It was just more than 20 years ago that Joedy Cook of Taylor Ridge, Ill., began chasing her dream of establishing a professional ballet company in the Quad-Cities.
“I would just sit and talk to anyone who would talk to me about ballet,” Cook said. “The more I learned, the more I loved it.”
The dream has not only survived but thrived, and what is now Ballet Quad-Cities reaches thousands of people every year. Among them are all first-grade students in the Davenport school district who, for the past two years, have been treated to the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, “The Ugly Duckling.”
The performance imparts a message of acceptance that the school district pairs with its anti-bullying program, and there is an environmental component, too.
The duckling hatches on the bank of the Mississippi River, which allows Cook to introduce information about wetlands and why they are important. Each teacher receives an education guide that includes information about wetlands and their flood-retention and cleansing benefits, and there is an accompanying activity they can do with their students.
For this and other education efforts, Cook was selected as one of seven winners of the 12th annual Eddy Awards presented Friday by River Action Inc. at Black Hawk State Historic Site, Rock Island.
The awards acknowledge those who have done outstanding river work and acted as an eddy, “going against the current,” to accomplish excellence along the Mississippi River.
“When art both entertains and educates, it is a powerful experience,” Kathy Wine, director of River Action, said.
Another educational effort was Cook’s work on the “One Mississippi” dance performance in 2006. This was a project dreamed up by a woman in the Twin Cities who invited cities from Lake Itasca in Minnesota to New Orleans to celebrate the river with dance in one simultaneous hour in June. In the Quad-Cities, there were costumed dancers on the lock and dam, on a riverboat and in LeClaire and Modern Woodmen parks.
Tenacity, persistence built the ballet
None of this would have happened, however, if Cook hadn’t persistently pursued her dream.
Persistence is one of her strong suits, along with tenacity and contagious passion for ballet, which she describes as “the perfect art” because it combines athleticism, literature, theater and music.
One of her first financial backers in launching what is now a half-million dollar annual operation was Mary Ellen Chamberlin, president of the Riverboat Development Authority, which oversees the awarding of grants to nonprofit groups.
Chamberlin recalls her first encounter with Cook.
“She called me up and read me the riot act because we (the RDA) had given money to Iowa Ballet (a Des Moines-based ballet company) for a performance in the Quad-Cities. I said, ‘Why shouldn’t we?’ She said, ‘Because we have our own ballet company in the Quad-Cities.’ I said, ‘We do?’
“She told me her vision for the ballet,” and through the years, the RDA has given the company $300,000, including $24,600 for this year’s production of “The Ugly Duckling,” Chamberlin said.
Some of the overall money paid for items such as ballet shoes and backdrops, but much of it was to help establish the company’s image, expand its audience and build capacity through marketing, web page design and consulting, Chamberlin said.
“It was to transition them from a dance school to what they are today,” she said. “They started to catch on, and they got legs. I think her success with the ballet (originally known as the Cassandra Manning Ballet Theater, or CMBT) has been absolutely phenomenal.”
Ballet Quad-Cities now employs 11 paid professional dancers from all over the United States who work under 30-week contracts. In addition to “The Ugly Duckling,” performances this season have included “Cinderella,” “The Nutcracker,” “I, Vampire” and “Love Stories.” This summer, there will be a free performance of “Ballet Under the Stars” at Rock Island’s Lincoln Park.
The company’s home is in The District of Rock Island, 613 17th St.
Another of Cook’s early supporters was Ruth Lee, owner of RJLee & Associates, Moline.
Lee describes Cook as a “unique combination of excellent financial sense and incredible artistic vision … a lot of times you get one or the other.”
Cook also has the “superb” ability to build relationships and “add to that tenacity, and it really is quite a package,” Lee said.
“Plus, she has the ability to weave things that are intrinsic to our community into programming,” she said. “Ugly Duckling” is an example of “bringing it home to the Quad-Cities.”
Chad Ervin, a vice president of US Bank and a member of the ballet board, describes Cook’s passion for ballet as “contagious.”
As Cook herself describes the ballet: “I made it out of a dream, and I saw it in living color. When the time is right and you stay focused … it will happen. (But) I could never have done this alone. There are incredible people who believed in this. It was a group project.”
Burning the candle at both ends
Cook was born in Moline and graduated from Rock Island High School. She fell in love and married young, a drag racer named Kimber Cook (the unusual name is because his mother thought she might have a daughter).
Cook was the youngest Chrysler-sponsored driver on the circuit, and for a time, they traveled the country for races. It was great fun, Joedy Cook said.
The Cooks have three daughters and one son, and Joedy Cook thought perhaps that when their youngest daughter started school, she would go to college. But by that time, she was so busy with life and the ballet that she decided against it.
In addition to her work as the founding executive director of the ballet, she enjoys watching birds (including a pileated woodpecker) in the woods on their four-acre property, collecting seashells on their trips to Florida, traveling, reading cookbooks, walking/doing Pilates and spending time with their eight grandchildren.
“I try to cram in as many things as I can,” she said. “I burn the candle at both ends because you never know when it’s going to go out. Live it!”