Is ballet really unprofitable?

[LMCtech]

Back to the nonprofit discussion. You have to remember that this is a tax distinction as well and there are specific requirements of the finance departments of nonprofit organizations to the federal and state tax boards. I a nutshell, they must prove every year that they are using every dollar that comes in, otherwise they could lose their nonprofit status and the benefits that come with that.

Ballet is unprofitable because of many reasons.

As for other things said already....80K for new costumes is not unreasonable because of all the handwork that goes into those costumes. The average costume worker does not make much more than $10-15 an hour. (Starting salary at Starbucks is $9 in San Francisco.) That is barely a living wage in the cities they are required to live in. And they don't have benefits because most are designated as "seasonal" employees and therefore don't have to be covered under the law. The average tutu takes 40-60 hours of labor. then there are materials costs. The average tutu takes 10 yds of fabric at 1$10-20 per yard. You do the math. That's why costumes cost so much.

A principal may be making 90K a year but an apprentice is making less than $300 a week, which isn't enough to pay rent on a studio in San Francisco. An executive at ABT may be making 6 digits, but average support staff is making $25k if they're lucky and then may not be getting benefits or year-round employment. If you don't think we're devoted and we're only in it for the money, think again. I could be making twice what I do at a ballet comapny, doing the same work, if I were in the corporate sector. But I stay here because I love the are form. And so do all of my co-workers.

Many companies rent and loan out costumes, but are often hesitant to do that because they can come back wrecked, depending on where they go. therefore they must be insured, which costs more money. Joint productions are a great idea, but hammering out the details can be nightmarish. Loaning dancers with no extra compensation is unfair to the dancers. It can be a great hardship to uproot, find a subletter for your apartment, and dance on an unfamiliar stage with unfamiliar people after hours and hours of travels and not enough rehearsal time. If they are being loaned at a time when they would otherwise be danceing with their home company, it is a burden on the other dancers that have to pull up the slack.

Facilities are expensive. You have to pay theater support staff, technical crews, security guards, electricity, heat, equipment rental, liability insurance, workers comp insurance, car insurance (for any company vehicles);the list can go on forever.

I heard it said that for every dancer on stage there are 40+ staff and crew members behind the scenes.

I really don't think big companies have any resources to spare to small companies. This is not a football profit-sharing kind of environment with large TV and product endorsement deals. Every company is fending for themselves in their own market. And if you think about it every large company had to pay its dues as a small company to get where it is now.

[citibob]

Most of the clothing we wear is made overseas in factories that pay $1-$2 per day. Obviously, if you pay $10/hr for local labor, the costume will cost a lot more.

Since ballet is a money-losing business in which losses are covered by contributions, it stands to reason that big companies lose more money than small companies.

[Mme. Hermine]

but in those factory situations you're talking about off the rack clothing made to standard sizes, not costumes which are made to order and have to be fitted at more than one step along the way in construction.

[Mel Johnson]

But back to the Diamond Project and other related ventures for a moment. None of us has closely read the agreement under which Diamond is endowed. In the fine print, there may very well be a restrictive covenant limiting NYCB to how and where the Project works are presented. It's one reason why museums have deeply curtailed donations that have strings attached, some of which can be quite nasty!

[LMCtech]

IMO, even if NO ballets are added to the repertory of NYCB through the Diamond Project, it is an indispensible experience for the dancers. It takes very different skills to have a ballet made on you than having one staged on you and they are skills that are ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY to becoming a good dancer, and eventually a good ballet master or rehearsal assistant or even a choreographer or artistic director. From the audiences point of view it may not seem like the money is worth it, but from the POV of the dancers and the artistic staff experiences and programs like that are more than worth the money that is "wasted" on them.

[Alexandra]

LMCTech, I agree -- one hopes that there are enough successful experiments that the audience won't get testy, but dancers do need new work, and need work made on their bodies. And, if they're intelligent, which I think most dancers are, they will get something from every experience, even the wretched ones!

[Manhattnik]

From what I've seen and heard of the Diamond Project, it seems to be the ballet world's equivalent of the old Woody Allen joke, which has two elderly ladies complaining of the restaurant (in the Catskills, no doubt) where the food is terrible and the portions are so small!

In other words, while it's true the dancers have works made on them, almost all of those works are of, shall we say, questionable quality, and they're staged with minimal (or less than minimal!) rehearsal time. While I have never danced (in public), choreographed or managed a company, I am nevertheless not altogether convinced that knowing how to learn, or convince an audience that you've learned, crappy ballets at breakneck speed teaches dancers how to do anything more than that, and I'm also a bit skeptical that such a skill is of much value in turning a dancer into a choreographer or artistic director. And if it is, I'm also not sure I'd care much for the creations or repertory of someone whose artistic taste and temperement has been molded by such an environment.

Perhaps my sense of irony has been overly sensitized by living in a city where the Mayor demonstrates for the subway-riding masses the pluck they'll need to survive the threatened transit strike by going out and buying a $500 bicycle, but I find something strangely dissonant in reading, in a thread whose title questions the very profitability of ballet, that a company's productions can have any ultimate value other than to that company's perceived and, one hopes, carefully developed, and, one hopes even more, paying audience.

[citibob]

If the critics are any indication, then the new works I regularly dance are of much higher quality than that typical of the Diamond Project. And it's done at a fraction of the budget. And I don't even dance for a famous company like NYCB.

For that reason, I struggle to find the rationale in giving some of the world's best dancers lessons in bad choreography. Wouldn't it be much better for the dancers (and of course the audience as well) if they worked with better choreographers?

[Calliope]

I was watching 60 Minutes on Catherine B. Reynolds "scandal" in Washington. She gave a huge donation to the Smithsonian, signed a contract on how the money should be used and the museum developed, there was a lot of backlash from the social community that she was buying her way into society, the Smithsonian had problems with the contract, so she said "forget it" and donated $100 mil to the Kennedy Center.

All these big $$ donations make me wonder who is actually running the company.

[Ari]

Calliope, Reynolds's donation to the Smithsonian had been earmarked for a "Hall of Fame" for female achievers, but her idea of the kind of people she wanted to honor was Oprah Winfrey. The museum decided that that was not what it is about, so they declined the offer — an example of good institutional governance, IMO. If they had agreed to take the money, then I think we would have had cause to worry about who was calling the shots.

Her gift to the Kennedy Center is unrestricted, btw.

[LMCtech]

Manhattnik, a smart dancer can also learn what NOT to do by working on a "bad" ballet. Learning by bad example is sometimes more effective than learning by positive experiences.

I think in this day and age arts organizations are being put in difficult situations by donations such as the Reynolds scandal. More and more donors seem to want more for their money and interestingly enough from the experience of many of my colleagues it is the donors in the middle and low levels who want the most. The highest donors tend to sit back anonymously watching what they've helped build without any need for perks and special recognition.

[citibob]

OK, I'll write that up in a grant proposal. Opening at Lincoln Center, Citibob's new choreography. Bad choreography. It will really help the dancers learn. After all, they never get this valuable experience with Balanchine.

I'm sure my proposal for bad choreography will be well received by the various funding agencies. The audience should like it too; after all, then they can see their favorite dancers in a bad light!

[Alexandra]

Obviously, no one sets out to make "bad" choreography. Ballet companies have to commission new choreography -- one can quibble over whom they commission, and many do. Its value won't be known for several years. The rehearsal process is very important to a dancer's career, and dancers can profit by working with choreographers whose ballet, that season, may not be destined for the Canon. Also, as LMCTech said, one can often learn a great deal by seeing bad examples. No one is saying that's an ideal situation, just that creating new work is necessary and can be valuable even if the results aren't what one had hoped. On the flip side of that, working for a mediocrity year in and year isn't good for the art form either. There has to be a standard of excellence, and there has to be experimentation, for an art form to be viable, and I don't think the two are mutually exclusive, although it often seems that way.

[mbjerk]

I think that we have forgotten that dancers dance in a company whose artistic direction they follow. Similarly donors and audiences belong to a theater/company they enjoy. Yes, even the bad...... Perhaps NYCB audiences feel a part of a vibrant organization through projects such as the Diamond, and enjoy discussing the merits or demerits of the works. I do not think at NYCB the audience has or subscription levels have fallen off dramatically, so the product onstage must still be watchable.

As for doing more with less, this is the fact in non-profit companies. I am sure that NYCB (or ABT, Joffrey) would make an argument that they work with less than the ideal, the level is different from a small, local company. For NYCB it may mean using less costly fabric or advertising, for a small company using no costumes at all and calling frends to attend the performance. It is impossible to compare, although one may state that genius comes through in any case - but often genius is in the eyes of the beholder until it stands the test of time.

Unfortunately we do not have the luxury of failure in today's environment. Failure is necessary to grow, for dancers, choregraphers and audiences. You do not know you hate (or love) artichoke until you taste it.

[Alexandra]

Not having the luxury of failure is a good point, mbjerk. I think this is another of the "three programs a year" model. If you have The Valentine's Day Special program, each one of those ballets has to be a Hit -- not that you'll show it again, unless it's a Megahit, but it can't be a Flop. And this causes companies to fall into patterns, choreographers to use formulas, etc. I keep thinking of Balanchine's "Divertimento No. 15" which is now a repertory staple of small companies, but took quite awhile to catch on, and if it had been the new opening ballet commission of a small company, I doubt we'd be seeing it now.

I also think your point that a company works within a general aesthetic is well taken. A friend of mine has a theory -- simple, but true -- is that audiences see what they like. (One of the reasons that critics -- and artists! -- take the applause meter with a grain of salt.) If you go see a program, whether it's Swan Lake No. 555 or New Choreography and you don't like it, you probably won't come back. If you watch a company year in and year out, the Dear Old Uncle Norm principle applies -- (to the outside world, he may be a jerk, but to his family, he's lovable Uncle Norm). Translated into ballet terms, that means that the style, the dancers, and the repertory become what's "right" to you, unless you have the opportunity, and the interest, to see as much work in different aesthetics.

[Manhattnik]

Although I don't have any figures on NYCB subscription sales lately, you don't have to be a weatherman to feel the cold drafts of the winds howling over the vast empty spaces up in Fourth Ring at the State Theater on most weeknights, when one half-expects to see tumbleweed blowing by and hear the howl of coyotes (except, for some strange reason, on all-Balanchine evenings -- go figure). I haven't seen much evidence of the NYCB audience flocking to Diamond Project ballets; it seems more to me of a case of he (or she) who pays the piper getting to call the tune. Or, rather, he who raises the funds to pay the piper -- especially when he IS the piper.

The Diamond Project is not new; it's been around for ten years, and the quality of the works can speak for themselves. Most of them are pretty darn awful. And while nobody may set out to make a "bad" ballet, that doesn't mean the converse is always true, either -- that making a "good" ballet is always the uppermost priority. How else to explain the peculiarity of marketing this series as a vehicle for presenting new, edgy, works by new, edgy, choreographers which will boldy take NYCB where no NYCB has ever gone before, when, in fact, the most prolific choreographer for said project happens to be NYCB's artistic director himself?

Yes, the three-program companies don't have the luxury of failure. It might be encouraging to know that NYCB can indeed afford the price of failure if only it didn't prove it with such depressing regularity. Or, rather, the financial price -- certainly not the artistic one, and that's where I have a real problem with the argument that dancers can learn a lot from bad choreography. Yes, they certainly can, but mostly what they learn is -- bad choreography, in all its myriad manifestations. Gresham's Law applies to the arts, as to everything else, it seems, and I see a generation learning to make dances that fit the aphorism with which Ronald Reagan was fond of describing his acting career: "They didn't want it good; they wanted it Thursday."

Of course companies need to present new works; of course dancers need to have new works made on them. But when the administration demonstrates, year after year, a blithe and cynical indifference to the quality of those new works (let's not even get into how badly the company's priceless heritage has been neglected), it only teaches dancers to be blithe, cynical and indifferent, which perhaps explains the strange and ever-growing joylessness of City Ballet's recent performances.

And, yes, audiences know what's going on. Witness the empty seats. Witness the audiences sitting on their hands.

Didn't Arlene Croce once contemplate the audience at the State Theater waving "We See You!" signs at the dancers? I think it's again time to get out the cardboard and spray paint.

[G]

Originally posted by LMCtech

Back to the nonprofit discussion. You have to remember that this is a tax distinction as well and there are specific requirements of the finance departments of nonprofit organizations to the federal and state tax boards. I a nutshell, they must prove every year that they are using every dollar that comes in, otherwise they could lose their nonprofit status and the benefits that come with that.

It may not be relevant to the specifics of this topic, however I would like to point out that I do not think the above statement is accurate. Non-profit status (actually not-for-profit) is granted to organizations by state authority. Tax exempt status is granted on a national level by the IRS (501©(3) or 501©(4) for charitable trusts). Neither state nor federal regulations require that every dollar be "used". In fact, they encourage not-for-profit corporations to have a year end carry-over to cover fundraising shortfalls in subsequent years. What is NOT allowed is for any individual or group investing or contributing to the corporation to make a financial profit from their contribution.

To quote from IRS literature:"To be tax-exempt as an organization described inIRC Section 501©(3) of the Code, an organization must be organized and operated exclusively for one or more of the purposes set forth inIRC Section501©(3) and none of the earnings of the organization may inure to any private shareholder or individual." Note the IRS use of the term earnings. 501©(3) organizations need to file form 990 or equivelant each year to show earnings, losses, expenses, etc.

To Qoute from John Horne in Art As A Business: "In the United States there exists an Internal Revenue Service designation for service organizations and foundations, that has as many sub-classifications as you’d expect from a government agency, but all tend to be grouped together under a colloquial label simply referred to as not-for-profits, or non-profits. Now here’s the first challenge. The term non-profit does not mean that you have signed away any chance at making a living for yourself with your craft, nor that your company or school cannot be self-sufficient.

In fact, the final awarding of one of the many different numerical designations is a multi-year process. The performance of your organization is evaluated against your initial projections over a 3 – 5 year period. Even the IRS understands an average citizen’s need to buy groceries! The much sought after 501 © (3) status that we will be discussing in this series of articles, can only be maintained if the organization is viable.

The designation is meant to stipulate that those investing in your organization will not profit financially from the services the organization provides to and for the community. Therefore their support of your organization is tax deductible, an indicator highly regarded within the ever-decreasing pool of funders."

G

[Dale]

I have to put ditto to much of what Manhattnik wrote about the Diamond Project.

And I agree that having choreography made on their bodies is an important lesson for the dancers, but for the Diamond Project, all the same dancers are learning all the same lessons. Of the 5-8 ballets made during a DP season, most of the ballets all have the same dancers in them.

Saying, "Well, if we fail, we fail. Let's just do it." shows a very cavalier attitude. I think it would probably be more valuable to do less new ballets a season for NYCB and put all its energies in trying to do a quality work. Then, if it fails, at least it was a noble failure. At least the choreographer looked to use the best music for the ballet, rather than just music he/she liked - consult with the music director; learned to work with a costume designer to come up with the best costumes; learn how to work with a set designer, lightning designer etc... Get guidiance from the artistic director and have proper rehearsal time. And, importantly, if something doesn't work after the work's debut, change it.

I think the plan to produce so much new work in one season needs to be balanced with the amount of rehearsal time the new ballets need and the time it takes to properly rehearse the existing rep. And I'd like to see the choreographers spend time with the company's dancers in rehearsals for the existing rep. During the last DP, the playbill ran a set of interviews - time and again the choreographers mentioned that with so little time, they used dancers they knew and styles they knew. What are they learning then?

[mbjerk]

Thanks for the update on the Fourth Ring Ghost Town - I guess the sheriff let in the outlaws and everyone fled.

One must then look to the directorship at NYCB. He must choose who makes works for the Diamond project and he is then responsible for the oversight of those works.

Artistic oversight (editorial control) during the creative process has been lost these days. Everyone needs an editor (or ballet master) and this is especially true for less experienced choreographers. Few directors take the interest to be in the studio during the creative process. The attitude is one of non-interference and I think this lets bad work get to a point of no return. If the director sees rehearsals in the final week and the ballet is tooo much longer than others, then it is toooooo late to change or cancel. As the director is on a fixed salary, this extra time comes at no incremental cost and may reap huge savings/benefits later on.

Funny how no one has mentioned unions as a major source of cost during performance runs. Stagehands and musicians are paid more than the dancers. They are wonderful and work tremendously hard to ensure an excellent show, but the wage scale is at the point where companies are forced to do less.

[balletmama]

To me there is an Emperor's New Clothes quality to new NYCB choreography these days, which is why most of my hard-earned ticket dollars go to ABT. There appears to be a lack of vision from the top down. New versions like Swan Lake get performed for no apparent reason; the creative spark or passion is hard to discern. And re the Diamond Project, which I thankfully saw for free on television, why subject audiences to one new and less-than-thrilling piece after another? Why not show some respect for the company's tradition (and some compassion for the audience) and perform one new piece along with a few of the much-loved ones, as the Ailey company is currently doing with new pieces by Taylor-Corbett and Harper? Seems to me that in any art, the new is in dialogue with that which has come before.

OK, that's my grumbling for the day...

[Calliope]

Perhaps b/c they've made the bottom line in donations, it doesn't matter what gets put out there and how it looks and what the dancers or the audiences think so long as I get to handpick the dancers for my pieces and the choreographers.

And to appease everyone else, we'll create an institute of choreography, to which perhaps the dancers will get to work with some creative talent.

That's what I say as the paying ballet goer.

The other part of me says, maybe there's not that many talented choreographers for them to choose from and we have to find out the hard way through watching the Diamond Project.

[Drew]

I've seen only a handful of the Diamond Project ballets over the years, and I accept the consensus that the result has been disappointing, but I'm a little surprised at the degree of animus against it. As I recall, the publicity for the Diamond Project precisely did not claim that the ballets would take NYCB where it has "never gone before." On the contrary Martins was always very insistant that his goal was works based in the classical ballet vocabulary and more or less continuous with the Balanchine aesthetic. That may be changing now (Eifman? Stroman?), but with all the complaints at what he has done -- to say nothing of the disappointing results -- one can hardly be surprised he has decided to tinker with the original plan...The goal still seems admirable, and, in principle, hardly a waste of money.

As for what's actually happening on stage...

I have heard fans and critics -- even people on this board! -- praise diamond project ballets by Kevin O'Day, Helgi Tomasson, William Forsythe, Christopher Wheeldon, Ulysses Dove,Robert LaFosse, and Miriam Mahdaviani. Forsyth and Wheeldon are major players on the international scene, and almost everyone thought Mahdaviani's first ballet for the Diamond Project promised a real choreographer (though her works since then have been more mildly received).

Wheeldon has, as it happens, emerged as a serious choreographer primarily in the context of Peter Martins's NYCB including the Diamond Project. It's not a question of giving Martins 'credit' for Wheeldon -- but recognizing that a good choreographer has been able to grow in that atmosphere. As I recall, Mercurial Manoevers (which I missed) was greeted as something of a breakthrough work for Wheeldon.

One of the few Diamond Work projects I did see was Tomasson's Prism which included a beautiful pas de deux for Maria Kowroski (spelling apologies) -- it may not be a timeless work of art, but I don't think it was a waste of time for her to work with him on that pas de deux. Her performance in that ballet was, in my opinion, one of her more mature ones. (And Tomasson, of course, has since staged the ballet in San Francisco.)

Perhaps a cost/benefit analysis of the Diamond Project would still lead to the conclusion that fewer new works given more time would be a better use of resources...That would be my vote, and I have been spared sitting through the bulk of the Diamond Project repertory. But I'm a little unpersuaded by the portrait of cynicism or indifference. And when I compare what has happened to the Ashton legacy at the Royal with Balanchine at NYCB, Martins doesn't come off too badly in that regard either. I can't compare NYCB's Balanchine seriously to other regional companies -- but what few performances I have seen of Farrell's group (beautifully coached) and the San Francisco ballet, have not remotely supported the notion that there is consistently 'better' Balanchine outside of NYCB.

Were the Balanchine performances (on the whole -- though not always) 'better' when Balanchine was alive? Well, gee, yes...but that doesn't make the Diamond Project a plot to keep the company in the black by destroying Balanchine's legacy.

[Calliope]

There's a statistic on NYCB's website that says "of the 450 of Balanchines catalogued works a mere 73 remain in the repertory"

We barely see 20 of the Balanchine works a season, right now the rep is even split 1/3 Balanchine, 1/3 Robbins and 1/3 Martins/Diamond.

There have definitely been some nice works in the Diamond Project, but most of them were by somewhat established choreographers. I still debate Wheeldon as a success, I think he's more media trumped. Even his works fade faster than the money spent on creating them.

I don't debate spending the money on fostering new talent/creativity, but don't subject an audience to spend as much as they ask us to on things that last a season or two at best. I'd rather see that at workshop or in the choreographic institute programs.

[Alexandra]

I hadn't noticed that statement on NYCB's web site, Calliope, and I'm rather stunned by it -- "a *mere* 73 remain"?

Drew, well said -- and I'm glad it was said. I think all of the big classical institutions are in different states of disrepair, but Martins has maintained the structure of NYCB as an institution -- and by that I mean that if the spaceship touched down and Balanchine came back with a note from God saying, "So sorry. It was all a misunderstanding," he could walk in there and get the company back to where it was within a year. It would not be possible for Ashton to do that at the Royal -- not that they'd want him back, I fear. They could get it back to late MacMillan level, perhaps, but not to 1969. (I realize there's an argument that NYCB shouldn't be trying to preserve Balanchine, they should just be looking for a genius because that's what a company needs, but I disagree with that. I think that's the Diaghilev model; I'm for the institutional model: a ballet company needs a core repertory. Ballets and style and aesthetic are the bones and blood of a company and not disposable.)

The hard fact is that until the next genius comes along, you have to go through a lot of shlock to come up with a few watchable ballets. What ballet choreographers is Martins ignoring? This isn't a situation where Fokine and Massine are locked out, jumping up and down trying to get in. I agree that there could be workshops and more guidance, certainly, and that the core repertory could be better guarded (I have seen Balanchine productions better staged and danced outside of NYCB, including by Farrell's company and San Francisco, and Pacific Northwest and Miami City Ballet. Some, not all, but some) but I think we have to have new work. I'd rather money be spent on commissioning new work than yet another promotional campaign or outreach program -- to get back to the why is ballet so expensive questoin.

[Calliope]

It's under the "Vital Committment to New Work" section

http://www.nycballet.com/patron/camp_5.html