Welsh Canary, you raise some interesting points. From some of your previous posts, I believe that we are from the same state. My question to you is how can we as enjoyers of all the arts convince the community that arts are an important part of life? Right now in my city the mayor is more interested in building a new football stadium for a bunch of millionare players and owner who has NO LOYALTY to the community beyond getting his new stadium. Although he didn't come out and specifically said so I think the implication was, build me a stadium or my team will leave. The mayor has also convinced most of the counties surrounding the city to vote in a 1% food and beverage tax to support the stadium (based on his reasoning that it is good for the entire area). It doesn't matter that anyone going to the football games will not spend the night in a hotel 20 miles out of town, or probably even eat there, the commissionars passed the tax and as such are effectively penalizing the local people. One county (not mine) had the guts to stand up to the mayor and didn't vote in the tax. It also appears that in this city that sports rule, never mind that the public school system has major problems, they have major sewage leaks into the river during heavy rains, the public transportation system is literally non-existent, the police department is underfunded, library underfunded, I could go on forever, but we will HAVE A NEW STADIUM!!!
I believe it was Lenin who said that religion was the opiate of the masses, but I feel that we could change that in this area to say that sports are the peoples opiate. Just give them a winning team and anything goes.
Another point that you raised is the repetoire of dance companies. If the classic ballets were relevant in their early days then how could we make them relevant to people today? How can we educate people today to see that dance is a beautiful art and that the dancers while artists are also performing a very physically demanding job? In my local school system my son's elementary took the 4th graders to the symphony and in the 6th grade they go to the opera, in my oldest son's high school they went to the local theater company to see a play and I know that that company puts on many daytime perfomances of The Christmas Carol for school groups. Nowhere in the curriculum have I seen mention of a trip to the ballet. I know that the local company does outreach perfomances, but I think that they are just to the inner city schools (correct me if I'm wrong) and not to the schools outside the main area of the city. If the symphony, opera and theater company can reach all of these groups then why are ballet companies having a hard time reaching the same groups? Is it something that is just in our area or is it widespread? Is ballet something that people just don't understand, while going to the symphony or a play is easier to understand? You also mention ballets that are relevant to our times. Last year our local company performed Dracula. I don't know if it made money, but my sons sure enjoyed it. I don't know what other modern ballets are out there for companies to perform. I would like to see some Balanchine or Tudor but I don't know if there are copyright issues with those ballets. One of the local modern dance companies just got done with a performance of The Hunchback of Notre Dame. It was wonderful, the dancers all looked like they were having a good time on stage, they came out afterwards and mingled with the audience and both of my sons once again enjoyed it. In fact the oldest one went back to see it a second time.
Another thing that might be causing some lack of attendance is now most places have you buy your tickets through a ticketing service. The company can advertise $15.00 tickets, but by the time you go through the ticket service they end up costing $5-10 more. If someone is stretching the budget to spend $15, then adding a fee on to the price of the ticket may make them say just forget it. I for one am also fairly new to the ballet, but I have become an avid fan. I love going to the shows, seeing the dancers, trying to pick out my favorites in the corps, etc., but I am also at a point in my life where I can afford some of the luxuries of going to the theater , etc. But many people are just trying to make ends meet and even if the ballet company performs something that is more modern, they just don't have the extra money to go to a performance. However, I do hope that the local company will be around for a long time. I think it would be a great loss to our city, if they were to ever leave.