Thank you from our heart - our recent "Thank-you Reception"

There are people who have been closely associated with the Heinz Bosl Foundation for many years, some even from the very beginning. Others have only been supporting the Foundation for a short time. However, all of these people share a great love of ballet and a desire to express that love. They support the Foundation and our work with large, medium or small amounts, some once a year, others monthly, some for years, others for a short time.

These people, whom we celebrated at our “Thank You Reception”, feel connected to us and our work. With their support, they help young talents to learn how to become professional dancers. Through their appreciation, they show us that our work radiates and manages to touch people so much so that they express their solidarity through financial support and through giving. With their donations, they take responsibility for ensuring that ballet and dance can continue to have a place in our society.

At the end of April, we invited our supporters to our headquarters in Herzogstrasse so that they can get to know us and reciprocally we can get to know them. We celebrated together our shared passion for ballet and nurturing young talent and our guests gained insights into the Foundation and the experiences of all involved in realising its goals. They learned about the diverse tasks and fields of activity we take on in order to achieve our goal of promoting young talent and we could share with them our shared values which are categorised by humanity, cohesion and an ongoing commitment.

At the reception we were actively supported by the underage students of the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich’s Ballet Academy, who live in our boarding house here at the Heinz Bosl Foundation. At the reception they helped with the cloakroom and at the bar beaming their youthful joy into everyone’s heart – for which they had also prepared a small present for each of the guests in advance. A personal welcome by our organisation’s CEO Ivan Liška was followed by introductions from each of the members of our team, who provided insight into the varied activities that go on behind the scenes. Touching personal conversations took place before the guests migrated over to the Konstanze-Vernon-Saal.

A performance awaited our guests there with members of the Bavarian Junior Ballet Munich not only dancing but moderating the presentation in German themselves. They talked about their life in the boarding house together, the wide range of repertoire they study and perform on tour, their appearances with the Bavarian State Ballet and expressed on a personal level their hopes and fears of first arriving in Munich. They presented touching excerpts from their repertoire – the finale of George Balanchine’s «Allegro Brillante», the duet and finale from Hans van Manen’s «Concertante», Eric Gauthier’s «Ballet 102», exerpts from Schubert’s «Love Messages» and a prelude from Richard Siegal’s «3 Preludes» set to music by George Gershwin. Audience members rarely have the opportunity to experience dancers in such close proximity and to sense the highest level of concentration and devotion to their work up close. Their effort and passion were obvious to everyone and it was also an wonderful experience for the dancers too to meet members of their audience in such a close and tangible manner.

Our guests left the evening visibly satisfied and animated and they all went home with their “thank you hearts” designed by the dancers themselves.

We as a team were inspired too! We felt the power and the connection, appreciation and the devotion of our audience. We read your emails and responses to our survey with great gratitude and we hope that we will continue to grow together with these people who are so attached to our work in the near future. We were also able to find valuable dialogue partners who will help us to continue our work for many, many years to come. Art does not exist in a vacuum. Art does not exist in a vacuum. It needs audiences and lovers, who with open hearts, to take what they see and hear into their hearts and to experience the abundance of life together in this world.