DANCE DATA PROJECT® RELEASES 2025 LARGEST 150 BALLET & CLASSICALLY INSPIRED COMPANIES REPORT
Northfield, IL | August 13, 2025 | Today, Dance Data Project® (DDP) announces the release of its updated Largest 150 Ballet and Classically Inspired Companies Report for fiscal year 2023 (and available FY 2024 data). This year’s report marks DDP’s continued commitment to providing timely, transparent, and data-driven insight into the economic realities of the dance field, particularly within ballet and classically inspired companies in the United States. Now in its second year of expanding beyond simple rankings by expenditure alone, DDP again includes comparative rankings by company revenue and surplus or deficit status.
“This report is a testament to DDP’s ongoing evolution,” said Jenna Magrath, DDP’s Research Lead. She continued, “Each year, we refine our methodology, incorporate more dimensions of company activity, and find new ways to represent the health— and strain—of the field. We’re proud that this edition offers even deeper insight into the financial landscape of American ballet.”
In FY2023, the Largest 150 companies operated with a total aggregate expenditure of $830,181,580, a 15.42% increase from FY2022. Despite surpassing pre-pandemic spending levels, this rise in expenditure was not matched by income. The Largest 150 companies generated a total revenue of $787,561,086 in FY23. Compared to total expenses of $830,181,580, this reflects a sector-wide deficit of $42,620,494. For the first time in recent years, more than half of the companies (54%) reported a fiscal year deficit—a significant shift from FY2022, when just 18.7% of companies ended the year in the red.
Nicole Dickson, DDP’s Senior Data Analyst, commented: “This latest installment of the Largest 150 Ballet Companies report again offers meaningful insights, painting a detailed picture of the ballet industry’s financial landscape in fiscal year 2023. By analyzing both revenue and expenditures, we identify year-over-year trends and gain a clearer understanding of where financial stability existed in FY2023 compared to previous years.”
The Largest 50 companies continue to control the lion’s share of the industry’s financial activity, accounting for 88.90% of total spending in FY2023. Within that group, the Largest 10 companies alone comprised 52.64% of total expenditure across the 150 and nearly 60% of spending within the Largest 50. This level of concentration, consistent over time, emphasizes how a small cohort of major institutions drives the economic narrative of ballet in the United States.
Another notable trend is the stability of the sector’s top tier: nine of the same ten organizations have held their place in the Largest 10 from FY2018 through FY2023. The exception was FY2021, when Ballet West briefly entered the Largest 10.
DDP President and Founder Elizabeth ‘Liza’ Yntema highlighted, “For the second year in a row, DDP has ranked companies not only by expenditure but also by revenue and surplus or deficit. These new comparative tools provide a sharper view of financial performance beyond surface-level scale.” She added, “We will build on this analysis in two upcoming Data Bytes — one focused exclusively on revenue for a more granular look at how financial performance varies across companies amid growing economic challenges, and another examining dancer counts to better understand company size and structure.”
“This is what we do best,” added Jenna. “We listen, we learn, and we iterate. With every ranking report, we sharpen the picture of where resources are concentrated, where disparities persist, and where the field remains imbalanced. Our role is to provide the data that brings these dynamics to light—and make it harder to ignore them.”
To explore the full 2025 Largest 150 Ballet & Classically Inspired Companies Report, visit www.dancedataproject.com/research.
