DDP ANNOUNCES GLOBAL RESIDENT CHOREOGRAPHERS 2022 DATA BYTE

Dance Data Project® today announces its Global Resident Choreographers 2022 Data Byte. This mini-report analyzes the gender distribution of resident choreographers at ballet and dance companies worldwide, examining, in a greatly expanded study, who holds these influential and frequently lucrative posts.

Our 2022 Data Byte finds that women occupy 32% of resident choreographer positions, compared to the 68% held by men. This distribution mirrors other leadership demographics: DDP’s recent Global Ballet Leadership Report found that at 175 major ballet companies worldwide, 33% of artistic directors are women.

Quoted in a recent New York Times feature, DDP President and Founder Liza Yntema says, “You need longitudinal data to be able to benchmark, to get a sense of where you’re going.”

The Global Resident Choreographers 2022 Data Byte is DDP’s third annual study on the subject, and the year to year analysis reveals almost no variance in the percentage of women serving as resident choreographers from 2021 and 2020 —highlighting that this is an area which needs focused gender equity efforts.

“As a dancer with a large U.S. ballet company, I personally know the impact that choreographers, particularly resident choreographers, have on both the direction of ballet companies and the experience of dancers,” remarks DDP Communications Lead Isabelle Ramey. “It’s interesting, but not surprising, to see that so many companies choose men as their resident choreographers, a position that they often occupy for years at a time.”

This year, DDP’s research included 270 companies, spanning ballet, contemporary, and modern companies globally and within the US. While this is a significant expansion from the previous sample of 143 companies (up 89%), the number of resident choreographer positions increased by only 23, confirming that the position of resident choreographer is not ubiquitous and exists primarily at large, well-funded companies.