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Angel Corella Makes Staff Changes


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That to me is the real shocker: someone from the company's administration should have had an announcement prepared and in Corella's hands and ready for the press before the laid-off staff members were told they were being let go. A professional organization does not let its new leader say something dismissive like "I'm sure the people were great, but ..."; it coaches him to say something along the lines of "Jeffrey and Tamara (always names, and always first names) have served this company with distinction for many years, as our wonderful dancers and ambitious repertoire make abundantly clear ... yadda yadda yadda" In fairness, we don't know what else Corella might have said during the interview nor what the context of his comment was, but as printed it sounded as if he'd barely met Gribner, Hadley, and DeGregory before he decided to replace them.

I agree with this. There's a reason the Kaiser report was so harsh -- the board itself was called out in the article cited above -- and it wasn't just on the artistic administration side. If in a small city, concerning three former artists who've been there for decades and are beloved by the public, they didn't at least prepare for a leak, it shows a marked lack of professionalism. Of course, part of this could have been the distraction and chaos of the sweep itself. Michael Kaiser must be shaking his head right now.

Nothing says you didn't measure up like getting laid off a year after the shakeup.

That's when you're leaving to spend more time with your family.

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Even allowing for the fact that new administrations usually make changes, sometimes sweeping (and needful) ones, these mass firings seem callous at best. Like Amy, I'm surprised that this is happening so swiftly; it is entirely possible for an organization to let people know which way the wind is blowing, and give them time to begin preparing, and many do. I also hope with Amy that these people who have served the company faithfully have decent severance packages.

I regret to see so little mention here of the human pain and humiliation involved in getting the sack, especially under these circumstances. There is no good way to get rid of a lot of people at once, but some ways remain better than others.

Well, if it needs to be said, I will say it: it sucks to get laid off and it especially sucks when it's splashed all over a newspaper before a formal (and gracious) announcement has been issued by the company. That to me is the real shocker: someone from the company's administration should have had an announcement prepared and in Corella's hands and ready for the press before the laid-off staff members were told they were being let go. A professional organization does not let its new leader say something dismissive like "I'm sure the people were great, but ..."; it coaches him to say something along the lines of "Jeffrey and Tamara (always names, and always first names) have served this company with distinction for many years, as our wonderful dancers and ambitious repertoire make abundantly clear ... yadda yadda yadda" In fairness, we don't know what else Corella might have said during the interview nor what the context of his comment was, but as printed it sounded as if he'd barely met Gribner, Hadley, and DeGregory before he decided to replace them.

I don't know much about how a ballet company works: it may be that telling someone at the beginning of the season that you're going to replace them before the end of the season so sours the relationship that little good work can get done. A swift departure -- with a generous severance package -- might be better for all concerned.

Businesses have chosen to tell a group of people that changes are afoot and they should probably be thinking ahead. Not only does not necessarily sour the relationship, it can avoid hard feelings and unnecessary hurt.

Brutal layoffs have become customary in this country and there seems to be a general assumption that it's unfortunate, but this is how it always is. It isn't. and doesn't have to be.

Pennsylvania's maxes out at $573/week (based on salary of $60K/year or more), which is not a fortune ($2292/$2865 for a five week month),

$573 can be a big chunk of change when there's no money coming in except for unemployment. It sounds as if the unemployed in PA are relatively fortunate, but COBRA goes a lot higher very fast in other states.

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Did any of these people that were fired have contracts. If they were employees at will then they could be fired at any time. However, I would have assumed that people in higher positions in the administration had written contracts for specified terms, and terminating them before the expiration of the contract would enttile them to recovery of damages.

By the way, this story has now made the NY Times, in the Arts Beat section.

Angel always seems so lovable and sweet as a performer, but now I think the public is seeing a different side of him in this new context of being a manager.

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With a grand sweep, there is built-in face-saving: it's not about you, it's about me. One-at-a-time, it isn't about me, it's about you.

This. Nothing says you didn't measure up like getting laid off a year after the shakeup.

Many mass dismissals aren't nearly that impersonal by any means. Companies can get away with all manner of personal business under the cover of a layoff.

In this case, IMO the dramatic fashion in the way the Pennsylvania Ballet people got canned draws attention to their alleged deficiencies: "The situation was so bad we just had to get rid of these people pronto. No time to waste!"

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With a grand sweep, there is built-in face-saving: it's not about you, it's about me. One-at-a-time, it isn't about me, it's about you.

This. Nothing says you didn't measure up like getting laid off a year after the shakeup.

Many mass dismissals aren't nearly that impersonal by any means. Companies can get away with all manner of personal business under the cover of a layoff.

In this case, IMO the dramatic fashion in the way the Pennsylvania Ballet people got canned draws attention to their alleged deficiencies: "The situation was so bad we just had to get rid of these people pronto. No time to waste!"

I've been involved in enough layoffs -- on both sides -- to know that it's miserable no matter what. I'm still in the "do it clean and do it fast" school, with the proviso that everyone deserves a decent safety net and their dignity.

I think we can agree that the PAB layoffs were mishandled in the way they were made public if nothing else. I don't know enough about the company, the people involved, or the relationship between Corella and the departing staff to be able to comment on whether the layoffs were warranted, or ill-considered, or too hasty, or too sweeping.

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There's so much we don't know (and probably never will...). The leaks to the press might well have come from someone who was dismissed. Some of these people might have contracts that they are buying out. The existing contracts (at least for high-level administrators) might have provisions for severance pay. We also don't know what contracts the dancers themselves have or when they were signed or for how long they run.

I'm sure most people reading this board have friends and family who have been laid off from private companies. It's common to gather people into a room and announce that they have one-hour (under the watchful eyes of security guards) to clear out their personal belongings from their desk. The risk of sabotage and theft is very high in those ugly situations, so I can understand why that's how lay-offs are so often done. Even then, of course, many companies will be providing severance pay, depending on how long people were employed with the company. (And let me add, as it was brought up before: tenured faculty members can be laid off in a fiscal crisis. The lay-off order depends only partially on seniority; teaching specialties can also come into play.)

It would have been nice if, the day staff were told, the chair of their board held a public press conference to at least make announcements. That would have eliminated the problem of premature leaks.

As several people have mentioned the issue of health insurance, it's an interesting coincidence that a news item today is the expansion of Medicaid under the ACA in Pennsylvania, so people with very low (or no) income can get free or nearly free health care that way.

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I was reading an article about how Microsoft recently ended its "rank and yank" policy, in which every employee was "ranked" at the end of the year and then the lowest ranked were dismissed. However the policy is still popular at other corporations, including Amazon and Yahoo.

Anyway, the scuttlebutt on the companies that have this "rank and yank" policy is that it creates a "death by slow drip" environment. Teams will often choose to target a certain person to avoid being ranked at the bottom, and that person will work the whole year knowing that the APPR will be bad. Morale supposedly suffers, and cronyism and favoritism run rampant, and office bullying occurs between the "top dogs" and the ones perceived to be lower on the totem pole.

I kind of think these sudden mass dismissals are maybe better for the people being dismissed. Yes it might hurt right now but they can say "New regime, new people in charge, I still have skill sets and can take them elsewhere." Speaking from personal experience I think "dismissal via passive aggressive harassment" is the worst way to go, as not only do you leave with a pink slip, but often a trail of damaging "low ranked" paperwork. That kind of treatment is really soul-crushing.

With that being said, I think Angel Corella might be having trouble moving from an environment where he had complete 100% authority because he was the founder (The Corella Ballet) to a well-established organization that has its own legacy and unwritten rules and culture.

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[Admin beanie on]

Our policy is that all news must be official and open to the public, and not part of private conversations, backstage, restricted social media, private forums, etc. Truth or reliability of private sources is not at issue; private is.

[Admin beanie off]

Stack ranking at Microsoft, which, according to decades of articles and books, was Steve Ballmer's baby, was dumped when Steve Ballmer left and decided to spend his billions on a basketball team. Bill Gates believed the system distributed top performers throughout the company, because there was incentive to move to a weaker group to become the star. For many years this was a carrot, because there were stock options to be had, but it morphed into "rank and yank," the stick that was implemented after people could no longer got rich based on their ranking. They got fired instead, like schools where X% fail automatically, no matter how strong or weak the class is on the whole. All of this has been documented. However, neither model has little to do with PA Ballet, where there was a change to the administration and a board-sponsored plan.

The NY Times report is here:

http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/08/29/shakeup-at-the-pennsylvania-ballet/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

Even without a statement thanking everyone profusely for staying until the new administration was in place to maintain stability within the organization, which owes them huge amounts of gratitude, without a leak, there was no reason for anyone to know that anyone was fired. People leave when there are new administrations due to philosophical differences or because they stayed out of loyalty to the old administration or to their colleagues, they were planning to leave but stayed because they were asked to bridge to or ride out a transition, they leave for personal reasons, an upcoming change provides a jolt that makes them think they want to do something else whereas without a change, they would have kept going on autopilot, they leave because they are tired, etc. It's not as if Corella replaced everyone with someone from Barcelona Ballet or ABT: all three replacements are PA Ballet people, and Ochoa was already a top instructor at the school. Few other than insiders would know that any of them had a particular connection to him, something disclosed in the recent press coverage.

Whoever leaked it did a disservice to the people who were fired, however much damage it may do to Corella and the new administration in the cross-fire. When dirty linen is aired, dirt sticks.

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I don't think the people who were dismissed have anything sticking to them (?) As for the present management, time will tell. Not off to a great start, but this will blow over.

I'm still in the "do it clean and do it fast" school, with the proviso that everyone deserves a decent safety net and their dignity.

A layoff doesn't have to be swift and brutal to be "clean," I would respectfully suggest. And there are frequently other options for management. Unfortunately, and particularly in this country, they tend to be first rather than last resorts.

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I don't think the people who were dismissed have anything sticking to them (?)

Of course they do: a public firing has emotional and sometimes financial consequences that a private parting of ways does not.

A layoff doesn't have to be swift and brutal to be "clean," I would respectfully suggest. And there are frequently other options for management. Unfortunately, and particularly in this country, they tend to be first rather than last resorts.

Swift and brutal can be independent. In fact, I've seen some brutal slow firings that nearly destroyed groups.

Any assumption about the timing is just that: an assumption. We don't know if the firings were done at the behest of Corella or as a result of performance evaluations independent of Corella's appointment. Reading carefully, Corella never says that he did the firing or that it was his decision: he was asked for the reasons, which he pretty much brushed off and focused on the team he hired. We don't know if any of this started before Corella took the helm a little over a week ago. All we know is that one person involved, the ballet administrator, Phil Juska expressed surprise, that the firings took place on Monday with no announcement from the Company, that it was leaked to the press on Wednesday, and that the website was updated today. Juska is the only one involved who has spoken.

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Any assumption about the timing is just that: an assumption. We don't know if the firings were done at the behest of Corella or as a result of performance evaluations independent of Corella's appointment. Reading carefully, Corella never says that he did the firing or that it was his decision: he was asked for the reasons, which he pretty much brushed off and focused on the team he hired. We don't know if any of this started before Corella took the helm a little over a week ago. All we know is that one person involved, the ballet administrator, Phil Juska expressed surprise, that the firings took place on Monday with no announcement from the Company, that it was leaked to the press on Wednesday, and that the website was updated today. Juska is the only one involved who has spoken.

One more thing that we know is that this is all taking place a little more that month before the opening of their season, which has likely been in rehearsal for at least a month. While I can imagine that Corella really wants to put his stamp on the organization promptly and clearly, this many changes (repertory and staff) so close to the beginning of the season could be really disruptive, even if they weren't leaked to the public. I can understand someone who is new to the job of director making these kind of peremptory choices -- I'm curious why someone who's supposed to have experience would make these decisions.

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Any assumption about the timing is just that: an assumption. We don't know if the firings were done at the behest of Corella or as a result of performance evaluations independent of Corella's appointment. Reading carefully, Corella never says that he did the firing or that it was his decision: he was asked for the reasons, which he pretty much brushed off and focused on the team he hired. We don't know if any of this started before Corella took the helm a little over a week ago. All we know is that one person involved, the ballet administrator, Phil Juska expressed surprise, that the firings took place on Monday with no announcement from the Company, that it was leaked to the press on Wednesday, and that the website was updated today. Juska is the only one involved who has spoken.

One more thing that we know is that this is all taking place a little more that month before the opening of their season, which has likely been in rehearsal for at least a month. While I can imagine that Corella really wants to put his stamp on the organization promptly and clearly, this many changes (repertory and staff) so close to the beginning of the season could be really disruptive, even if they weren't leaked to the public. I can understand someone who is new to the job of director making these kind of peremptory choices -- I'm curious why someone who's supposed to have experience would make these decisions.

But then when would be a good time to make these changes? Corella just took over so they couldn't have happened sooner. Should he have waited till rehearsals were even further along? Or, heaven forbid, made these cuts in the middle of the season? Talk about being disruptive.

I think the leak and they way the company handled it (without a press release first lauding the many accomplishments and contributions of the ones who were fired) was very poorly handled. And, Corella's comment of "I'm sure they were great...." was not classy or respectful. But, I completely understand his desire for a fresh team/fresh blood and new "energy". He's clearly taken charge. And, like Helene mentioned, it's not like he brought in his cronies from Barcelona or elsewhere or even his sister Carmen who was co-director with him for awhile as well as a principal dancer in his company. If he had done that (and hopefully he won't) I would definitely cringe. No disrespect to his sister, but I think that would clearly send a distinct message of nepotism and nothing else, regardless of how qualified she may be.

At least the 3 he installed (Julie, Zachary and Ochoa) are long time, well respected members of PAB. That's a good sign to me. And, frankly anytime a new boss comes in (esp after a scathing public report about the company's dismal management) everyone should expect a big shake-up of the ranks. That doesn't mean these folks shouldn't be hurt, but job performance isn't always the reason for being laid off or fired (and I don't pretend to know the exact reason they were). I had a previous boss fired 1 1/2 years ago and being her #2 I was fully expecting to be let go too if only because of association. If that had happened (luckily it didn't) that would have been unfair, but I've seen it many times. And I'd rather have lay-offs in one fell swoop instead of dragging them out. My company had big lay-offs a few years ago at the end of the recession. It was a blood bath right before Christmas. But, even worse to me was the CEO telling the company at a town hall meeting that there'd be more coming in a month or so. A number of us thought that announcement was probably to get folks to leave on their own, preemptively. Even so, morale was so bad productivity plummeted severely. The air was heavy with dread and depression everyday from all of us waiting to get the ax. It hurts and it's very hard to get let go especially for folks like at PAB who have been there for many years, but the slow drip is much worse I think. And, not just for the ones who are let go, but for the ones who are left behind who have to move on too and adapt to the new changes.

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There are just so many things we don't know -- and probably never will, unless somebody spills the beans in an interview. E.g., we know when the October program change was announced to the public. We don't know when the dancers and rehearsal masters knew and could start work on the changes.

E.g., we know that Kaiser has the title Emeritus (which is not automatic anywhere) and that he left six months after the Kennedy Center report. We also know that he is featured in a photo for their new donor benefits, a very nice gesture: http://www.paballet.org/donor-events

Was he pushed out by the trustees and these little perks that left him some dignity were part of the negotiations? We don't really know, although these things are consistent with that scenario.

BTW - I love that the new donor-events schedule has been announced for the entire year. It tells locals what they can get, especially in the way of open rehearsals. But it also makes it easier for out-of-towners to make some travel plans. NYCB is also good about announcing Friends events a year ahead. I wish ABT would show that courtesy to their Friends. By the time they get around to announcing open rehearsals and dancer seminars, travel plans are often made.

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The October 16th program 1 is significantly different in tone with an (overly?) ambitious Beethoven 9th Symphony (with live chorus) replaced by two smaller pieces, Wheeldon's Liturgy and another to be arranged. The event is titled "Press Play: The Directorial Debut of Ángel Corella". Though the program is more modest and intimate than before, the title seems rather ambitious.

In the July 25 pilly.com interview, which is interesting to reread in light of the recent news, Corella says he plans to have a Balanchine ballet in each program "to have the understanding that it is a Balanchine-based company." He also says that there are lots of dancers in the company that are being overlooked and that it was important to promote from within. And he implied that there wouldn't be staff changes right away – "I think that before anything changes, the people and the environment have to feel secure" – so maybe in the interim, he found things as they were wouldn't work out.

http://articles.philly.com/2014-07-25/news/51956568_1_pennsylvania-ballet-artistic-director-dancers

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Being fired

I don't think the people who were dismissed have anything sticking to them (?)

Of course they do: a public firing has emotional and sometimes financial consequences that a private parting of ways does not.

A layoff doesn't have to be swift and brutal to be "clean," I would respectfully suggest. And there are frequently other options for management. Unfortunately, and particularly in this country, they tend to be first rather than last resorts.

Swift and brutal can be independent. In fact, I've seen some brutal slow firings that nearly destroyed groups.

Any assumption about the timing is just that: an assumption. We don't know if the firings were done at the behest of Corella or as a result of performance evaluations independent of Corella's appointment. Reading carefully, Corella never says that he did the firing or that it was his decision: he was asked for the reasons, which he pretty much brushed off and focused on the team he hired. We don't know if any of this started before Corella took the helm a little over a week ago. All we know is that one person involved, the ballet administrator, Phil Juska expressed surprise, that the firings took place on Monday with no announcement from the Company, that it was leaked to the press on Wednesday, and that the website was updated today. Juska is the only one involved who has spoken.

I still don't see that any dirt sticks to the people who were let go (except in the manner of their being let go), but perhaps the phrase means different things to different people (?)

Very possibly the internal situation was such that business couldn't go on as usual.There is no way mass dismissals don't get outside attention; it's the responsibility of whoever is running things to see that matters don't get out of hand, as they did here.

Toward the more general point, as I mentioned previously, there is no way to get rid of large numbers of people without distress and disruption. I was simply speaking to what appeared to be a general assumption that fast and large is always better and, by implication, "clean."

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Toward the more general point, as I mentioned previously, there is no way to get rid of large numbers of people without distress and disruption. I was simply speaking to what appeared to be a general assumption that fast and large is always better and, by implication, "clean."

I'd hoped I'd made it clear that layoffs are always fraught ("miserable" is how I characterized them). I certainly didn't mean to imply that large is always better (especially since I never used that word), nor to equate "clean" with either fast or large. "Clean" means well planned and professionally managed.

Perhaps I should clarify what I mean by "fast" while I'm at it. I certainly don't mean a summary execution where the laid-off personnel are marched out of the office with all of their tchokes in a cardboard box an hour after they're told they're being let go. (As California pointed out above, there are situations where that happens, but the provisions of the WARN Act would in general effectively grant those employees an extra 60 days of severance pay.) I do mean that management should avoid the kind of situation in which there is a general announcement (often for the benefit of Wall St.) that there will at some undefined point in the future be lay-offs, but months pass before the employees are told who will be laid off and who won't, what kinds of separation packages will be available, how the layoff decisions will be made, etc. etc. etc. I've been through a bunch of those, and they're awful.

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Quiggin - I was looking forward to Ricky Weiss' Beethoven's 9th and think PAB would have done a great job with it - they do (did?) many of his ballets and are familiar with his style. It's my understanding that Angel was encouraged to put his stamp on the company (including programming) by the Board. He kept Ratmansky's Jeu de Cartes, dropped Weiss' Beethoven's 9th, added Wheeldon's Liturgy and Balanchine's Allegro Brilliante and there is one additional ballet - a TBA. There will be 4 ballets in the October program.

Mira

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Quiggin - I was looking forward to Ricky Weiss' Beethoven's 9th - they do (did?) many of his ballets and are familiar with his style...

Thanks, I didn't know they did a lot of Weiss's works. My experience with most Beethoven is that it's awfully full already – saturated with meaning, hammering and argumentative – before you add choreography. Though the Bagatelles would make lovley short pieces (Helgi Tomasson may have already have set some). Also I'd wonder how the big Beethoven peice would play next to Stravinsky.

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Quiggin - I was looking forward to Ricky Weiss' Beethoven's 9th - they do (did?) many of his ballets and are familiar with his style...

Thanks, I didn't know they did a lot of Weiss's works. My experience with most Beethoven is that it's awfully full already – saturated with meaning, hammering and argumentative – before you add choreography. Though the Bagatelles would make lovley short pieces (Helgi Tomasson may have already have set some). Also I'd wonder how the big Beethoven peice would play next to Stravinsky.

off%20topic.gif Jerome Robbins did a ballet to the Beethoven Bagatelles for Kirkland and, I think, Bonnefoux at New York City Ballet (Four Bagatelles). Wikipedia tells me it was revived for the Robbins celebration a few years ago. Perhaps, too, some of the songs would work for a nice chamber-style ballet.

I tend to agree that most Beethoven is not ideal ballet/dance music--however much choreographers may want to give it a try. Béjart also did a 9th Symphony, and Tharp rather unexpectedly (to me) did a 7th. Wagner called the latter "the apotheosis of the dance," a phrase I think should have been taken as a warning not an invitation. (Even Tudor took on 'symphonic' Beethoven, though not one of the symphonies...) Still, I can certainly see the marketing appeal of well-known Beethoven works for a ballet company. I'm not advocating for it, but If you are trying to draw in culturally curious-but-conservative audiences, maybe lure new viewers from the symphony crowd, etc. then...

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