The Scottish Ballet rehearsing a world premiere by Sophie Laplane
Photo by Rimbaud Patron

The Largest Ballet & Classically Based
Companies Leadership Report 2024

The Scottish Ballet rehearsing a world premiere by Sophie Laplane
Photo by Rimbaud Patron

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Endowments and Building Book Value Report 2024

Pacific Northwest Ballet in Crystal Pite's "The Seasons' Canon"
Photo by Angela Sterling

Raising the Barre with
Adam W. McKinney

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In the Wings: Community Engagement Newsletter

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“For the Joy of It!”
Photo by Anne Bloodgood
Courtesy of Ballet Austin

Dance Data Project® Strengthens and Expands
Team With Key Leadership Additions and New Internship Role

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The Scottish Ballet rehearsing a world premiere by Sophie Laplane
Photo by Rimbaud Patron

The Largest Ballet & Classically
Based Companies Leadership Report 2024

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Deos Contemporary Ballet rehearsing Tess Sinke's "Jane Eyre"

2024 Research
Calendar

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Deos Contemporary Ballet rehearsing Tess Sinke's "Jane Eyre"

Gender Equity Index

DDP recently released the first-ever Gender Equity Index for the U.S. dance industry.
Click below to learn more, view the questionnaire, and participate in DDP’s original survey.

View & Complete the Survey

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.

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#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.

Q&A w/ Misty Copeland

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.

Q&A w/ Misty Copeland

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.

Q&A w/ Misty Copeland

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"

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

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 2021-2022

Published On: 10/13/22

The following report is Dance Data Project® (DDP)’s fourth annual Season Overview Report and analyzes the gender distribution of choreographers programmed by the largest 150 U.S. ballet and classically inspired companies between August 2021 and August 2022. This report is DDP’s most expansive to date and examines the Largest 150 U.S. ballet and classically influenced companies, compared to only the Largest 50 in previous reports.

View the Report

DATA BYTE: CONNECTING THE DOTS 2022 UPDATE – #YESTHISISANARTSSTORY

Published on: 5/1/2022

Connecting the Dots is an ongoing campaign by DDP to advocate for the acknowledgment of the pandemic’s effect on women in the arts by policy makers, journalists, and funding organizations. DDP’s April 2021 databyte sourced over 60 articles and studies to reflect the generational suffering of women at the expense of COVID 19’s global impact. This year’s Data Byte dives deeper into this narrative, highlighting the pandemic’s even stronger hold on women as men have now completely recouped all their workforce losses.

View Data Byte

DDP Announcements

Sep 30, 2024

DDP Releases First Comprehensive Report on Ballet Company Endowments And Building Book Values, Offering Crucial Insights Into Financial Stability Of Ballet Companies Across The U.S.

Dance Data Project® Releases First Comprehensive Report on Ballet Company Endowments And Building Book Values, Offering Crucial Insights Into Financial Stability Of Ballet Companies Across The U.S. Northfield, IL | September 30, 2024 | Dance Data Project® (DDP) is proud to announce the release of its first-ever report examining the endowments and building book values of ballet and classically based dance companies in the United States. In collaboration with the Smith College Capstone in Statistical & Data Sciences program, this groundbreaking report fills a significant gap in research surrounding endowments and building book values in the ballet community, providing vital...

DDP Talks To…

People's Summit, Photo by Midia Ninja

DDP Talks To Ana Maria Alvarez - CONTRA-TIEMPO

DDP Talks To Ana María Alvarez (Founding Artistic Director) CONTRA-TIEMPO Activist Dance Theater People's Summit, Photo by Midia Ninja CONTRA-TIEMPO’s website explains that “community engagement and artistic production are inextricably linked.” How do the unique needs of Los Angeles inform this community-minded mission and in what ways has the company already accomplished this goal? Los Angeles is a powerful ecosystem of coalition building and organizing work happening across racial, cultural & economic divides. Although our city often identifies as geographically divided – folks stay in their neighborhoods – we have found that our work will often invite and encourage Los...

Full Interview

Manager of Education and Engagement Heather Myers leads an Ageless Dancers Workshop, Photo by Peter Smida

DDP Talks To Heather Myers - Ballet BC

DDP Talks To Heather Myers (Manager of Education and Engagement) Ballet BC Manager of Education and Engagement Heather Myers leads an Ageless Dancers Workshop, Photo by Peter Smida Ballet BC’s outreach work includes various collaborations with non-profit organizations in the Greater Vancouver area. These partners include Ageless Dancers, Union Gospel Mission, and Big Sisters, among others. Which community members do you reach through these partnerships and how do you choose the companies with whom you collaborate? Ballet BC’s outreach and education work aims to facilitate first-hand movement-based creativity; to build a wider audience for viewing and experiencing dance; and to...

Full Interview

People's Summit, Photo by Midia Ninja

DDP Talks To Eduardo Vilaro - Ballet Hispánico

DDP Talks To Eduardo Vilaro (Artistic Director) Ballet Hispánico Pa’lante Scholars’ performance at Carnegie Hall Courtesy of Ballet Hispánico In DDP’s previous interview with Ballet Hispánico, we discussed your Pa’lante Scholars Program, designed to mentor youth in the community by addressing the “full range of issues they face as low-income youth who are motivated to reach their dreams.” Since its inception, how have you tracked and reviewed the effectiveness of this program in reaching and discovering talented youth in the community? How has it evolved to meet the needs of local students? The Pa’lante program is flourishing. Now in its...

Full Interview

Keshet Dance Company, Photo by Pat Berrett

DDP Talks To Shira Greenberg - Keshet Dance Company

DDP Talks To Shira Greenberg (Founding Artistic Director) Keshet Dance Company Keshet Dance Company, Photo by Pat Berrett Keshet Dance Company has been teaching dance inside New Mexico’s pre- and post-adjudication facilities for the past 28 years. How was the need for this program determined in your community? In 1997, we were invited by the facility (the state juvenile prison located in Albuquerque) to provide an 8-week course, 1 dance class per week for incarcerated girls at the prison. Through this 8-week course, and the relationships developed with the young girls in that program, it became clear that 1 hour...

Full Interview

ProviDANCE, Courtesy of Ballet Rhode Island

DDP Talks To Anna Lisa Wilkins - Ballet Rhode Island

DDP Talks To Anna Lisa Wilkins (Development Associate and Grants Manager) Ballet Rhode Island ProviDANCE, Courtesy of Ballet Rhode Island Your community engagement program ProviDANCE is designed to serve students with the aim of engaging underserved communities. How did you determine the need for this initiative in your community? As it develops, what research is done to determine which schools and students are specifically targeted? During the COVID-19 pandemic, Ballet Rhode Island (formerly Festival Ballet Providence) had considerable time to reflect on past practices and programming, as well as our role within the community that has supported and celebrated us...

Full Interview

Resources

2020/2021
Season Updates

An up-to-date listing of domestic
and international company
programming statuses.

Learn More

Covid-19 Resources

A frequently updated list of resources regarding how the Covid-19 pandemic is affecting those in the arts, and ways to mitigate the troubles caused.

Learn More

Scene from Rock-a-Bye, Choreography by Penny Saunders, Courtesy of BalletX—Photographer: Candice DeTore

The Largest Ballet & Classically Based
Companies Leadership Report 2024

Endowments and Building Book Value Report 2024

Raising the Barre with
Adam W. McKinney

In the Wings: Community Engagement Newsletter

Dance Data Project® Strengthens and Expands
Team With Key Leadership Additions and New Internship Role

The Largest Ballet & Classically
Based Companies Leadership Report 2024

2024 Research
Calendar

Gender Equity Index

Informing equity through data
analysis, advocacy and programming

#WELL SAID

About The Dance Data Project^®

Research & Data

Season Overview 2021-2022

DATA BYTE: CONNECTING THE DOTS 2022 UPDATE – #YESTHISISANARTSSTORY

DDP Announcements

DDP Releases First Comprehensive Report on Ballet Company Endowments And Building Book Values, Offering Crucial Insights Into Financial Stability Of Ballet Companies Across The U.S.

DDP Talks To…

DDP Talks To Ana Maria Alvarez - CONTRA-TIEMPO

DDP Talks To Heather Myers - Ballet BC

DDP Talks To Eduardo Vilaro - Ballet Hispánico

DDP Talks To Shira Greenberg - Keshet Dance Company

DDP Talks To Anna Lisa Wilkins - Ballet Rhode Island

Resources

2020/2021
Season Updates

Covid-19 Resources

About DDP

Research

Interviews

Resources

Advocacy

Upcoming Deadlines | click here to see if you are eligible for any of these opportunities

The Largest Ballet & Classically Based Companies Leadership Report 2024

Endowments and Building Book Value Report 2024

Raising the Barre with Adam W. McKinney

In the Wings: Community Engagement Newsletter

Dance Data Project® Strengthens and Expands Team With Key Leadership Additions and New Internship Role

The Largest Ballet & Classically Based Companies Leadership Report 2024

2024 Research Calendar

Gender Equity Index

Informing equity through data analysis, advocacy and programming

#WELL SAID

About The Dance Data Project®

Research & Data

Season Overview 2021-2022

DATA BYTE: CONNECTING THE DOTS 2022 UPDATE – #YESTHISISANARTSSTORY

DDP Announcements

DDP Releases First Comprehensive Report on Ballet Company Endowments And Building Book Values, Offering Crucial Insights Into Financial Stability Of Ballet Companies Across The U.S.

DDP Talks To…

DDP Talks To Ana Maria Alvarez - CONTRA-TIEMPO

DDP Talks To Heather Myers - Ballet BC

DDP Talks To Eduardo Vilaro - Ballet Hispánico

DDP Talks To Shira Greenberg - Keshet Dance Company

DDP Talks To Anna Lisa Wilkins - Ballet Rhode Island

Resources

2020/2021 Season Updates

Covid-19 Resources

Sign up for our Newsletter!

Contact Us

About DDP

Research

Interviews

Resources

Advocacy

The Largest Ballet & Classically Based
Companies Leadership Report 2024

Raising the Barre with
Adam W. McKinney

Dance Data Project® Strengthens and Expands
Team With Key Leadership Additions and New Internship Role

The Largest Ballet & Classically
Based Companies Leadership Report 2024

2024 Research
Calendar

Informing equity through data
analysis, advocacy and programming

About The Dance Data Project^®

2020/2021
Season Updates