January 7, 2021 | Northfield, IL | Dance Data Project® (DDP) today announces Data Bytes, the latest category of research that illuminates trends in the ballet industry through a new format of quick and easy-to-read metrics. The first release in this new category, 2020 Leadership Changes – Our End of the Year Mini Report on Comings and Goings in the Industry, sorts by gender the leadership transitions throughout major ballet companies and allied organizations such as festivals.

2020 Leadership Changes breaks down the number of men and women appointed to and departing from major positions in the dance industry, as announced in 2020. The announcements of transitions are covered in Dance Magazine’s monthly article entitled News of Note: Everything You Might Have Missed in [Month, Year]. The coverage includes a section on “Comings & Goings,” from which DDP collected and verified data in order to share a snapshot of hiring practices in the past year as they relate to gender.

“Courtney Escoyne’s excellent monthly coverage of announced leadership changes provides our team a real-time glimpse into the employment trends in the industry’s leading organizations,” said DDP Founder and President Liza Yntema. “Dance Magazine offers the most comprehensive reporting on this industry. We are focused on sorting these overall metrics from these monthly Comings and Goings on an annual basis and plan to expand coverage in years to come.”

The Data Bytes report, 2020 Leadership Changes- Our End of the Year Mini Report on Comings and Goings in the Industry can be found on DDP’s website with information and graphic displays found on Instagram and Twitter.

“According to DDP’s 2020 Artistic and Executive Leadership Report, 75 percent of artistic directors among the Top 50 U.S. ballet companies are male,” said DDP Director of Research & Development Isabelle Vail. “This latest Data Bytes report allows us to follow up on how inequities arise and persist. Over time, we will be able to dissect trends within specific companies and highlight those who reflexively equate competence and leadership capability with being a male, versus the companies that are embracing more diverse and equitable hiring practices that will sustain them in this rapidly evolving and challenging environment.”

The DDP team continues to collect and refine data on festival, venue, and company programming as well as company leadership (e.g., boards of directors and trustees, resident choreographers). Stay tuned for the 2020 Dance Festival Gender Equity Report, which is set to release mid-January 2021. DDP will continue to update the 2020-2021 Season Status Updates resource in addition to the COVID-19 resources available online. More information and details regarding festival statuses is available upon request.