later in the field, I’m still at it,” she said. “It took a lot of training and re-training of my body and mind, everything. Dance is something truly amazing and I never regret a day of the path that I chose. I think dance teaches you everything about life.”

Patterson’s dance career took her all over the world, with stops in Iceland, Paris and several other parts of Europe. For the majority of her career she’s been primarily based out of Austin, but after about nine years as a professional dancer she uprooted and moved to Florida, where she began choreographing.

“I said I’d never be a choreographer,” she laughed. “I thought that I was a dancer.”

The run at choreographer began at the Florida Ballet, when Eric Midgley, who is now her husband, asked her to choreograph a part of a production that was being worked on by four men.

With the ambition of bringing a woman’s touch to the work, Patterson accepted, but said it wasn’t nearly as easy as she’d thought. When after two weeks she had two steps, she was on the brink of quitting when she went to talk to Midgley.

He explained to her that it’s about the process, and after a chat, she returned to the studio to write.

“I went back into the studio and I remember I laid down and put my legs up, listened to music,” she said. “It’s kind of how I would write and come to creative things when I was a kid. I put my legs up and all of a sudden I saw—had a vision of the dance or a feeling of the dance…”

Patterson wrote the rest of the dance and performed herself in a duet, which was improvised because she hadn’t had the time to complete it. The piece, however, was successful, and went to New York and the Miami International Festival.

Although she hadn’t intended to continue choreographing, Patterson kept receiving requests and accepting the opportunities.

“I sort of just happened into my career,” she said. “Somewhere along the way I just fell completely in love with it.”