Dance Data Project - USA - 150 largest ballet-based companies

[alison]

I'm very much behind with the Links at the moment, but thought this shouldn't be allowed to vanish into the month's Links without being highlighted, in case it's of use to anyone.  Unfortunately, it's US-only, but then I can't imagine the UK having anything like 150 classical ballet companies, anyway:

 

Largest-150-US-Classical-Ballet-Companies-2023.pdf (storage.googleapis.com)

[bridiem]

Fascinating! And I'd no idea there were so many companies in the USA.

[miliosr]

Some of the included 'classical' companies are peculiar choices - Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre (#4) and LA Dance Project (#42). I don't think of either company as a classical one. (The Ailey company also appears on Dance Data Project's list of the Largest U.S. Contemporary & Modern Companies, which makes their inclusion on this list even more confusing.)

 

That being said, the companies in the Top Ten are about what you would expect. The rising star would be Ballet West in Salt Lake City, which has clawed its way into the Top Ten. Interesting to see that three of the Top Ten are companies residing west of the Rocky Mountains - San Francisco Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet and Ballet West.

 

Sad to see Los Angeles Ballet slide all the way to #66 but then it has had no artistic or community profile. Small wonder that the board made the decision to oust the old leadership and hire Melissa Barak as the new artistic director.

[alison]

I think the phrase was actually "classically based" or some such, wasn't it?

 

Good to see Ballet West making progress - thanks for keeping us up to date on that, miliosr.

[miliosr]

27 minutes ago, alison said:

I think the phrase was actually "classically based" or some such, wasn't it?

 

Good to see Ballet West making progress - thanks for keeping us up to date on that, miliosr.

I think of the Ailey company as a contemporary dance company in the truest sense - they draw on a wide range of stylistic and technical influences (including ballet but far from limited to it) and then synthesize those influences into something new.

 

I would say that Ballet West has made all the right decisions and Los Angeles Ballet has made all the wrong ones.

 

As I scan the list again (and especially the Top 20), what comes to mind is that the 'Balanchine company' phenomenon isn't as strong as it used to be. (By 'Balanchine company' I mean a company headed by a former New York City Ballet dancer and at which the Balanchine repertory takes pride of precedence.) In the Top 20, I would say only the following are Balanchine companies:

• #1 New York City Ballet (obviously) - Jonathan Stafford and Wendy Whelan, directors
• #7 Pacific Northwest Ballet - Peter Boal, director
• #8 Miami City Ballet - Lourdes Lopez, director
• #17 Ballet Arizona - Ib Andersen, director (Has announced his retirement.)

[Peanut68]

Out of interest, where is the US Ballet West based? I realise there was (is?) a company of that name in Scotland & which had a now closed under a cloud school of same name…

Edited September 2, 2023 by Peanut68

[Guest oncnp]

2 minutes ago, Peanut68 said:

Out of interest, where is the US Ballet West based? I realise there was (is?) a company of that name in Scotland & which had a now closed under a cloud school of same name…

Salt Lake City, Utah   Ballet West

[Jan McNulty]

Member @miliosr gave a wonderful (3-part) report of Ballet West's revival of Nijinska's Les Noces earlier this year:

 

 

[Peanut68]

12 hours ago, oncnp said:

Salt Lake City, Utah   Ballet West

Thank you…. isn’t that the main Mormon city in USA? If so I’m almost surprised as very much imagined ballet would not be favoured…but I might be making a vastly ignorant assumption so apologies if so 

[Naomi M]

Ballet West’s academy is well known as the figure skating champion Nathan Chen has studied ballet there in his childhood and has participated in Ballet West’s Nutcracker as Fritz. Clara that year was Madison Young, currently principal at Bavarian Stare Ballet. 

 

[OnePigeon]

Aren’t Robbie and Megan Fairchild from Utah too?  

[art_enthusiast]

On 03/09/2023 at 21:56, OnePigeon said:

Aren’t Robbie and Megan Fairchild from Utah too?  

 

I think so, both born in Salt Lake City and trained at Ballet West

[miliosr]

On 03/09/2023 at 06:05, Peanut68 said:

Thank you…. isn’t that the main Mormon city in USA? If so I’m almost surprised as very much imagined ballet would not be favoured…but I might be making a vastly ignorant assumption so apologies if so 

No need to apologize.

 

The State of Utah has long been the central home of Mormonism, which - historically - has been conservative in its cultural outlook. But, truth be told, there's never been any problem with ballet in Utah. William Christensen founded Ballet West in 1963 (as the Utah Civic Ballet) and the company is now 60 years old. Frankly, I think most state residents, whether they adhere to Mormonism or not, take pride in having a cultural institution of Ballet West's stature.

 

As for Salt Lake City, it is virtually indistinguishable from any other major US metropolis. You won't have any problems finding a hipster coffee shop if you go looking for one!

[annekh510]

Quote

26 minutes ago, miliosr said:

No need to apologize.

 

The State of Utah has long been the central home of Mormonism, which - historically - has been conservative in its cultural outlook. But, truth be told, there's never been any problem with ballet in Utah. William Christensen founded Ballet West in 1963 (as the Utah Civic Ballet) and the company is now 60 years old. Frankly, I think most state residents, whether they adhere to Mormonism or not, take pride in having a cultural institution of Ballet West's stature.

 

As for Salt Lake City, it is virtually indistinguishable from any other major US metropolis. You won't have any problems finding a hipster coffee shop if you go looking for one!

 

 

I’m a Brit, but lived in the US for five years - I didn’t know much about Mormonism, but it turns out that Utah is quite prominent in the dance world. Pick any season of “So you think you can dance”, they usually have 20 dancers, when there are 50 states, it’s rare not to find someone from Utah, usually more, as well as LDS members from elsewhere. Overall the influence of Mormons on entertainment/culture is higher than the number of adherents to the religion would indicate. Ballroom dancing also has a lot of links to Utah, one of the organisations always holds its national champs in Provo, Utah. The ballroom dance teams of BYU (Brigham Young University, the LDS university, in Provo), are world renowned.

 

Additionally Salt Lake City itself is considered quite liberal, akin to Seattle or San Francisco, the population is around 50% Mormon, but that’s not the dominant culture in Salt Lake. 

 

Ballet West was featured in a reality TV series a little over 10 years ago, when watching that I don’t recall any evidence of Mormonism in the company, though I suspect there must be some.

 

Megan Fairchild has said in multiple places that being her height (5’ 3” iirc) she knew she needed to find a way out of SLC and Ballet West, as they were known as a company of taller dancers. 

 

One thing I observed in the US is that the culture seems to lean towards picking one activity quite young and then pursuing that activity much more deeply. If Kindergarteners take dance, they take it three times a week! That leads to a much larger body of dancers who can step into a corps of a professional ballet company.

[annekh510]

On 23/08/2023 at 18:25, bridiem said:

Fascinating! And I'd no idea there were so many companies in the USA.

An important thing to consider when looking at companies in the USA is that none (I think that’s still the case) employ dancers full time. The most is about 48 weeks of the year. Of course the ballet world loves its guest performers, but with summer layoffs the need to guest perform is even greater. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of these companies don’t employ any dancers that aren’t also employed at one of the other companies.