Helene

I think it's important to be public about someone leaving and the job being open, because, especially with so much social media, it will get out, and appearing to hide things is rarely a good idea.

A lot of what passes for and is described as Flamenco is actually Spanish classical dance, which has a lot of similarities to ballet. Antonio Gades' obituary is an example of how a dancer crossed boundaries with various types of training and performing: http://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/jul/22/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries

Hopefully, the PNB example will never be used again, in Seattle or anywhere else. I think it is reasonable to make a search public and the final selection and even the process -- X applications received, semi-finalists will be interviewed over Skype, finalists will be flown to [city] for in-person interviews with Board, administration, dancers, backstage, etc. -- but to list the people who are finalists is a horrid idea, however interesting it was to watch. Some of the people who applied had permanent-type jobs, and it would be demoralizing for a company, for example, to learn that, not only did their AD apply, their AD didn't get the job and is there only because s/he didn't get a better offer elsewhere. If a person wants it to get out that he or she was a finalist or rejected for whatever reason, there are plenty of opportunities on social media for the news to get out.

It's not unusual to have an arts consultant in charge of a search, and LinkedIn and trade journals are the best ways to make the announcement transparent.

Thanks to a heads up from friends on social media: An arts consultant has posted the job listing for Artistic Director of Charlotte Ballet to LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/charlotte-ballet-artistic-director-goline-dory-vanderhoof Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux, the current AD, is 72.

She's now on the Russian page that links, but not on the English page, where her bio is blank.