ABT – In the Dancer's Studio

Ladies of the Dance

I recently explored the Lords of the Dance. Dance performance and participation is overwhelmingly female… Artistic Direction (AD) in dance, not so much. There’s a fascinating case to explore of modern dance rising as a reaction to this gender dynamic in ballet, but that’s not today.

Today is about current female artistic leadership in large-budget American dance companies.

First, it’s important to state that this is just one job title, and only looking at a very few, very large companies. This doesn’t explore executive leadership, board participation, choreographers, or the people running the studios and rehearsals… and this is all binary-gender, because I can’t find any evidence of any gender-expansive humans in the AD position at these organizations (Dance Data Project did, but not in the United States [and no longer in 2023…]. Get your budget up, trocks 🙂 ). I’m going to use pink and blue gender associations in chart. Also, this is based on pre-pandemic FY2019 budgets, and only companies with budgets of $5 million or more. It’s an arbitrary cutoff. There are 41.

Female Artistic Direction

Today, just under 32% of the largest United States dance companies have female-identifying artistic directors, which is up a bit in recent history.

Since 2020, 9 of these companies changed artistic directors, making a remarkable 22% (and it’s going to be at least 24%) turnover in just three years (there’s more to explore about the pandemic and other recent shocks as an impetus…) and five of those were women.

More interestingly, four of those women replaced men, and in three of those cases, these women were the first female artistic directors in their company’s history.

In the same period, two men replaced women, and both of those women stepped up, not out. Susan Jaffe left Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre for a much larger ballet station at American Ballet Theatre (ABT) and is replaced by Adam W. McKinney, and Alejandro Cerrudo replaced Hope Muir at Charlotte Ballet in 2022. Hope Muir also landed at a larger ballet station, the National Ballet of Canada – more than triple her previous charge (in US dollars), but outside the United States, so… she escapes the rest of this discussion.

This year (2023) Dani Rowe becomes the first woman to hold the position at Oregon Ballet Theatre in its 34 years and Jodie Gates assumed the AD position, succeeding Victoria Morgan at the Cincinnati Ballet after 25 years. Robert Garland will replace Virginia Johnson at Dance Theatre of Harlem in July – he’ll be the 10th post-2020 AD transition.

Last year (2022), Tamara Rojo replaced Helgi Tómasson at San Francisco Ballet (a position held for 37 years), becoming the first female AD in that company’s 90 year history, and Susan Jaffe replaced Kevin McKenzie, who held the position for nearly three decades at American Ballet Theatre.

And in 2021, Linda-Denise Fisher-Harrell assumed the artistic director position at Hubbard Street Dance, becoming the first woman to do so in that company’s 45-year history.

This post-pandemic female AD cohort joins the ranks of Lourdes Lopez at Miami City Ballet, Julie Kent at Washington Ballet, Jodie Gates at Cincinnati Ballet, Stoner Winslett at Richmond Ballet, Brenda Way at ODC Dance, Janet Eilber at Martha Graham Dance Company, Virginia Johnson at Dance Theatre of Harlem (for a few months), Karen Russo Burke at Dayton Ballet, and Gina Gibney at Gibney Dance. The fact that this list is short enough to fully enumerate reveals several challenges for dance in America.

Women of the Baby Balanchines

I also recently explored the “Baby Balanchine” companies. As a tiny case-study in female artistic leadership, these are interesting. Women (well, more precisely, Balanchine women…) were deeply involved in most of these, and held the role of artistic director for half of the babies in 1963. I’m not counting New York City Ballet as a baby (it’s the “parent”), and Mr. B did not let go of his ballet station… and it’s been men the whole time.

Boston had E. Virginia Williams, who started teaching at age 16 and founded the New England Civic Ballet in 1958. Under her direction, the Boston Ballet explored rock ballet with Louis Falco‘s The Gamete Garden (1971). In 1974, she took a bold chance on the then-10-year old Winterbranch by Merce Cunningham – and managed to chase some of the audience out of the room. Williams is succeeded by Violette Verdy (also deeply connected with Balanchine) in 1983, and then by Bruce Marks (from Ballet West) in 1985. Anna-Marie Holmes brings the feminine back to Boston as a co-artistic director for several years before a brief 3-year run as AD starting in 1998. Since 2001, it’s been Mikko Nissinen.

Houston had Tatiana Semenova who started a ballet school in 1955. In 1959, Robert Irving, New York City Ballet’s principal conductor (those Balanchine connections run deep…) led the Houston Symphony for the world premiere of Semenova’s Enigma. There was some drama, and part of the Ford Foundation funding was lost with her departure in 1966. After a somewhat complicated transition, Nina Popova held the AD position until 1975.

The National Ballet never had a female artistic director, but had Jean Riddell as president of the National Ballet Society. It’s Washington, D.C., so things get complicated, and the company folded in 1974.

Perhaps the deepest Baby Balanchine connection was Barbara Weisberger, founder and artistic director of the Pennsylvania Ballet until 1982, and who also founded the Carlisle Project and served as an artistic advisor for Peabody Dance in Baltimore. Pennsylvania Ballet (now Philadelphia Ballet) hasn’t seen a female artistic director since she left in 1982.

But that auspicious recognition of women in artistic leadership roles among the Baby Balanchines would erode… Houston’s AD was male by 1976, and by 1985, men ran them all, with a brief respite from 1993-2001 in Boston. AD gender at the Balanchine-legacy companies (including NYCB) looks like this:

Just a hint of pink at the far-right in that image, Tamara Rojo brings a Spanish (by nationality) and British (Royal Ballet and English National Ballet) sensibility to the San Francisco Ballet – a change away from both male gender and Balanchine, with a powerhouse $57 million annual budget (much more than double the English National Ballet’s $23 million).

Perhaps worth noting here, Balanchine shared his perspective on gender in ballet… the “ballet is woman” quote is often attributed to him – but there’s more.

But if you watch the stage you will see something more beautiful. The ballet is a purely female thing; it is a woman, a garden of beautiful flowers, and man is the gardener.
“Mr B Talks Ballet,” George Balanchine, Life Magazine, 11 June 1965, page 97.

… a sentiment that maybe does not age all that well.

Budget Equity

The new ADs represent significant cultural changes in each company, but the post-2020 net change is only +2 for the ladies – so far (that will drop to +1 in July). There’s a very different story if you look at the economic change these women represent.

The four women that replaced men now direct more than $120 million a year to their artistic vision, almost doubling the financial resources available to female ADs at these top-tier dance companies. Jaffe’s transition from Pittsburgh to ABT gives her access to more than four times the budget (although it’s in a city that’s much more expensive…).

I don’t have data to support any sort of “first time in history” claim, but this huge shift in resources appears to have achieved AD gender “budget equity.” For at least a few months of 2023, the 32% of companies with female artistic directors represent 32% of the aggregate annual budget at the largest 41 dance companies in the United States.

Congratulations

Congratulations to the new female artistic directors of American dance (and you too, Hope Muir!). May your tenures be amazing. Please don’t forget to reach back and offer a hand-up. We need more of you.

Breadcrumbs…

Dance Data Project US Artistic Director History Data Byte [pdf] is only ballet companies, and based on the largest 50 by budget, so different base data set, but it has an interesting point of comparison. Their data says 46% of the largest 50 ballet companies were founded by female ADs – but only 30% are lead by female ADs as of July 2021. The erosion of female artistic leadership seen in the Baby Balanchines looks more widespread.

Where are the Women in Ballet (WBUR, 2015)

Sexism in dance: where are all the female choreographers? (The Guardian, 2013)

Agnes de Mille’s Artistic Justice (The New Yorker, 2015)

Last year, 69% of works performed by the 50 largest ballet companies — including Joffrey and Hubbard Street — were choreographed by men. Women in dance are trying to change that. (Chicago Tribune, 2021)

Leading Ladies (Dance, 2016)

Update (26 May 2023) – added note about Dance Data Project Global Leadership Report 2023.

Struggling with a Balanchinian Legacy

The George Balanchine legacy is complicated, and I’m not even going to pretend to grasp its varied dimensions. That said, one interesting bit I’ve come to call the “Baby Balanchines” changed the landscape of dance in America profoundly more than half a century ago. The resources applied at this inflection point would commit much of dance in America to Balanchine’s style for generations – and at great expense to others across the universe of dance in America.

The Immigrant and the Impresario

Today our story begins in 1904 with the birth of George Balanchine in St. Petersburg in the Russian Empire, the son of an opera singer and composer. Three years later, Lincoln Kirstein is born in Rochester, New York, son of a salesman. George spent his youth in ballet training, Lincoln’s wealthy family sent him to private school and eventually Harvard.

The two intersect in London when Kirstein sees Balanchine perform as Koschei in Sergei Diaghilev‘s Ballet Russes Firebird. Kirstein eventually convinces Balanchine to come to the United States, and together with Edward Warburg and Vladimir Dimitriew, they form the School of American Ballet (SAB) in 1934. Kirstein’s support of Balanchine’s vision was complete, enabling him “to do exactly what he wants to do in the way he wants to do it.” Balanchine, and thus SAB, fully embraced the Russian Imperial Ballet School (now Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet) approach to ballet training.

Balanchine and Kirstein spawn a number of ballet ventures (including the American Ballet, Ballet Caravan, and Ballet Society which would eventually consolidate into the 1948 formation of the New York City Ballet (NYCB), but before they do, American Ballet and Ballet Caravan merge into American Ballet Caravan, and Nelson Rockefeller (as Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs) arranges a tour of South America.

Just a few years later, Kirstein would become managing director of New York’s City Center, and with this engagement, brought the resources of the Rockefeller Foundation to ballet (and opera).

In 1950, Lew Christensen becomes NYCB Ballet Master, and just three years later, relocates to the west coast to direct the San Francisco Ballet.

Space to Dance

By the 1960s, the New York City Ballet is well-established, having toured North America, South America, Europe, and Asia (more than once with U.S. State Department support) and even a couple televised Nutcrackers (see the 1958 version).

New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller signs a bill in 1961 authorizing the construction of the New York State Theater for the 1964 World’s Fair – with a combined state and city allocation of $30 million (this would be over $300 million today). This space, would become the new home of the New York City Ballet, was designed to Balanchine’s specifications and completed at a cost of $19.3 million.

Essentially simultaneously, work begins on the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (SPAC), which opens in 1966 and becomes the official “summer home” of the New York City Ballet.

Artistic Concentration – The “Baby Balanchines”

In 1963, the Ford Foundation launched three national arts and humanities initiatives – one to “increase the supply of quality curators and directors for the nation’s museums of fine arts,” one to strengthen “the role of independent arts schools and conservatories of music in setting standards for professional training”, and, most interesting here, one to “develop the country’s training and performing resources in ballet.”

The Foundation appropriated $8 million for a national program to help develop training and performing resources in ballet, a medium that only in the last three decades has become an important American art form. The major components of the program are:

strengthening of the School of American Ballet as a national center for advanced professional training;

support of a cooperative system between the School of American Ballet and ballet teachers in different parts of the country to improve the professional preparation of promising young dancers;

strengthening the role of the New York City Ballet as a national company. The increased funds will help the New York City Ballet perform services for professionally developing companies elsewhere, and will provide partial assistance to new works needed in the company’s repertoire.

assistance to the San Francisco Ballet Company and School through a matching grant for their long-term development;

matching support for new professional companies and schools in Boston, Houston, Philadelphia, and Washington, D.C.

Ford Foundation Annual Report, 1963, page 12.

Ford backed Balanchine’s own New York operations (School of American Ballet and City Center of Music and Drama with almost $6 million, and picked five (eventually six) companies based largely on Balanchine’s recommendations and extended massive funding – Boston Ballet ($144k), Houston Ballet ($174K), National Ballet ($400K), Pennsylvania Ballet (now Philadelphia Ballet) ($345K), San Francisco Ballet ($644K), and Utah Civic Ballet (now Ballet West) ($175K) was added in the following year.

This $8 million ballet program (though only $7.8 million was disbursed) represented more than 6% of new project appropriations by the Ford Foundation in 1963, and in today’s dollars would exceed $78 million. Balanchine offered his advice, music, costumes, and choreography, and the artistic leadership of these institutions were deeply connected to Balanchine, the person, and so the “Balanchinian” legacy was baked-in from the beginning.

By the mid-1960s, Balanchine’s individual concept of dance stood on a foundation of at least seven of the best-funded schools/companies in the country and two performance venues.

Economic Concentration

Even with the loss of the National Ballet in 1974, the remaining six Balanchine-legacy companies represent a combined annual budget around quarter-billion dollars, and half of the ten largest dance companies in the country (and Ballet West is #12, which is pretty extraordinary given its home city). Economic concentration just happens in the absence of intervention (for a fun diversion, check out the Yard Sale Model), and this works in at least a couple ways for these companies – these are big cities (#24, #4, #23, #1, #6, #17, and #122 by population today; #13, #7, #9, #1, #4, #12, and #65 in 1960 – Salt Lake City is definitely an outlier in this group), so they generally have access to sizeable audiences (and patrons). At the very top, the New York metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is home to some 20 million people, each providing an average of about $4.56 to this one company every year (the Salt Lake City MSA is much more generous – about $10.75 per person per year for Ballet West).

All of these companies are the biggest ones (by budget) in their local regions:

The Big Company	Budget Ratio	The Second Biggest Company
Boston Ballet	15	Jose Mateo Ballet Theatre
Houston Ballet	45	Metdance
Philadelphia Ballet	14	Koresh Dance Company
New York City Ballet	2	American Ballet Theatre or Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater
San Francisco Ballet	9	Alonzo King LINES Ballet or ODC Dance
Ballet West	15	Ririe-Woodbury Dance Company

This disparity isn’t unique to the Baby Balanchines – it’s true throughout dance economics (and economics in general…). Washington, D.C. lost the National Ballet, but its big company is now The Washington Ballet, 6 times larger than Step Afrika! and Seattle’s Pacific Northwest Ballet is about 17 times larger than Spectrum Dance Theater.

Dive Deeper

This is but a hint of the Balanchine legacy – for a contemporary view, checkout Harper’s Magazine, September 1964, “Ballet in America: One-man Show?“

Life Magazine, June 11, 1965, “Mr. B Talks about Ballet“

Vanity Fair, December 1998, “Balanchine’s Dream“

Dollars for Dance: Lincoln Kirstein, City Center, and the Rockefeller Foundation

New York Times, May 8, 1977, “Kirstein The Man Who Brought Us Balanchine“

National Endowment for the Humanities, Humanities, Vol 37, Issue 1, “George Balanchine and the United States“