Contract negotiation problems at San Francisco Ballet

[FionaM]

I am rather shocked to read how poor the conditions are in San Francisco Ballet.  
 

I read that discussions between the union and management have been ongoing for 5+ months … but current contracts expire on 6 December threatening the necessary income of annual Nutcracker performances, which begin on that same date. 

 

https://www.instagram.com/p/DC2cwAeSmDw/?igsh=cWFyeDZrYmpuYnR4

 

Extracts below from the Instagram post: 

 

WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING FOR:

• Wages that bring the Artists of SFB above the low-income threshold for San Francisco.

• Guaranteed number of dancers that reflect the reality of the demanding work.

• Limitation on the use of unpaid student labor.

• Protections for Stage Managers who are overworked, underpaid, and receive no overtime.

• Health and safety protections: SFB paid out $1,348,188 in workers' comp claims for the Dancers in FY 2023-24, more than double what they paid out in FY 2018-19

 

ARTISTS ARE STRUGGLING TO SURVIVE IN SAN FRANCISCO

81% of SFB Artists qualify as low-income, according to the California Department of Housing and Community Development. We are world-class performers and stage managers bringing millions of dollars to the City, but we can barely afford to live here, with cost of living only increasing in the Bay Area.

 

INJURIES ARE ON THE RISE

Over the past two years, injury rates among dancers have risen exponentially. This not only costs the company millions but also forces injured artists to push through pain and overburden their colleagues.

We've proposed hiring enough Dancers to ensure sustainable workloads and uphold the high standards of SF Ballet. Management has another idea though...

 

UNPAID LABOR IS NOT A SOLUTION

Management insists on retaining the right to fill up to 50% of corps de ballet roles with students instead of professional dancers. This devalues our work and undermines the artistry audiences expect from a professional ballet company. We deserve a workplace that values professional standards-not one that relies on unpaid labor to cut costs.

 

STAGE MANAGERS ARE OVERWORKED AND UNDERPAID

During performance seasons, SFB Stage Managers regularly work over 60 hours a week and they do NOT receive overtime. They are also required to edit hundreds of hours of video footage using professional- grade software-with no training or additional compensation. SFB has rejected our proposals to provide overtime compensation or additional Assistant Stage Manager guarantees to address this unsustainable workload.

[oncnp]

also articles in today's Links 

Edited November 28, 2024 by oncnp

[Sophoife]

Four articles in today's Links, actually. @FionaM it would not appear you've seen them.

[LinMM]

However we read about this it is hugely disappointing and disheartening to discover dancers are not being treated well by their Companies. 

[FionaM]

41 minutes ago, Sophoife said:

Four articles in today's Links, actually. @FionaM it would not appear you've seen them.

Your meaning here seems derogative.  
 

Yes I do have alternative sources of information! 
 

Reading the articles in links now.  The Instagram post I linked here was shared with me yesterday and I didn’t see a discussion about it.  The articles seem to say the same thing..  probably quoting the same source … the union.  

Edited November 28, 2024 by FionaM

[Emeralds]

Sad to hear that SFB dancers and stage managers are also having similar problems to what Australian Ballet dancers faced recently. I'm not the first person to say this but it is harder to find a great corps de ballet than it is to find a great principal (it's a matter of numbers) so it's important that artists in the lowest ranks are remunerated adequately and not overworked. Likewise their stage managers, who are the ones that give the company and the audience a show that runs smoothly. Hope they can reach a sensible outcome for the artists and stage managers. 

[Sophoife]

@FionaM why do you always take information offered on topics you have raised as "derogative"?

 

Myself, @Jan McNulty  @Blossom @Sim and @Ian Macmillan spend hours every day collating the Links and publishing them.

 

We try to publish them in a timely fashion every English-time morning (easier for me than for the others, as it's my afternoon so I don't have to drag myself out of bed at an ungodly hour), and sometimes yes, there will be quite some hours between a piece of news emerging and it being listed in the day's Links.

 

As the person responsible for the Links both yesterday and today, I apologise if I didn't address this topic as soon as you saw it on Instagram.

[oncnp]

8 minutes ago, Sophoife said:

 

 

Myself, @Jan McNulty  @Blossom @Sim and @Ian Macmillan spend hours every day collating the Links and publishing them.

 

 

 

and a timely day for me (Thanksgiving in the US) to say thank you all for doing it. 

[FionaM]

@Sophoife

 

if you had said only

“Four articles in today’s links”  

then I wouldn’t have responded as I did.  
 

We all get our information from different sources which adds to the richness of this forum. 
 

For those who don’t have access to Instagram, here is the link to the statement on the union’s website

https://www.musicalartists.org/san-francisco-ballet-negotiations-are-not-going-well/

 

[mart]

Telling that Helgi Tomasson was artistic director for so many years , no complaints about making dancers perform injured , and two court cases against the company since Miss Rojo took over and allegedly dancers were made to perform injured.

Many allegations were made when she was director of ENB but then dismissed, is it a recurring pattern within her tenures 

by the way looking forward to the new production of Nutcracker by Aaron Watkins and the Sky documentary 

 

Edited November 28, 2024 by mart

[LACAD]

I believe Mathilde Froustey left before Rojo’s tenure? I’m not sure about the other lawsuit. 

[Emeralds]

Tamara Rojo was announced as San Francisco Ballet's new Artistic Director in January 2022 (according to the SFB website)  and joined in autumn 2022 - I remember this as it left ENB without an official AD on the premises from September to July, with Watkin not available to be present in London full time till August 2023. (Unfortunate that the company never actually communicated who was really in charge from autumn to summer, as Watkin was always referred to in this period as Artistic Director Designate while Rojo had announced she actually had a new company to direct and had gone.) Mathilde Froustey announced her departure on her public Instagram posts in May 2023 and left shortly afterwards to join the ballet company in Bordeaux.

 

I don't know if the dates help the current situation, but it's interesting to note that Tomasson was artistic direction at SFB for over 36 years, which - for a company that wasn't founded by him - is an impressive feat in the performing arts. 

[JaneHartley]

Didn't SFB just get a huge $60m donation?

[Sophoife]

Yes they did. However, the company press release said, in part,

 

"Of the unprecedented gift, $50 million will go to SF Ballet’s endowment to support the creation and acquisition of new works on an annual basis and in perpetuity, and $10 million will help to secure the financial underpinning of Rojo’s initial seasons."

 

So it's a directed gift and can't be used to pay salaries and/or wages.

 

If I had a million dollars or more to give to a ballet company, I would most definitely make it a directed gift - for AusBallet? An Ashton mixed bill to include A Month in the Country thank you very much, or to persuade Crystal Pite to come down and create a new work.

[bridiem]

9 minutes ago, Sophoife said:

Yes they did. However, the company press release said, in part,

 

"Of the unprecedented gift, $50 million will go to SF Ballet’s endowment to support the creation and acquisition of new works on an annual basis and in perpetuity, and $10 million will help to secure the financial underpinning of Rojo’s initial seasons."

 

So it's a directed gift and can't be used to pay salaries and/or wages.

 

Well. New works can only be created on and/or danced by  dancers, after all. 

[Sophoife]

I know. But if the money's directed to the company's endowment, it's ring-fenced. It's probably very tightly tied up legally.

 

The $10 million is an injection Queensland Ballet would probably have liked to have had to "secure the financial underpinning of [Benjamin's] initial seasons." I still don't get that one - was she completely unaware of their financial position when she accepted the job? Did she want to put on massive Macmillan, Cranko, or full-length Wheeldon? She doesn't strike me as that naïve!

 

 

Edited November 28, 2024 by Sophoife
Added a sentence.

[FionaM]

Queensland had recently performed Manon (Alina Cojocaru guested in a few performances) so it’s not a stretch to think they might put on something else similar. 

[Sophoife]

It's apparently too much of a financial stretch to even perform at QPAC next year, except for Romeo and Juliet and The Nutcracker. Everything else is either at their $100 million Thomas Dixon Centre or touring (Coppélia).

The Talbot Theatre at the Thomas Dixon Centre seats 350 and has a 15m² stage.

 

The Lyric Theatre at QPAC seats 2,000 and has a stage size nearly twice that of the Talbot.

 

As QB has been very firm that 2025 will be the last time they perform Ben Stevenson's version, it's pretty clear they've decided to spend a lot of money (they may not have) on a new Nutcracker - and I do hope it doesn't come from Greg Horsman (having seen his awful Bayadère)!

[FionaM]

😢 for QPAC

[DD Driver]

1 hour ago, Sophoife said:

It's apparently too much of a financial stretch to even perform at QPAC next year, except for Romeo and Juliet and The Nutcracker. Everything else is either at their $100 million Thomas Dixon Centre or touring (Coppélia).

The Talbot Theatre at the Thomas Dixon Centre seats 350 and has a 15m² stage.

 

The Lyric Theatre at QPAC seats 2,000 and has a stage size nearly twice that of the Talbot.

 

As QB has been very firm that 2025 will be the last time they perform Ben Stevenson's version, it's pretty clear they've decided to spend a lot of money (they may not have) on a new Nutcracker - and I do hope it doesn't come from Greg Horsman (having seen his awful Bayadère)!

 

I don't know how much it costs to hire the 2,000 seat QPAC...but the return on a performance in front of only 350 at the Thomas Dixon Centre must be very low.

Selling a lot of tickets / dates for a particular show would create a massive work load ($) on dancers & support staff.  Yikes!

 

I am so sad to hear that the QB Ben Stevenson Nutcracker is coming to an end.

We saw it a couple of years ago and loved it.  

[Birdy]

Dancers at American Ballet Theatre had been dancing with an expired contract for quite some time before they reached a new agreement this past spring. Money is always found for choreographers, artistic directors and office staff, with the dancers being last on the priority list.

[bangorballetboy]

Given several mentions of Tamara Rojo on this thread, it’s probably worth mentioning that the issues complained about in the OP are not within the artistic director’s remit.

[FionaM]

2 hours ago, bangorballetboy said:

Given several mentions of Tamara Rojo on this thread, it’s probably worth mentioning that the issues complained about in the OP are not within the artistic director’s remit.

I agree she is not solely responsible.  
 

However i understood the Artistic Director to be a member of the senior management team.  As such I’d expect she is party to the joint decision making on all of these issues. 
 

If not, the board could choose to curtail the repertoire to smaller productions thereby cutting the need to backfill with students. (By smaller productions I mean ones requiring less dancers for each show.)  This would also lessening the physical demands on existing dancers.  

[FionaM]

The San Francisco board

 

https://www.sfballet.org/discover/board/

[JaneHartley]

On 28/11/2024 at 22:02, Sophoife said:

Yes they did. However, the company press release said, in part,

 

"Of the unprecedented gift, $50 million will go to SF Ballet’s endowment to support the creation and acquisition of new works on an annual basis and in perpetuity, and $10 million will help to secure the financial underpinning of Rojo’s initial seasons."

 

So it's a directed gift and can't be used to pay salaries and/or wages.

 

If I had a million dollars or more to give to a ballet company, I would most definitely make it a directed gift - for AusBallet? An Ashton mixed bill to include A Month in the Country thank you very much, or to persuade Crystal Pite to come down and create a new work.

 

But if you are not spending their other revenue on new works, or the initial seasons, surely that frees up some funds the would other have used on this... Rojo has put on a lot of British works, new to SFB as far as I could tell, so again surely that reduces some other staging costs for them. 

[Birdy]

$50 million could give 50 dancers an extra $10,000/year for 100 years. Are donors so clueless about how poorly paid corp de ballet dancers are paid or are they just so stuck on being the sponsors of new work?

[Emeralds]

I see from today's Dance Links that negotiations are still not going well, which could mean that their run of Nutcracker that is scheduled to start on 6 Dec and finish on 29 Dec, which the company relies heavily on for much needed income, might end up being shortened, which would be painfully ironic, since the company needs said dancers to generate this much needed income. I also notice that their previous executive director under Tomasson resigned in April 2023, after Rojo began in early  autumn 2022. Her departure was subsequently followed by Froustey's and  by Ellen Hummel's (both of whom are  suing for being pushed to perform while injured). 

 

Some of the requests such as time off to recuperate from acute painful injury, can be granted without extra cost. Dancers can be assigned to cover the roles. A small part of the 60 million dollar donation could be used in part to pay dancers when they work on and rehearse the new works, which could be listed as part of the cost of premiering a new ballet. 

 

Well, for everyone's sake, let's hope they arrive at a suitable and sensible solution sooner rather than later. 

[Sophoife]

Oh @Emeralds that's a sensible idea. Which of course means it won't happen.

[Emeralds]

1 hour ago, Sophoife said:

Oh @Emeralds that's a sensible idea. Which of course means it won't happen.

Yeah, haha.... the number of sensible (and cheaper) ideas in modern day life that managements refuse to implement/allow could fill hundreds of books....

[Texan]

https://sfist.com/2024/12/05/the-snow-will-go-on-nutcracker-saved-as-sf-ballet-dancers-union-reaches-last-minute-deal-to-avert-strike/

[Silke H]

From the SF Ballet newsletter I just received:

”We also share your joy, as we have come to a respectful and equitable tentative agreement with the world-class dancers and stage managers of San Francisco Ballet. We celebrate these exemplary artists, who continue to build upon the legacy and artistry of the nation's oldest ballet company with a firm vision on the future of the art form.”

The embedded link is for SFB’s website press release

[Sophoife]

8 hours ago, Texan said:

https://sfist.com/2024/12/05/the-snow-will-go-on-nutcracker-saved-as-sf-ballet-dancers-union-reaches-last-minute-deal-to-avert-strike/

 

Yes, this is in Friday's Links, as are two other reports.

[ibrown]

The defendants in the Hummel suit do not include Tamara Rojo. Quoting the SF Chronicle, “San Francisco Ballet soloist Ellen Hummel filed suit in San Francisco Superior Court on Aug. 16, naming the Ballet Association, Dr. Richard Gibbs and the San Francisco Free Clinic as defendants and alleging medical negligence. ” Froustey also is apparently suing over the medical treatment given her. “Froustey states that in 2022 she was given a series of steroid injections to her right foot with “no medical purpose” without being informed that the treatment “could and would destroy integrity of the tendons, fascia, (and) ligaments.”