Ballet West promotional photoshoot for Choreographic Festival VI: Asian Voices
Behind the scenes photo by Alisa Vvedenskaia

In the Wings:

DDP Summer
Newsletter

Read Here

DDP's 2023 Research Calendar has been
delayed due to delays in IRS filings.
View these updates at the link below.

Research Calendar Updates

Research Calendar

Pacific Northwest Ballet in Annabelle Lopez Ochoa's "Khepri"
Photo by Lindsay Thomas

Dallas Morning News: Dallas-Fort Worth
lost a generation of women’s choreography

By Elizabeth Yntema and Isabelle Ramey

Read Op-Ed Here

Lake Tahoe Dance Festival
Photo by Erin Baiano

Interview with Ali Duffy, Texas Tech University, Flatlands
Dance Theatre International Parenting and Dance Network

Moving Forces: Motherhood in Dance

Watch Interview Here

Grand Rapids Ballet in Katarzyna Skarpetowska's "Off the Canvas"
Photo by BalletX

The Importance of Crisis
Communications and Strategy
With Shannon Riggs of
FINN Partners

Watch Interview Here

Raising the Barre:

Lake Tahoe Dance Festival
Photo by Erin Baiano

Victoria Morgan in Val Caniparoli's Moonlight Sonata

DDP Talks to
Victoria Morgan,
Advisory Council
Member

Read Here

2023 Largest U.S.
Contemporary & Modern
Dance Companies Report

Download Report

Richmond Ballet in rehearsal for Katarzyna Skarpetowska's "Kaleidoscopic Etudes"
Photo by Sarah Ferguson
Courtesy of Richmond Ballet

DDP’s GEI is designed to assess how dance companies
measure up in terms of commissioning female creators,
promoting women to leadership positions, and fostering
a transparent and accountable culture.

2023 Gender Equity
Index Winners Announced

View Results Here

Eugene Ballet in rehearsal for Suzanne Haag’s "Petrushka"
Courtesy of Eugene Ballet

Gender Equity Index

DDP’s 2023 Gender Equity Index results are currently live! View them below.

2023 GEI Results

Informing equity through data
analysis, advocacy and programming

Dance Data Project® is a global resource for the study and analysis of major national and international dance companies, venues, and choreographic awards. In addition, DDP surveys ballet competitions, festivals and scholarship programs worldwide. We provide a resource for those seeking information about female choreographers, set, costume & lighting designers, as well composers of classically based dance music.

We also cover recent news (as you’ll see below) and provide an archive of articles related to issues surrounding classical dance, including pay transparency and equity, hiring and and harassment policies. Browse, have a look, and feel free to provide feedback by contacting us on our contact page. Many thanks for visiting.

About The Dance Data Project^®

We promote equity in all aspects of classical ballet by providing a metrics based analysis through our data base while showcasing women led companies, festivals, competitions, venues, special programs and initiatives. We focus on artists of merit: choreographers, photographers, lighting, costume, set designers, and commissioned composers.

We invite you to learn more about our organization, mission, our methods, and the results of our years of advocacy.

Learn More About Us

2022 Accomplishments

2022 DDP Accomplishments Summary

Research (We Couldn’t Fit It All On) One-Pager

2022 Resources & Advocacy One-Pager

2022 Programming One-Pager

Research & Data

We encourage you to collaborate with us—let us know about special initiatives, or call our attention to areas for study or a company, artist, festival, competition or venue we haven’t discovered yet. We want to know what topics you think are important for further, in-depth research. Drop us a line. Our latest research is looped in below.

Season Overview 2022/2023

Published On: 8/21/2023

This Report represents Dance Data Project^®’s fifth annual Season Overview report, which examines the gender distribution of choreographers in the 2022/2023 season among the Largest 150 Ballet and Classically Inspired Companies in the United States (based on FY 2020 expenditures). This is DDP’s second iteration of the report examining the Largest 150 companies, compared to only the Largest 50 companies in the past. DDP examines 1637 works in this report; a remarkable expansion from the first Season Overview report in 2019 where only 645 works were analyzed. DDP has also extended its research efforts to offer an in-depth analysis of the 2022/2023 Season Programming across the Largest 150 companies. Notably, this year’s report introduces the inclusion of “Company Premieres” in the analysis, as well as ranks companies within the Largest 50 based on the number of works by women for the very first time.

Among the Largest 150 companies, 23.9% of full-length works and 35.0% of mixed bill works were choreographed by women, indicating that works choreographed by women are more often presented in mixed rep programs instead of the more prestigious (and expensive) full evening works.

View the Report

Download the Global Resident Choreographers Data Byte 2023

DATA BYTE: Global Resident Choreographers 2023

Published on: 5/16/2023

With this Data Byte, Dance Data Project^® examines the role of resident choreographers at prominent dance companies for the fourth year annually. New additions to this year’s report include the Additional 50 U.S. Ballet & Classically Based Companies and an expanded global company sample. As a result, DDP analyzes 348 companies, a significant increase from the 270 companies previously studied.

Of the 348 companies examined, DDP identified 89 companies employing a total of 116 resident choreographers (an increase from 79 at 55 companies in 2022). Of the 116 resident choreographers, 42 are women (36%) and 74 are men (64%). In the 2022 study, DDP determined that women comprised 32% of resident choreographers and men comprised 68%. These findings indicate there has been little change in the gender distribution of resident choreographers between 2022 and 2023.

View Data Byte

DDP Talks To…

Israel Tannenbaum

DDP Talks To Israel Tannenbaum - Advisory Council Member

DDP Talks To Israel Tannenbaum Team Member Interview: New Advisory Council Member Could you give us a general overview of your background and your work as an advisor and tax consultant? I have been working as a tax advisor for tax-exempt organizations for about 21 years, which has included everything from tax compliance – which is super important for these entities as they are public filings and part of their public face to the world – to serving as an adviser and assisting with a myriad of issues including structuring, international operations, and all the other issues these organizations encounter...

Full Interview

Victoria Morgan

DDP Talks To Victoria Morgan - Advisory Council Member

DDP Talks To Victoria Morgan Team Member Interview: New Advisory Council Member Could you give us a brief overview of your outstanding career as a dancer, choreographer, CEO, and artistic director? I began dancing at the age of 2 because of a hernia. The doctor told my mom that I should move/get some exercise. That was the beginning of a life-long obsession with movement. The rigors of ballet technique began at 8 years old, and then at 12, living in a conservative, controlling Mormon community, the realization that I could find a place of expression and personal affirmation in a...

Full Interview

2023 Artist in Residence Mei-Yin Ng, GALLIM Moving Artist Parent Residency, Photo by Maria J. Hackett

DDP Talks To Andrea Miller - GALLIM Moving Artist Parent Residency

DDP Talks To Andrea Miller (Founder and Artistic Director) GALLIM Moving Artist Parent Residency 2023 Artist in Residence Mei-Yin Ng, GALLIM Moving Artist Parent Residency, Photo by Maria J. Hackett This past fall, GALLIM celebrated its 15th anniversary with a performance at the Chelsea Factory. Now they return to the Joyce for the first time since the pandemic, with a mixed bill program, May 31-June 4. Since its founding, the company has stood out as a groundbreaking interdisciplinary organization, described as a “home for creative discovery, acceleration, and delivery of new work by providing support, consultation, and programming for individuals,...

Full Interview

DDP Talks To Morgan McEwen - MorDance

DDP Talks To Morgan McEwen (Founder and Artistic Director) MorDance MorDance in rehearsal with Morgan McEwen, Photo by Meredith Lawerence You’ve now been running MorDance for 10 years. Walk us through its founding; what made you decide to start your own company? What have you been doing this season to celebrate the milestone? MorDance was founded in response to a distinct lack of opportunities for young female ballet choreographers. After a decade of professional dancing, I felt artistically unfulfilled and wanted to create my own opportunities to bring modern ballet to a wider audience and promote diverse perspectives within the...

Full Interview

DDP Talks to Robert Curran - Louisville Ballet

DDP Talks to Robert Curran Artistic Director of Louisville Ballet What is your concept of the role of Resident Choreographer? I believe that a resident choreographer has the opportunity to get to know a company, both in the sense of the dancers AND the organizational/community culture, which allows for a deeper exploration of subject matter, a level of comfort in risk taking, and a vocabulary development, that isn’t as easy to achieve in a one-off creative process. Also, there is a greater opportunity for reflection on what has been achieved over the years and that brings great insight for a...

Full Interview

#WELL SAID

DDP’s #WellSaid campaign compiles notable quotes from a wide array of artists, business leaders, politicians, and more. These words not only inspire the team at Dance Data Project^® to continue advocating for women in ballet, but they often echo our research and illustrate the necessity for fundamental shifts within long standing institutions. With this variety of quotes, whether dance-related or pertaining to other fields, DDP aims to inspire cross-industry collaboration and change to advance art forms and industries past this unprecedented moment in history, creating a foundation for a new and better future in the arts. #WellSaid is an ongoing campaign that can be found on our website and Twitter. If you would like to suggest a quote for #WellSaid, please Direct Message us on Twitter @dancedatap.

“I think women are often self-critical, we doubt ourselves; I certainly did. If I ran a company now, I’d be more attentive to the issue.”

Brigitte LefèvreFormer Artistic Director, Paris Opera Ballet

Nobody wants a smaller, less diverse, less interesting ballet world

Tamara RojoArtistic Director of English National Ballet

And we also have to look at the fact that a lot of the basis upon which we decide what is valuable work has a gender lens to it.

Hannah-Beth JacksonCalifornia State Senator

If the world is to be saved, it will be the women who save it.

Mary CassatImpressionist Painter

The way to build back is to put women straight at the center. Because guess what? They’re already at the center.

Melinda GatesCo-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

It’s important that we all speak up on behalf of each other, and advocate for women to get opportunities at every level. It’s not just not getting the opportunity to get in the door. They’re not getting the opportunities to keep moving through the ranks of the company, and that is about mentoring and advocacy on all of our behalf.

Ellevest Newsletter August 18,2020

Juliette JonesExecutive VP/ Atlantic Records

It’s just a false narrative that has for far too long served as a guiding principle of corporate America. And it has to change. So I don’t mind the slings and arrows because we need to move out of that old paradigm and shift into the 21st-century world we live in.

Hannah-Beth JacksonCalifornia State Senator

Our business culture lives, frankly, in the early-20th century with the Ozzie and Harriet narrative.

Hannah-Beth JacksonCalifornia State Senator

I think it’s very important that the world today be more open to and respectful of the need for working people to be able to prioritize their families, and not just their work.

Hannah-Beth JacksonCalifornia State Senator

Acknowledging and being okay with the fact that if you don’t have the confidence to believe in yourself on your own, that it’s something that you can gain … from having a support system around you. It’s been difficult for me throughout my life. And I know it’s difficult for a lot of young people to accept and understand that you can’t do everything on your own, and you’re going to have days when you’re not strong.

Misty CopelandPrincipal Dancer/ American Ballet Theatre

But I do see a silver lining in all of this. I feel like now is the time for us to stop and breathe … and revamp how we connect with more people, how we reach communities that are not often included. To redefine how we reach people.

Misty CopelandPrincipal Dancer/ American Ballet Theatre

I think we can create theaters in communities where there is no more excuse for not having a venue in these places, and allowing these communities to feel like we’re a part of them.

Misty CopelandPrincipal Dancer/ American Ballet Theatre

Sometimes it just helps to just see somebody that looks like you.

Rissi PalmerCountry Singer, founder of "Color Me Country"

No matter how hard it gets, stick your chest out, keep your head up and handle it.

TupacMusician

Compared with other forms, ballet — the rich uncle on the dance family tree — is where much of the money and institutional power reside.

Gia KourlasDance Critic at The New York Times

This art form that I love is undernourished and undervalued, full of inequity among forms and an uneven balance of power among funders, presenters, choreographers and — always last, though hopefully not for long — dancers.

Gia KourlasDance Critic at The New York Times

The grit in my aesthetic is my agency—my child’s whisper and command for a more humane, liberated and compassionate reality.

Marjani Forté-SaundersChoreographer and Harkness Promise Award Recipient

It is also about lived experiences. In a properly constituted society, women wouldn’t do disproportionate amounts of child care work, but in this society they do. As a result, when you marginalize women from public life or roles in leadership, you are overweighting the experience of the non-primary caregiver — so is it an accident that we did bailouts for big corporations before we did any kind of child care help? If there were more women with young children in the Senate, it’s hard to think the Senate would make exactly the same decisions and have the same priorities it does now.

Anand GiridharadasAuthor of “Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World.”

One of the great ironies of the fashion industry is that while it caters to and profits from women, it has never felt like an industry that supports them.

Carly CushnieFashion Designer

I am on a personal mission to help women, in particular, take charge of their financial lives. We will never have full equality if we don’t have financial equality and I want to help us get there. Let’s face it, it’s not rocket science – anyone can understand their financial situation – you just need the right person to explain it all to you (and maybe a good glass of wine.)

‘Celebrity Hacks’ from Alyssa Rapp’s Leadership & Life Hacks

Tracy ByrnesFinancial Advisor/ UBS

Men are so often paid and compensated on the potential that they show, not necessarily what they’ve done and women are so often paid on what they’ve actually done — which normally I would say, we outperform what our contract was.

Megan RapinoeU.S. Women’s National Soccer Player

In that time there were not often two creators and not many women, either. It was hard for the system to understand that I wasn’t just [Paul Lightfoot’s] muse. Maybe sometimes he was my muse!

Sol LeónChoreographer and Former Artistic Advisor/ Nederlands Dans Theater

A lot of practices need to be questioned in ballet culture. It’s also societal expectations like motherhood & family. We’re seeing this now in the pandemic where overwhelmingly it’s women who are leaving the workforce bc they are the ones who are taking care of their families.

Bradford ChinDance educator, choreographer, performer, and researcher

I know that women are more inclusive than mercurial, more patient than impatient, are more respectful than abrasive.

Christine Lagarde President of the European Central Bank

You may not always have a comfortable life and you will not always be able to solve all of the world’s problems at once but don’t ever underestimate the importance you can have because history has shown us that courage can be contagious and hope can take on a life of its own.

Michelle Obama Former First Lady of the United States

Ballet is a very traditional art form and is generally cautious about change, but I think this pandemic has pushed us forward in terms of how to reach our audience. Events of the last few months have also forced us to ask bigger questions and made us aware of ways we can be more inclusive and make people feel more a part of it.

Francesca HaywardPrincipal Dancer at Royal Ballet

I wish that an artistic director would announce the end of season programming, that anodyne calculus designed to appeal to a dwindling subscriber base. The older white demographic has long been the economic backbone of the American theater. But for reasons financial, cultural and democratic, the future depends on a more inclusive embrace.

Charles McNultyTheater Critic, LA Times

Companies that don’t have a venue and therefore aren’t burdened by significant overhead may have an advantage in winning back reluctant theatergoers and in converting new ones. Work that can’t be found elsewhere, that is tailored not to the general marketplace but to specific communities, offers unique incentive.

Charles McNultyTheater Critic, LA Times

In the theater of the not-so-distant future, companies that place artistic imperatives over institutional obligations will be better situated to reach new audiences. If this means fewer offerings of higher quality, I think the tradeoff will be welcome. Why should the arts follow the madness of the rest of the economy in worshipping an ever-expanding GDP? The days of business plan theater are over.

Charles McNultyTheater Critic, LA Times

But ballet is beset by serious ailments that threaten its future in this country: American dancers are less likely than ever to hold the top rank in American companies. African Americans have dismal prospects of inclusion — of all of the nation’s performing arts, none is more segregated than ballet. And the companies are so cautious in their programming that they have effectively reduced an art form to a rotation of over-roasted chestnuts that no one can justifiably croon about.

Sarah KaufmanDance Critic, The Washington Post

Ballet suffers from a serious lack of confidence that is only growing more and more paralyzing.

Sarah KaufmanDance Critic, The Washington Post

Nowadays, the shaky economics of ballet drive the field continuously toward a standardized repertoire.

Sarah KaufmanDance Critic, The Washington Post

“I turned upon her and caught her by the throat. I did my best to kill her. . . . Had I not killed her, she would have killed me.”

Virginia Woolf, of the self-abnegating voice in her headWriter

Where is the creativity in arts leadership, and who is championing change? Now is the chance to make significant and lasting changes industry wide. For the first time in recent history, all of the arts share a common problem, which presents a transformative opportunity to seek a new business model that can benefit all genres and move the industry into the twenty-first century.

Zenetta S. DrewExecutive Director, Dallas Black Dance Theatre

We’re not crying because we can’t get into these spaces, we’re just saying what it’s like for us,” she said. “We don’t want special treatment. We just want the opportunity.

Catina SmithFounder, Just Call Me Chef

There’s been moments that I’ve said, ‘I’m done with this,’ but I think, ‘If I stop, then how’s the next generation going to get there?’

Tanya HollandExecutive Chef and Owner, Brown Sugar Kitchen

There are moments in real time when you’re offering something — on a stage in a dais, in an interview — where you become aware: ‘I’m going to experience a lot of vitriol for this’…I have to say, for this particular moment, I had not anticipated that because it was a framing that I have used many times before.

Ayanna PressleyU.S. Representative for Massachusetts

[I have] an interesting relationship with the word ‘power,’ and all I can think of is I just hope in my lifetime, I can help more women make more money. Financial stability is freedom.

Reese WitherspoonActress

We have to turn to our many talented girls and women to tackle the challenges we face today.

Mariya Gabriel Bulgarian politician

For dancers who exercise agency, crossing or confronting a ballet master can result in retaliation like verbal belittling or intimidation, and being presented as a “problem” to the director, affecting casting and ultimately their career trajectory.

Theresa Ruth HowardDEI Consultant and Writer

This is an idea whose time has not only come, but one that is an elegant solution to the epidemic we’re in right now.

Kirsten GillibrandNew York Senator on Paid Parental Leave

If you can teach, you can coach. As far as the women, it was time. It was time for that door to be knocked down and allow them because they’ve been putting in time, and they’re very, very qualified. The ones we have are overly qualified.

Bruce AriansHead Coach, Tampa Bay Buccaneers

These women aren’t working from home; they’re living from work.

Bonnie HammerNBCUniversal Content Studios Chair

Are you walking? Are you moving through time and space? Then you are dancing.

Twyla TharpChoreographer

Without accountability and transparency, pledges aren’t enough. There must be an emphasis on addressing the reasons that women do not have access and opportunity in the industry.

Dr. Stacy L. SmithFounder & Director, Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at the Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism at the University of Southern California

I like playing complicated people. I didn’t get into this to be a handbag to a man’s story.

Christina MiliotiActress

It’s not enough to shatter the glass ceiling. You have the clear the glass.

Julie Kedzie

Female leadership is more necessary now than it ever was. We need to allow someone with the insight and perspective of someone who has been kept out of the halls of power, to create more inroads for other people

Jeri Lynne JohnsonFounder & Artistic Director of Black Pearl Chamber Orchestra

There are some really amazing women out there. I look at it and I think: ’Wow, its 2021. What are we waiting for?’

Speranza ScappucciItalian conductor

“Let this moment resonate with women across the world….It’s time for you to claim your power. Claim your voice, sing your song, tell your stories. It will make us a better place. Your turn.”

Debbie Allen-while accepting the Governer‘s Award at the Emmy’s

We owe it to younger dancers not to stay silent.

Georgina PazcoguinNYCB Soloist and Author, "Swan Dive: The Making of a Rogue Ballerina"

“It’s a start in the right direction to shift the conversation to true inclusion within this form we love.”

Jodie Gates Artistic Director, Cincinnati Ballet

“If you’re seeing your artistic director is a woman, you’re understanding I can do that, too.”

Lourdes LopezArtistic Director, Miami City Ballet

“Many young dancers were given the message that girls do the dancing and men make the steps. I hope programs like this one can help undo this thought process.”

Suzanne HaagResident Choreographer, Eugene Ballet

“A mentor can mean the difference between giving up on a goal and pushing yourself to do things you didn’t know you could.”

Misty CopelandPrincipal dancer, American Ballet Theatre

“At its core, art, music, and dance should be created, expressed, and shared for all people to delight in. If not, by isolating certain styles to certain races, society disregards art’s true interconnection.”

Junyla SilmonSenior Research Consultant, Dance Data Project®

“Women and girls are astonishing creative forces of nature, whose energy and power can contribute to change in any dance sector, as in the wider society. AWA DANCE dreams, acts, navigates, creates, and empowers.

Avatâra AyusoFounder, AWA DANCE

“No one is coming to save you. Do the work, ask for help, dig deep and take it one task at a time.”

Erin BarnettFounder, Black Girls Dance®

“When women’s contributions are omitted from the historical record, it’s more than disappointing. It’s tragic. It speaks to just how indifferent society has been to what women can do, and, more importantly, what they have done.”

Katie Hafner Host/Executive Producer, Lost Women of Science

“Representation is so powerful. As a dancer, I never got to work with a female choreographer first hand, and I danced professionally for 20 years.”

Gemma BondChoreographer

“This isn’t about slicing the pie differently, this is about letting women contribute so we can make the pie bigger.”

Cori CloseUCLA Coach & President of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association

“One message that I would really like to get through, particularly for women who have not pursued a linear, or more traditional, career, is you’re not done yet. You’re not done until you decide you’re done, and it doesn’t all have to make sense at the time.”

Elizabeth YntemaFor the Michigan Law Quadrangle

“It is the dance industry’s time of reckoning as to whether it will value dancers as more than just replaceable, glitzy commodities, and create a culture where young kids training in local studios can look forward to safe and meaningful careers as performers.”