2024 Choreographic Competitions
and Fellowships Report

Joffrey Concert Group NYC rehearsing Eryn Renee Young's
"The Relentless Nature of Dreaming"
Creative Movers Choreographic Initiative 2024
Photo by Michael Waldrop

Read Here

Global Update:
Bailey's Blog

A conversation with Francesca Zambello, Elizabeth Yntema, and Elizabeth Hurley

The Lyric Opera of Chicago: Female Leadership in the Arts

Read Here

The Washington National Opera’s "Aida"
Choreography by Jessica Lang
Photo by Scott Suchman

Interactive Map of Female-Led Companies

View Here

Dance Data Project® Announces
Research Collaboration with Smith College Data
Science Capstone Students

Learn More Here

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago in Maria Torres'
"Echoes" of Our Ancestors
Photo by Michelle Reid

Dance Data Project® Leader Board

View Here

Point by Pointe

Dance in Operas, Plays, and Theater

Read Newsletter Here

Stephanie Martinez
Recipient of the Sybil Shearer Fellowship
Photo by Andrew Weeks

Download Data Byte

2023+ Leadership Transitions Data Byte

Hubbard Street Dance Chicago in
Alice Klock & Florian Lochner's "Into Being"
Photo by Michelle Reid

2024 Research Calendar

View Here

Joffrey Concert Group NYC rehearsing Eryn Renee Young's
"The Relentless Nature of Dreaming"
Creative Movers Choreographic Initiative 2024
Photo by Michael Waldrop

Jessica Lang Dance in "The Wanderer"
Photo by Takao Komaru

DDP Talks to Francesca
Zambello, Director of The Lyric
Opera of Chicago’s "Aida"

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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.

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

Point by Pointe: Operas, Plays, and Theater Newsletter

Our latest edition of Point by Pointe was released on March 2, detailing Dance in Operas, Plays and Theater. We’ve found that choreographing, directing, or conducting for an opera is both similar and incredibly different from creating typical concert dance productions. So, we decided to speak to some experts about their recent experiences in this exciting realm of live performance. Interviews with esteemed members of the dance and performing arts community included Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Francesca Zambello, Jessica Lang, Camille A. Brown, Stephanie Martinez, and Phil Chan. Click the button below to read the full newsletter.

Read Newsletter

2023 DDP Accomplishments

2023 Accomplishments Summary

2023 Research Summary

2023 Programming Summary

2023 Resources & Advocacy Summary

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.

Choreographic Competitions and Fellowships Report 2024

Published on: 3/31/2024

This is Dance Data Project® (DDP)’s first report examining the gender distribution of choreographic competition winners and fellowship recipients between 2018 and 2023.

In this report, DDP examines 22 U.S. and international choreographic competitions and identifies 275 competition winners. Women account for only 32% of the total winners, with 89 female choreographers out of 275 winning choreographers. For each choreographic competition, the monetary value of each award and the number of winners associated with each award value from 2018 to 2023 is recorded. There are 16 monetary award values, each with an associated number of recipients. For 12 out of the 16 monetary award values men make up a larger percentage of recipients. Of the 148 recipients of monetary awards, only 42 recipients are women, or 28%.

View the Report

DATA BYTE: 2023+ Leadership Transitions

Published on: 1/9/2023

The 2023+ Leadership Transitions Data Byte is the fourth annual study of leadership changes at influential organizations within the international dance industry.

The report details changes among artistic directors, executive directors, resident choreographers, associate artistic directors, and school directors at international and U.S. based dance venues, dance festivals, ballet companies, contemporary/modern companies, and prominent schools/conservatories which occurred in 2023 or have been announced for 2024 and later.

View the Report

2023 Artistic and Executive Compensation Report

Published on: 12/29/2023

This report is Dance Data Project’s^® (DDP) fifth annual study examining compensation of artistic and executive director leadership at the Largest 150 ballet and classically based companies in the U.S. This is the second report analyzing compensation as it relates to company expenditure, and the first iteration of the report that expands to include other positions (e.g. school director, associate/assistant artistic directors) as well as deferred compensation, bonuses, and individuals still receiving compensation despite no longer being employed by organizations. Findings from this report are based on FY 2021 and FY 2022 financials.

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2023 Largest 75 U.S Contemporary and Modern Dance Companies

Published On: 11/8/2023 Dance Data Project^® announces Part II of our second report analyzing the Largest U.S. contemporary and modern dance companies. For the first time, this report examines the financial scope of the Largest 75 U.S. contemporary and modern dance companies. This report ranks the companies within two categories: the Largest 50 (#1-50) and the Additional 25 (#51-75), thereby providing a comprehensive overview of the contemporary and modern dance industry. Part I of this report, The Largest U.S. Contemporary & Modern Dance Companies report, was released in June 2023. It examined the gender distribution of leadership among Artistic Directors, Company Founders, Executive Directors/CEOs/Managing Directors, Associate/Assistant Artistic Directors, and Rehearsal Directors across 127 U.S. contemporary and modern companies.

View the Report

Season Overview 2022/2023

Published on: 8/21/2023

This Report represents Dance Data Project^®’s fifth annual Season Overview report, which examines the gender distribution of choreographers in the 2022/2023 season among the Largest 150 Ballet and Classically Inspired Companies in the United States (based on FY 2020 expenditures). This is DDP’s second iteration of the report examining the Largest 150 companies, compared to only the Largest 50 companies in the past. DDP examines 1637 works in this report; a remarkable expansion from the first Season Overview report in 2019 where only 645 works were analyzed. DDP has also extended its research efforts to offer an in-depth analysis of the 2022/2023 Season Programming across the Largest 150 companies. Notably, this year’s report introduces the inclusion of “Company Premieres” in the analysis, as well as ranks companies within the Largest 50 based on the number of works by women for the very first time.

Among the Largest 150 companies, 23.9% of full-length works and 35.0% of mixed bill works were choreographed by women, indicating that works choreographed by women are more often presented in mixed rep programs instead of the more prestigious (and expensive) full evening works.

View the Report

DDP Talks To…

Jessica Lang, Photo by Rosalie O'Connor

Choreographer Profile: Jessica Lang

Choreographer Profile: Camille A. Brown

Director Profile: Francesca Zambello, Photo by Marc Hom

Director Profile: Francesca Zambello

Stephanie Martinez, recipient of the Sybil Shearer Fellowship, Photo by Andrew Weeks

Choreographer Profile: Stephanie Martinez

Director Profile: Phil Chan

Ana María Álvarez

DDP Talks To Ana Maria Alvarez – CONTRA-TIEMPO Activist Dance Theater

November 30, 2023

Kimberlie Page at Dallas Black Dance Theatre, Photo by Melissa M. Young, Courtesy of Kimberlie Page

DDP Talks To Kimberlie Page – Dallas Black Dance Theatre

September 29, 2023

Angela Harris teaching as a National Visiting Fellow at the School of American Ballet, Courtesy of School of American Ballet

DDP Talks To Angela Harris- Dance Canvas

September 29, 2023

Adam Sklute Teaching at the Ballet West Academy Summer Intensive 2023, Photo by Beau Pearson

DDP Talks To Adam Sklute – Ballet West

September 29, 2023

#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.

The research and reports provided by Dance Data Project have been invaluable in helping Dallas Black Dance Theatre inform our donors, share our story and validate our post-covid recovery. These findings have contributed to retention and increased support from current donors, new support, and have leveraged conversations for future sustainability through endowment. With the continued provision of data by DDP, we can further our mission and catapult the organization forward toward our 50th Anniversary.

Zenetta S. DrewExecutive Director of Dallas Black Dance Theatre

Data gathering, with good news or bad news, is the lifeblood of innovation. Dance Data Project probes deeply past all the hyperbolic foofaraw that substitutes for real research and then provides the whole community with access to it without fee (as it ought to be). I support the cause because this kind of third-party passion for the truth is staggeringly rare and deserves all the financial support anyone in the field can muster.

Alan HarrisonAuthor, SCENE CHANGE: Why Today’s Nonprofit Arts Organizations Have to Stop Producing Art and Start Producing Impact

“DDP has been an incredible resource for BalletX and our Board of Directors. The data and research from DDP give us a better understanding of the institutional trends and traditions in big and small ballet companies. It gives you detailed information on who is leading an organization, and which artists are being commissioned, and it allows you to gain a more equitable perspective.”

Christine Cox Co-founder, Artistic, and Executive Director of BalletX

“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.

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.

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.

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"

“It’s a start in the right direction to shift the conversation to true inclusion within this form we love.”

Jodie Gates Artistic Director, Cincinnati Ballet

“If you’re seeing your artistic director is a woman, you’re understanding I can do that, too.”

Lourdes LopezArtistic Director, Miami City Ballet

“Many young dancers were given the message that girls do the dancing and men make the steps. I hope programs like this one can help undo this thought process.”

Suzanne HaagResident Choreographer, Eugene Ballet

“A mentor can mean the difference between giving up on a goal and pushing yourself to do things you didn’t know you could.”

Misty CopelandPrincipal dancer, American Ballet Theatre

“At its core, art, music, and dance should be created, expressed, and shared for all people to delight in. If not, by isolating certain styles to certain races, society disregards art’s true interconnection.”

Junyla SilmonSenior Research Consultant, Dance Data Project®

“Women and girls are astonishing creative forces of nature, whose energy and power can contribute to change in any dance sector, as in the wider society. AWA DANCE dreams, acts, navigates, creates, and empowers.

Avatâra AyusoFounder, AWA DANCE

“No one is coming to save you. Do the work, ask for help, dig deep and take it one task at a time.”

Erin BarnettFounder, Black Girls Dance®

“When women’s contributions are omitted from the historical record, it’s more than disappointing. It’s tragic. It speaks to just how indifferent society has been to what women can do, and, more importantly, what they have done.”

Katie Hafner Host/Executive Producer, Lost Women of Science

“Representation is so powerful. As a dancer, I never got to work with a female choreographer first hand, and I danced professionally for 20 years.”

Gemma BondChoreographer

“This isn’t about slicing the pie differently, this is about letting women contribute so we can make the pie bigger.”

Cori CloseUCLA Coach & President of the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association

“One message that I would really like to get through, particularly for women who have not pursued a linear, or more traditional, career, is you’re not done yet. You’re not done until you decide you’re done, and it doesn’t all have to make sense at the time.”

Elizabeth YntemaFor the Michigan Law Quadrangle

“It is the dance industry’s time of reckoning as to whether it will value dancers as more than just replaceable, glitzy commodities, and create a culture where young kids training in local studios can look forward to safe and meaningful careers as performers.”