April 30, 2024 • 39 mins
Across a variety of artistic genres, we see persistent gender imbalances among the creatives and leaders who make the art possible. That’s especially true for dance, where women continue to hold fewer artistic director positions and receive fewer choreographic opportunities than men despite making up a significant majority of the dance workforce overall.
As full-blown data nerds here at CI, we believe you can’t change what you don’t measure. So we sat down with the team at Dance Data Project® to discuss the latest industry stats and consider how to carve a path forward for gender equity in dance.
Dance Data Project® promotes gender equity in the dance industry through metrics-based analysis. In this interview, they overview their latest research, programming, and advocacy work to showcase and uplift women across the dance industry—from artistic and executive leaders, to lighting designers and commissioned composers.
LINKS:
New York Times | Do Men Still Rule Ballet? Let Us Count the Ways.
Dance Magazine | Over 80% of Ballets Are Still Choreographed By Men
Pointe Magazine | Ballet's Gender Gap—By the Numbers
Data USA | Dancers and Choreographers Workforce
New Scientist | Doctors ‘nudged’ into prescribing far fewer antibiotics
ADDITIONAL CONVERSATIONS ABOUT EQUITY IN DANCE:
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
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Hello everyone! Dan here. Asfull-blown data nerds here at CI,
we believe you can't changewhat you do not measure.
(00:43):
So we sat down with theteam at Dance Data Project,
an organization that promotes genderequity in the dance industry with
metrics-based analysis. Throughtheir research, programming,
and advocacy,
DDP showcases and uplifts women acrossthe dance industry-from artistic and
executive leaders, to lightingdesigners and commissioned composers.
(01:05):
In this episode,
their team illuminates the latest industrystats and shares observations that
can help us carve a path forwardfor gender equity in dance.
And if you are asnumbers-obsessed as we are,
you'll want to turn up the volume forthis one. Let's dive in, shall we?
(01:29):
So today I'm joined by three teammembers from Dance Data Project,
an organization dedicated to promotinggender equity in the dance world.
And they speak our lovelanguage, which is data.
Thank you all so much for being here.
Thank you so much for having us.
So before we get started,
let's just do a quick round robin andintroduce ourselves so the listeners get
(01:49):
to know your voices. If you couldintroduce your name, your role at DDP,
and maybe what interests you indance-what got you into dance in the first
place?
I'm Liza Yntema. I am the Presidentand Founder of Dance Data Project.
I started dancing aroundmy kitchen at three and
my mom, who quite unusually forthe time, had a full-time job,
(02:12):
I think just wanted to park mesomeplace. I was a ball of energy,
so they started me on dance classes,
which I continued until I was about 13.
But I've never lost the lovefor performing arts generally,
and dance in particular.
Hi, I'm Isabelle Ramey.
I'm the Chief External AffairsOfficer for Dance Data Project.
(02:34):
I've been with the company for almostthree years now and I've been dancing
since I was in the womb.
My mom talks about havingto leave concerts because I was kicking so much and I
really never stopped. I am aprofessional ballet dancer right now.
I went to college for danceand mathematics and it's a part of my identity.
Hi, I'm Jenna Magrath. I am theResearch Lead for Dance Data Project.
(02:59):
I also have been dancing my whole life,
from four years old up until now.
And I'm currently a contemporary dancerwith a small company located in northern
British Columbia, Canada.
Amazing. So dance hasalways been with you all.
We have a lot of podcast listenerswho work for dance companies,
but there are also plenty whowork in other artistic genres.
(03:22):
So just to set the scene,
what is unique about genderequity conversations in dance?
Yeah,
so about 75 to 85% ofthe dance workforce is
made up of women.
But once you start to look at theleadership roles and choreographers,
there are significantly more men in thesepositions than women. There are many,
(03:44):
many,
many women who are eager and well-equippedand more than capable to take on
these greater roles and step intoleadership roles or into the role of the
choreographer and utilize theirexperience and knowledge in new ways.
But unfortunately, many aren'tafforded the opportunity to,
as they often go to men instead.
I think it's so interesting becauseballet is sort of built on the backs of
(04:06):
women.
Women have always been there and they'vealways been in the pointe shoes ready
to go.
We're advocating really for a majorityof this workforce population that's been
egregiously underfunded,underrepresented, and underpaid,
and willing to take unpaying positionsbecause they love it so much and because
they're sort of dangled this opportunitythat if they just stick with it a
(04:29):
couple more years and workat the restaurant to make do,
that they'll get these opportunities.And it doesn't always happen.
So Liza, Dance Data Project or DDPstarted as an independent research project
at your kitchen table. What inspiredyou to start this project originally?
So I had one of those a-ha moments.
(04:50):
I was sitting in the AuditoriumTheater in Chicago-by the way,
DDP is partnered withthe Auditorium Theater.
And I had one of those lightning boltmoments where I sat upright in my seat and
then I actually stood up and Ilooked around the auditorium theater.
And then I looked at the book and Irealized that not only for that season,
but also I had never seena company run by a woman or
(05:14):
a classical dance work by a woman.
Now I need to point out thatI'm talking mostly ballet.
And I said, this doesn't make any sense.
And I started asking questions and theanswers that came back got more and more
ridiculous. And I thought what'sreally missing here is data.
(05:36):
Before we dive into the data,
let's take a moment just to laythe groundwork for our listeners.
Would you mind sharing DDP'sresearch methodology and some of your
key operational definitions?
Yeah, I can speak to this, Dan.
So we're providing a national andinternational ranking of dance companies,
and that's based on financial andprogramming data that's available.
(05:58):
And we are kind of just the messengers.
All of this informationis out there for grabs,
and taxpayers and consumers justneed to know that what's happening
with these nonprofits is they have theright to understand this information.
On the financial reporting side,
which results in our ranking of dancecompanies and it gives us a groundwork for
(06:21):
the overall size and scopeof the industry financially,
as well as the compensation forartistic and executive leadership,
we use a proprietary software to processthe e-filings from the IRS website.
So that's directly from the IRS website.
We'll cross-reference those resultsagainst previous reports and other
third-party databases to ensure theaccuracy of the software results.
(06:43):
There is a double and triple checkingprocess with our research team to verify
that no human error has occurredand to ensure a proper statistical
analysis has been done.And then we even go a step further.
We don't need to do this, but we do,
and we reach out directly to the dancecompanies to make sure that what they
filed with the IRS is entirely correct.
(07:04):
What we have on file for them is correct.
Just to continue that conversation withthem and make sure they're given every
opportunity to ensure whatwe have for them is correct.
Because as we've seen recently,
our numbers truly do make a difference.
And boards of directors look for them.
Grant officers look for them.
People are looking to this data andthey want to be accurately represented.
(07:28):
In terms of reportingon season programming,
that's done by examining companywebsites, press releases,
and also reaching outdirectly to companies.
So it's very communicative and it'sdeveloping and refining over the years for
sure.
Wow, that's impressively thorough goingthrough and double checking everything.
Does that thoroughness come from alsothe pressure and how important this is to
(07:50):
get this data right?
Pressure? What pressure? Ha ha!
Yeah,
we don't publish it-talk about pressure-wedon't publish it until it's a hundred
percent correct. And if we make a mistake,
we say we've made a mistake.
We try and be as transparentas possible about it,
(08:11):
because as Isabelle said, weare refining this all the time.
And we added one more layer,
which is our WWL documents- sort of
like timeouts in surgery. Like,"Timeout, hands off the body.
Are we all making sure thatwe're operating on Mrs. Carruther's left leg today,
not Mr. Smith's rightventricle?" It's a good idea in
(08:35):
hospital administration, andit's a great idea in research.
"Everybody take a beat, take a pause.What did we learn? What can we do better?
What questions remain unanswered?".
Yeah, there's very much aculture of, especially in tech,
move fast and break things.
And I don't think that'salways the best thing to do,
especially when it comes to research.
(08:57):
Having a time where you do have that"Hands off, let's all take a break" is...
I think more people should consider that.
Yeah, I mean you'll definitelysee our research calendar,
which we do post online.Things sort of slide out,
and that's because I giveall my new people a do's and
don'ts and number one or number twois good enough is not good enough,
(09:20):
and that may mean somethingis delayed a little bit.
And how does your team verify thegender identities of choreographers and
artistic or executive directors?
So we collect all of thisinformation from company websites,
company press releases, social media.
So we specifically look atbiographies to determine
(09:45):
pronouns in our research.
We have a few categories that we putchoreographers and artistic directors in.
So we have men, we have women,we have gender expansive,
which encompasses people who identifyoutside of the gender binary.
And then we also have amixed gender category,
which is for teams of co-choreographersor co-artistic directors which are
(10:07):
of differing genders.
So fast forward to today, and DDPhas compiled a wealth of data.
How would you summarize the stateof gender equity in dance today?
Yeah, so we have no shortage of datareally highlighting what the gender
equity landscape lookslike in ballet, primarily.
(10:27):
We aren't quite at a state of equity yet,
and that's not to knock anyone.
There are a lot of reallygreat organizations who are doing some amazing work to
promote equity and highlightwomen and hire women. But overall,
we are still working towardsequity. So in the 2022-23 season,
only 32% of the works presentedwithin the largest 150 companies in
(10:52):
the U.S. were choreographed by women.
And this is only a slight increase fromthe season before where only 29% of
works were by women.
So when you consider thefact that about 85% of the
dance field is women, that's apretty significantly low proportion.
When you kind of further break this downinto the types of works that women do
(11:14):
get to present, they are a lot morelikely to present mixed bill works,
which are typically shorter inlength, involve fewer dancers,
and ultimately require fewer resources.And over the past two
seasons, women have choreographed35% of these mixed bill works.
When you look at full lengthworks-and these are your Nutcrackers,
(11:35):
your Swan Lakes, which are largerin scale, involve the full company,
require more marketing,
more company resources-womenhave historically received fewer
opportunities. And last season womenonly choreographed 24% of these full
length works among the largest 150.
And something that we've kind ofobserved in our data is that the largest
(11:57):
companies-so,
ranked by expenditure fromone to 50-they tend to
program lower percentages ofwomen-choreographed works compared
to the additional 50,
which is companies ranked 51 to a hundred,
and the additional 50,
which are companies ranked 101 to 150.
(12:20):
So these companies that are smallerin scale and often have less resources
are making greater effortsand greater advancements
towards gender equity and providing theseopportunities for women in the field.
That's so interesting. Isabelle,
in January you released your firstinternational study examining programming
(12:42):
outside the U.S. That's a huge milestone.
Yeah, it was a huge milestone.And Jenna and the research team,
it was a huge push for them,and us as an organization.
And I think the emphasis in that is thiswas our first examination of company
programming outside the U.S. We'renot new to the international space,
but we definitely have dipped our toesin and we're continuing to refine how we
(13:05):
look at international work.
The dance industry isinherently global. I mean,
artistic director searcheshappen across the globe.
Choreographers are commissionedacross country lines.
We even see dancers picking up andmoving to perform in an entirely new time
zone or on a new continent. I mean,
(13:27):
we can't talk about the UnitedStates solely without the context
of what's happening inthe world around us.
We just weren't at the scaleto do that yet. And now we are,
and we're learning how to do thatby starting to look at companies
that are primarily English speakingso that we don't have things lost in
translation.
(13:48):
And our recent report looked atthat global programming at English
speaking companies. There were33 well-known companies included,
ranging from regions includingAustralia, New Zealand,
Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, thePhilippines, the United Kingdom,
Singapore, and South Africa. So we'rereally taking a look everywhere.
(14:09):
Wow, that's very global.
Yeah, everywhere. And what wefound is really interesting.
Of the works commissionedin the 2023-2024 season
globally, with those companies in mind,
just 23.6% of them werechoreographed by women.
And now that we took a look globally,
(14:30):
we can look inward atthe United States status.
And to compare,
our largest 10 U.S. balletcompanies are respectively
similarly sized and of similar influencein the international industry to the
companies that were researchedduring this global report.
And of those largest 10 companies,
(14:52):
we saw just 14.9% of workschoreographed by women.
Now that's for the most recent datacollection we have for that population,
which is the 22-23 season. So theseason prior to our global report.
But we see a similar number when we lookat the largest 50 U.S. companies where
22.9% of works are choreographed by women.
(15:15):
So now that we have this breadth ofknowledge built up globally and we can
continue to produce theresearch at a global scale,
drawing the comparisons betweenhow we're doing on the state side
will be really interesting going forward.
I find that absolutely fascinating.
What percentage of leadershippositions are filled by women?
(15:37):
Yeah, so within the largest 150,
only 43% of artistic directors are women.
And this gender distribution unfortunatelyhasn't really changed much between
2018 and 2023. And again,
when you consider how many women are inthe field, this is significantly low.
We do tend to see women lead our smallercompanies rather than these larger
(15:59):
companies.
So this 43% is propped up by
companies ranked from 51 to 150 as only
about 24% of artistic directorswithin the largest 50 are women.
To look a little bit more globally,
we're still seeing more men come intothe role of artistic directors than
(16:23):
women, but there is some greatprogress among executive directors,
resident choreographers,
and associate artistic directors withmore women being appointed into these
roles. So we're seeing somepositive improvements there,
but nearly twice the amount of menbecoming artistic directors than
there are women.
(16:44):
And Dan,
I think it's important to note thatthis can almost be a position for life.
We're seeing an extraordinaryturnover in the industry.
Just the sheer number oftransitions in artistic
director positions is, Iwould say, unprecedented.
But it's not like we're goingto see a crop like this again,
which means the decisions being made noware going to have a generation's worth
(17:07):
of impact.
One of the interesting thingsyou said there was in the top 10,
that number seemed even lower.
Do you feel that the biggeran organization gets,
the slower they are to update,the slower they are to move?
(17:30):
Overall,
there's an inverse correlationbetween the size of a budget and the
likelihood that they'll programwomen, is what we're telling you.
Up until recently, they wereless likely to be run by a woman.
And I will say we are seeingsome really exciting changes.
When I started Dance Data Project,
[among] the largest 10 balletcompanies in the United States,
(17:52):
only one was run by a woman. Andtypical glass cliff situation,
it was Miami City Ballet, whichwas in real financial trouble.
There are now four. But toreiterate what Isabelle was saying,
across the board,
we see fewer works by womenand the company is less likely to be run by a woman
the larger it gets. One of the thingsthat we're researching right now is,
(18:15):
is there a relationship betweencompanies founded by women and as they
grow, the boards tend to bringin a man to signal success or
competency? "We want to hire arockstar." You hear that all the time.
In our conversations with consultants,with board members, et cetera,
we're really having to look at:
(18:36):
is there an assumption thatbeing a rockstar and being a draw
is equal both on the artistic directorand choreographer side with being male?
It's interesting what you said aboutwanting a rock star because I think that
often comes with a lotof preconceived biases.
I think a lot of the time menare allowed to be rock stars,
(19:00):
whereas women have moreemotional labor to have to
keep everything organizedand within the guidelines,
within the bumpers.
I think that's absolutelyfair and that is absolutely...
We see that in the data.
Because if you look at the executivedirector side-which is to keep the lights
on, keep the donors happy, keepthings running-first of all,
(19:23):
there's almost wage parity.
One of the few places you're going tosee men and women making almost exactly
the same amount of money.
And there's a lot more prevalence ofwomen because they're doing the high
touch involvement, they'redealing with unions, plumbers,
security, et cetera, and very oftendoing a brilliant job. But yeah,
(19:44):
being an executive director for the mostpart does not mean you're a rockstar.
Yeah.
When you have a study or apiece of data-some analysis that
can be seen as criticism-how dopeople generally react to that?
Yeah, I mean it's interestingbecause we're working in the arts,
(20:05):
which is so subjective.
It's weird to have thisobjective point of view now.
And I think that's been startling for alot of organizations that weren't used
to being under this microscope before.So it's kind of scary for some people.
We always approach our collaborationswith organizations and our research from a
positive way.
We want to celebrate and upliftorganizations that are doing their part
(20:29):
to elevate women in theindustry, to hire equitably.
We're never trying to strikefear into their hearts.
We want everyone to succeed. And Ithink there's been this transition,
and Liza and I speak about it allthe time, from kind of: who are you?
To (20:45):
Why do we care? Why are we talking about women in dance?
There are plenty of women in dance. To:
You have no right to this information.Meanwhile it's all publicly available,
and we know that and they know that,but there's some conflict there.
And then now, we're hearing,
"Please include us." And we get requestsall the time from organizations,
(21:06):
small and large, nationaland international,
that want to be a part of our research,
that want to be featured by us inour newsletter, on our website,
on our social media.
It's great to see nowreporters coming to us for the
statistics that can help elevate andcontextualize the work that they're doing.
And same with companies who arelooking to us to try and help better
(21:30):
their ecosystems.
We usually don't focus on individualcompanies. We're looking at trends.
So if we're citing individual companies,
it's because what our data showsis that they're an outlier.
I think people also, they want toknow when they're outliers as well.
It reminds me of thenudge group in the U.K.
(21:53):
I don't know if you'veever heard of this concept,
but there was a group put togetherwhich looked at data and basically
told people when they were outliers.So one of the studies they did,
there was the top 5% ofdoctors-so "GPs" in the
U.K.-who were prescribingthe most antibiotics.
They just sent a letter out tothem to tell them that, "Hey,
(22:14):
you are an outlier."And a lot of the time,
I think I'm going to messup the stats exactly here,
but a lot of the doctors who were in thattop 5% then dropped to the bottom 50%
just because they knew they were outliers.
So I think often when peopleunderstand that they're outliers,
they naturally adjust.
Yeah, I think to just add to that,
whether you're an outlier becauseyou are doing great work and you are
(22:38):
programming or hiring more womenthan the average company, or less,
then we can use this data tocollaboratively work together to
figure out what best practices are andhow we can just overall make the industry
better for everyone.
Yeah. I think earlier, Liza,
you mentioned profitability and how
(23:03):
that can be kind of a harmful assumption.
So many arts organizations are continuingto recover from financial effects of
the pandemic.
Have you noticed those revenue concernsstalling the movement towards equitable
programming?
I think [there's] embeddedunconscious bias here. Very often,
the assumption-we just ran into thiswith a dance writer and I wanted to reach
(23:25):
through the screen and grabhim because he said, "Well,
companies can only afford so much equity,"essentially if you boil down what he
said. And I was like, huh?Because that assumption is,
if you hire a woman or aperson of color for your full
length world premiere,nobody will show up.
And that's absolutely not the case.
(23:47):
I would like to see the data on thatbecause I don't think it exists.
I think that the reason there'shalf as many people going to ballet
performances now versus 20,
25 years ago is that we do need newstories and we do need new ways to
tell them. So the answeris: Excellent question. Yes,
there is that embedded assumption,
(24:08):
and if people don'tfigure something out soon,
we're going to be seeing Nutcrackerending in July and starting again in
October. I mean, the sector has gotto come up with something interesting.
I think you can get newpeople in the seats,
[but] there has to besome creativity there.
And I understand that budgets aresmall, but we need to try new things.
(24:29):
We really do.
We were in a conversation with theArtistic Director at Hubbard Street,
Linda-Denise Fisher-Harrell,who's fantastic,
and she was just talking about all thenew types of people who were coming to
Hubbard Street's performances.
And it's because they've been creativeand they've brought in new voices.
And I think to sustainthis industry long-term,
that's exactly what we need to bedoing and we need to figure it out now.
(24:52):
I think that's such agood point, Isabelle.
And I think it also pointsto how it is so important
for the artistic side and themarketing side to just talk more,
just have more conversations, belinked more. Because as marketers,
the more we can honestlyrepresent what is on stage,
the better connection we'll have withour audience and the more people we're
(25:13):
going to bring in as well.
Exactly. How can we keepinforming our audiences?
How can we keep them excited and helpthem learn more and want to come to the
show?
Let's talk about what happensafter people interact with the data
(25:35):
that you've provided. After an artistor leader reads one of your reports,
how do you encourage them tofollow up with the next steps?
So to speak to the data side of things:
I think referring to the reports andthe data that we are presenting and then
using that as a comparison towhat the organization is doing
internally in terms of hiring,
(25:56):
just to compare and reflect onwhere things could be better,
where improvements can be made,where things may be lacking,
or just identifying whereroom for improvement is.
I think it's such valuable information.I know on the consultant side,
one of the biggest questions is,
"How are we doing in comparison withother people?" It's such a useful thing to
know.
(26:16):
I also go on listening tours.
I'll let Isabelle talk a littlebit more about our listening tours,
but I think we've beento almost 30 companies.
Yeah.
Something that's hard to get a sense ofwhen you're just looking at the numbers
is sort of the culture at a company.
And Liza's been going to visitto meet with artistic staff,
hear from the dancers,
and just sort of be an open earto hear about their experiences,
(26:40):
learn more about what's happeningbehind the scenes at the organizations,
and then when her face is putwith the work that we're doing,
and she can have these one-on-oneconversations with artistic staff,
there's so much room forcreativity and collaboration,
and honestly just thesourcing of new names.
Why do we keep-even though somecompanies are doing great and are
(27:01):
commissioning female choreographers,sometimes they're the same ones!
We keep seeing the same ones.
And there are a plethora oftalented women who are flooding this
industry that is, I think Jenna said,
a 75 to 85% female-identifyingworkforce population.
And so many are interestedin choreography.
There is so much creativity that we canbe using to try and get more women in
(27:24):
the door and on the stage sothat audience members who are 70%
female-identifying can seethemselves represented.
So Isabelle, here at CI, we lovedata. The more stats the better.
But some people prefer to processinformation through anecdotes and stories.
Do you have any resources that can helptell this story in a more emotional way?
(27:45):
Yeah, this is what I spend alarge portion of my day doing,
so thank you for asking.
And it's funny because DDP existedto kind of shift us from anecdote to
hard numbers, and now we also,
we love a story and we love hearing fromthese actual people because when you
put a face behind the workand behind the statistic,
it's a lot harder to dehumanize that. Sowe're trying to make these connections.
(28:10):
And we have so manyresources on our website.
Raising the Barre is our biggestprogramming initiative to accomplish this.
It launched last fall.
We've also had interviews andvery candid conversations with
mothers in the industry withour Moving Forces series.
Our DDP Talks To interviewseries really spans
(28:32):
written and verbal interviews.
And our Global Conversation series wastruly groundbreaking because it happened
during the pandemic, and because wedid 50 interviews in about 14 months,
I want to say. And we talkedwith people all over the world.
They were lighting designers, they werein production, they were stage managers.
We talked to a fight coordinator,
(28:55):
and it was basically just to kind of hearwhat else can we do in this industry?
We're so used to knowingas dancers that our career
maybe ends in our thirties if we'relucky, maybe our forties, and we retire.
And then you either teach or you goback to school and do something else.
There are so many other creative avenuesfor staying in the industry that we
(29:18):
love,
and we see a disparityin who is pursuing those
opportunities.
And so just kind of putting them on aplatter for people is how we like to
structure our interview series and reallyconnect audiences to those stories.
Amazing.
And can you tell us a little bit moreabout the leaderboard you created?
(29:38):
Sure. So Dan, we're very practicalat DDP. We're not just numbers.
It's see a problem, solve a problem. Iwas dealing with the perception that,
quote,
"there are no good femalechoreographers." Or in looking for new
leaders, "Oh, I don't know anywomen." And the answer is, "Well,
here you go. Set, costume,
(29:59):
lighting designers." But theidea is if somebody wants to take
that extra step, whichI sure hope they do,
and look for a female set,costume, lighting designer,
back of house people, et cetera,there's a listing of names.
And Isabelle will correct me, butwe're moving towards 900 at this point.
Yeah, I actually will correct you becausewe're moving towards a thousand now.
(30:22):
We have 979 entries and it's been steadily
growing.
And it's just funny becausethe excuse that we don't
know women who we couldhire for this position,
don't know of other femalechoreographers than this list of 10,
is funny because we have the proofand it's really easy to navigate.
(30:43):
You can search by position,you can search by company,
you can search by first or last name,
you can download it as aCSV or an Excel or PDF.
So it's really interactiveand very useful day to day.
I love that it's 'see a problem, solvea problem' but also 'see an excuse,
debunk an excuse' as well.
(31:05):
So conversations about gender equitystretch far beyond the dance world,
obviously. For listeners whowork at museums, theaters,
presenting organizations,
what's one thing they can do today topush for gender equity at their own arts
organizations?
Yeah,
I think this is why ourdata is so useful to track
(31:27):
change across theindustry. But then again,
individually reflecting and usingthat data to compare how you
measure up against other organizationsor measure it up against the average and
how can we use that data to push theaverage in a more favorable direction.
Absolutely.
And information is power. I'mjust going to come back to that.
(31:51):
The more you know, themore you can advocate.
Change is iterative and themore informed it is, the better.
I think learning to read a taxreturn, as boring as it sounds,
there's a wealth of information in there.
And I would also say that allyshipwith other organizations is
super, super important.
(32:11):
The other thing I would say isthat if you are a donor... I mean,
for $50 you may not geta seat at the table,
although there's no reason why a largegroup of $50 donors couldn't get together
to create change. I starteda hashtag #AskBeforeYouGive.
The minute before you turn over the checkis the minute of your greatest power.
(32:32):
On the other side, onthe organization side,
a friend of mine in the business who Irespect a lot, she said, and I quote,
"Performing arts philanthropy hasnot changed much in the last 40
years." And I think that's whywe're all in quite a bit of trouble.
So let's look for opportunities. Forexample, fund a daycare initiative.
(32:56):
Or if you have the means to builda building, which most of us don't,
instead maybe think aboutfunding opportunities within a
community.
Support the leaders ofcolor and support the women.
Find out what they need. Maybe they needdaycare supplement, maybe they need...
(33:16):
There's a lot of ways tointervene, but it takes creativity.
And I also think it takes perseverance.
We always end our interviews withthis question, the CI to Eye moment.
If you could broadcast one message to theexecutive directors, leadership teams,
staff and boards of a thousand artsorganizations, what would that message be?
(33:40):
I'd say let's look beyond whatwe've always done. I mean,
we know that we need to break down someof these traditions that aren't serving
us anymore, especiallyin the ballet industry.
If you have the same listof choreographers you always pull from for a mixed rep
show, let's shake it up and let's takea chance because we're in the arts,
(34:01):
we're trying to make change. This isexactly where change should start,
but we're lagging behind.So use some creativity.
I really would say engage withyour marketing department,
engage with your community.
Engagement is so importantand education is how you
create an audience thatwants to come back.
(34:21):
They're not just going to come for aone-off show because you say that this
world renowned choreographeris coming in from Europe.
What about this process, what aboutthis new work, is revolutionary?
And why should it matter to them?That's how you get people in the door,
and that's how you get them to stay.
And I don't think we can continue to usethe excuse that it's too risky to take
(34:43):
some of these chances because Idon't think we've tried enough yet.
On the other hand,
I love to think about what we asindividuals in the audience can do,
because I don't have the money to bedonating to a major ballet company,
but I'm buying tickets. I love dance,so where am I buying a ticket to?
Because the company's going tolook and see what sold out and what
(35:07):
didn't. And if you keep buyingtickets to see Swan Lake...
I know it's beautiful. I love SwanLake. I was in Swan Lake. It's great.
But can we also purchase tickets tosupport a new up-and-coming choreographer
and her journey? That's really somethingthat's tangible on our own level,
and it matters.
I think let's look within andfigure out what we can do on just a
(35:31):
performance level as audience members.
Awesome. I love that.
I think just allowing numbers,
using numbers and this data tobest benefit your community,
your organization, the whole industry.
How can we make it a more equitablespace? We love to say that as artists,
(35:51):
that we're change makers and that we wantto change the world and make a better
place,
but if we don't use this data andactually follow through on our
practices, are we really able to say that?
So I think just practicingwhat we preach and embodying
that and taking that upon ourselves.
Amazing.
(36:12):
And I'll go last. I'm goingto put on a different hat,
which is my donor hatsitting in board meetings.
It is a reality that developmentdirectors sit in on programming meetings,
and they can very often havean overweighted influence.
Their job is to curate a small group of
(36:33):
older, usually more conservative donors,
and make sure they come through withbig gifts. And I've seen it happen,
and that really alters programming.
And that's across the board. It's "Oh,
I can't sell that" or "I don't know howMrs. So-and-so is going to feel about
that." That really to meis a dereliction of duty,
(36:55):
and that is an asymmetric use ofpower that I think most people
outside of performing artsorganizations or museums,
et cetera-"I can't sell." Thatbecomes the mantra. "I can sell this.
I can't sell that." And theassumption is if it's a piece
done, made, curated, whatever,
(37:15):
by a rock star filmmaker, choreographer,
usually white and male, "Oh,
I can sell that."And I see that insidious tilting.
Any not-for-profit existsto benefit the community.
So we are answerable to our constituents,
who are our taxpayers, or morespecifically the communities around us.
(37:38):
And I think we really do need areorientation of thought that way.
Nobody has to go to a performance anymore.
There are so many more outlets outthere that the competition is much
fiercer, and instead ofdoubling down on retrograde,
I think to Isabelle's point,
opening yourself up anddoing the tough work of
(37:59):
introducing yourself to audiencesand people you didn't know before,
which is uncomfortable, but I thinkthat's where the obligation is.
Amazing. What great points toend on. Liza, Isabelle, Jenna,
I've really enjoyed this conversation,
so thank you so much for takingthe time and joining with us.
Thank you so much, Dan.
(38:26):
Thank you for listening to CI to Eye.
This episode was edited and produced byKaren McConarty and co-written by Karen
McConarty and myself, Dan Titmuss.
Stephanie Medina and Jess Berube are CIto Eye's designers and video editors,
and all work together tocreate CI's digital content.
Our music is by whoisuzo. Ifyou enjoyed today's episode,
(38:47):
please take a moment torate us or leave a review.
A nice comment goes a long way in helpingother people discover CI to Eye and
hear from experts in the arts and beyond.If you didn't enjoy today's episode,
pass it on to all of your enemies.Don't forget to follow us on Facebook,
Instagram, LinkedIn, andYouTube for regular content to help you market smarter.
(39:08):
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please click the subscribe buttonwherever you get your podcasts.
Until next time, stay nerdy.
Like practicing the violin ortenderly restoring a painting,
we nurture what we love.
And Capacity Interactive's Boot Camp isthe best way to nurture our collective
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(00:21):
Save your spot at capacity interactiveboot camp dot com. See you there.
Hello everyone! Dan here. Asfull-blown data nerds here at CI,
we believe you can't changewhat you do not measure.
(00:43):
So we sat down with theteam at Dance Data Project,
an organization that promotes genderequity in the dance industry with
metrics-based analysis. Throughtheir research, programming,
and advocacy,
DDP showcases and uplifts women acrossthe dance industry-from artistic and
executive leaders, to lightingdesigners and commissioned composers.
(01:05):
In this episode,
their team illuminates the latest industrystats and shares observations that
can help us carve a path forwardfor gender equity in dance.
And if you are asnumbers-obsessed as we are,
you'll want to turn up the volume forthis one. Let's dive in, shall we?
(01:29):
So today I'm joined by three teammembers from Dance Data Project,
an organization dedicated to promotinggender equity in the dance world.
And they speak our lovelanguage, which is data.
Thank you all so much for being here.
Thank you so much for having us.
So before we get started,
let's just do a quick round robin andintroduce ourselves so the listeners get
(01:49):
to know your voices. If you couldintroduce your name, your role at DDP,
and maybe what interests you indance-what got you into dance in the first
place?
I'm Liza Yntema. I am the Presidentand Founder of Dance Data Project.
I started dancing aroundmy kitchen at three and
my mom, who quite unusually forthe time, had a full-time job,
(02:12):
I think just wanted to park mesomeplace. I was a ball of energy,
so they started me on dance classes,
which I continued until I was about 13.
But I've never lost the lovefor performing arts generally,
and dance in particular.
Hi, I'm Isabelle Ramey.
I'm the Chief External AffairsOfficer for Dance Data Project.
(02:34):
I've been with the company for almostthree years now and I've been dancing
since I was in the womb.
My mom talks about havingto leave concerts because I was kicking so much and I
really never stopped. I am aprofessional ballet dancer right now.
I went to college for danceand mathematics and it's a part of my identity.
Hi, I'm Jenna Magrath. I am theResearch Lead for Dance Data Project.
(02:59):
I also have been dancing my whole life,
from four years old up until now.
And I'm currently a contemporary dancerwith a small company located in northern
British Columbia, Canada.
Amazing. So dance hasalways been with you all.
We have a lot of podcast listenerswho work for dance companies,
but there are also plenty whowork in other artistic genres.
(03:22):
So just to set the scene,
what is unique about genderequity conversations in dance?
Yeah,
so about 75 to 85% ofthe dance workforce is
made up of women.
But once you start to look at theleadership roles and choreographers,
there are significantly more men in thesepositions than women. There are many,
(03:44):
many,
many women who are eager and well-equippedand more than capable to take on
these greater roles and step intoleadership roles or into the role of the
choreographer and utilize theirexperience and knowledge in new ways.
But unfortunately, many aren'tafforded the opportunity to,
as they often go to men instead.
I think it's so interesting becauseballet is sort of built on the backs of
(04:06):
women.
Women have always been there and they'vealways been in the pointe shoes ready
to go.
We're advocating really for a majorityof this workforce population that's been
egregiously underfunded,underrepresented, and underpaid,
and willing to take unpaying positionsbecause they love it so much and because
they're sort of dangled this opportunitythat if they just stick with it a
(04:29):
couple more years and workat the restaurant to make do,
that they'll get these opportunities.And it doesn't always happen.
So Liza, Dance Data Project or DDPstarted as an independent research project
at your kitchen table. What inspiredyou to start this project originally?
So I had one of those a-ha moments.
(04:50):
I was sitting in the AuditoriumTheater in Chicago-by the way,
DDP is partnered withthe Auditorium Theater.
And I had one of those lightning boltmoments where I sat upright in my seat and
then I actually stood up and Ilooked around the auditorium theater.
And then I looked at the book and Irealized that not only for that season,
but also I had never seena company run by a woman or
(05:14):
a classical dance work by a woman.
Now I need to point out thatI'm talking mostly ballet.
And I said, this doesn't make any sense.
And I started asking questions and theanswers that came back got more and more
ridiculous. And I thought what'sreally missing here is data.
(05:36):
Before we dive into the data,
let's take a moment just to laythe groundwork for our listeners.
Would you mind sharing DDP'sresearch methodology and some of your
key operational definitions?
Yeah, I can speak to this, Dan.
So we're providing a national andinternational ranking of dance companies,
and that's based on financial andprogramming data that's available.
(05:58):
And we are kind of just the messengers.
All of this informationis out there for grabs,
and taxpayers and consumers justneed to know that what's happening
with these nonprofits is they have theright to understand this information.
On the financial reporting side,
which results in our ranking of dancecompanies and it gives us a groundwork for
(06:21):
the overall size and scopeof the industry financially,
as well as the compensation forartistic and executive leadership,
we use a proprietary software to processthe e-filings from the IRS website.
So that's directly from the IRS website.
We'll cross-reference those resultsagainst previous reports and other
third-party databases to ensure theaccuracy of the software results.
(06:43):
There is a double and triple checkingprocess with our research team to verify
that no human error has occurredand to ensure a proper statistical
analysis has been done.And then we even go a step further.
We don't need to do this, but we do,
and we reach out directly to the dancecompanies to make sure that what they
filed with the IRS is entirely correct.
(07:04):
What we have on file for them is correct.
Just to continue that conversation withthem and make sure they're given every
opportunity to ensure whatwe have for them is correct.
Because as we've seen recently,
our numbers truly do make a difference.
And boards of directors look for them.
Grant officers look for them.
People are looking to this data andthey want to be accurately represented.
(07:28):
In terms of reportingon season programming,
that's done by examining companywebsites, press releases,
and also reaching outdirectly to companies.
So it's very communicative and it'sdeveloping and refining over the years for
sure.
Wow, that's impressively thorough goingthrough and double checking everything.
Does that thoroughness come from alsothe pressure and how important this is to
(07:50):
get this data right?
Pressure? What pressure? Ha ha!
Yeah,
we don't publish it-talk about pressure-wedon't publish it until it's a hundred
percent correct. And if we make a mistake,
we say we've made a mistake.
We try and be as transparentas possible about it,
(08:11):
because as Isabelle said, weare refining this all the time.
And we added one more layer,
which is our WWL documents- sort of
like timeouts in surgery. Like,"Timeout, hands off the body.
Are we all making sure thatwe're operating on Mrs. Carruther's left leg today,
not Mr. Smith's rightventricle?" It's a good idea in
(08:35):
hospital administration, andit's a great idea in research.
"Everybody take a beat, take a pause.What did we learn? What can we do better?
What questions remain unanswered?".
Yeah, there's very much aculture of, especially in tech,
move fast and break things.
And I don't think that'salways the best thing to do,
especially when it comes to research.
(08:57):
Having a time where you do have that"Hands off, let's all take a break" is...
I think more people should consider that.
Yeah, I mean you'll definitelysee our research calendar,
which we do post online.Things sort of slide out,
and that's because I giveall my new people a do's and
don'ts and number one or number twois good enough is not good enough,
(09:20):
and that may mean somethingis delayed a little bit.
And how does your team verify thegender identities of choreographers and
artistic or executive directors?
So we collect all of thisinformation from company websites,
company press releases, social media.
So we specifically look atbiographies to determine
(09:45):
pronouns in our research.
We have a few categories that we putchoreographers and artistic directors in.
So we have men, we have women,we have gender expansive,
which encompasses people who identifyoutside of the gender binary.
And then we also have amixed gender category,
which is for teams of co-choreographersor co-artistic directors which are
(10:07):
of differing genders.
So fast forward to today, and DDPhas compiled a wealth of data.
How would you summarize the stateof gender equity in dance today?
Yeah, so we have no shortage of datareally highlighting what the gender
equity landscape lookslike in ballet, primarily.
(10:27):
We aren't quite at a state of equity yet,
and that's not to knock anyone.
There are a lot of reallygreat organizations who are doing some amazing work to
promote equity and highlightwomen and hire women. But overall,
we are still working towardsequity. So in the 2022-23 season,
only 32% of the works presentedwithin the largest 150 companies in
(10:52):
the U.S. were choreographed by women.
And this is only a slight increase fromthe season before where only 29% of
works were by women.
So when you consider thefact that about 85% of the
dance field is women, that's apretty significantly low proportion.
When you kind of further break this downinto the types of works that women do
(11:14):
get to present, they are a lot morelikely to present mixed bill works,
which are typically shorter inlength, involve fewer dancers,
and ultimately require fewer resources.And over the past two
seasons, women have choreographed35% of these mixed bill works.
When you look at full lengthworks-and these are your Nutcrackers,
(11:35):
your Swan Lakes, which are largerin scale, involve the full company,
require more marketing,
more company resources-womenhave historically received fewer
opportunities. And last season womenonly choreographed 24% of these full
length works among the largest 150.
And something that we've kind ofobserved in our data is that the largest
(11:57):
companies-so,
ranked by expenditure fromone to 50-they tend to
program lower percentages ofwomen-choreographed works compared
to the additional 50,
which is companies ranked 51 to a hundred,
and the additional 50,
which are companies ranked 101 to 150.
(12:20):
So these companies that are smallerin scale and often have less resources
are making greater effortsand greater advancements
towards gender equity and providing theseopportunities for women in the field.
That's so interesting. Isabelle,
in January you released your firstinternational study examining programming
(12:42):
outside the U.S. That's a huge milestone.
Yeah, it was a huge milestone.And Jenna and the research team,
it was a huge push for them,and us as an organization.
And I think the emphasis in that is thiswas our first examination of company
programming outside the U.S. We'renot new to the international space,
but we definitely have dipped our toesin and we're continuing to refine how we
(13:05):
look at international work.
The dance industry isinherently global. I mean,
artistic director searcheshappen across the globe.
Choreographers are commissionedacross country lines.
We even see dancers picking up andmoving to perform in an entirely new time
zone or on a new continent. I mean,
(13:27):
we can't talk about the UnitedStates solely without the context
of what's happening inthe world around us.
We just weren't at the scaleto do that yet. And now we are,
and we're learning how to do thatby starting to look at companies
that are primarily English speakingso that we don't have things lost in
translation.
(13:48):
And our recent report looked atthat global programming at English
speaking companies. There were33 well-known companies included,
ranging from regions includingAustralia, New Zealand,
Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, thePhilippines, the United Kingdom,
Singapore, and South Africa. So we'rereally taking a look everywhere.
(14:09):
Wow, that's very global.
Yeah, everywhere. And what wefound is really interesting.
Of the works commissionedin the 2023-2024 season
globally, with those companies in mind,
just 23.6% of them werechoreographed by women.
And now that we took a look globally,
(14:30):
we can look inward atthe United States status.
And to compare,
our largest 10 U.S. balletcompanies are respectively
similarly sized and of similar influencein the international industry to the
companies that were researchedduring this global report.
And of those largest 10 companies,
(14:52):
we saw just 14.9% of workschoreographed by women.
Now that's for the most recent datacollection we have for that population,
which is the 22-23 season. So theseason prior to our global report.
But we see a similar number when we lookat the largest 50 U.S. companies where
22.9% of works are choreographed by women.
(15:15):
So now that we have this breadth ofknowledge built up globally and we can
continue to produce theresearch at a global scale,
drawing the comparisons betweenhow we're doing on the state side
will be really interesting going forward.
I find that absolutely fascinating.
What percentage of leadershippositions are filled by women?
(15:37):
Yeah, so within the largest 150,
only 43% of artistic directors are women.
And this gender distribution unfortunatelyhasn't really changed much between
2018 and 2023. And again,
when you consider how many women are inthe field, this is significantly low.
We do tend to see women lead our smallercompanies rather than these larger
(15:59):
companies.
So this 43% is propped up by
companies ranked from 51 to 150 as only
about 24% of artistic directorswithin the largest 50 are women.
To look a little bit more globally,
we're still seeing more men come intothe role of artistic directors than
(16:23):
women, but there is some greatprogress among executive directors,
resident choreographers,
and associate artistic directors withmore women being appointed into these
roles. So we're seeing somepositive improvements there,
but nearly twice the amount of menbecoming artistic directors than
there are women.
(16:44):
And Dan,
I think it's important to note thatthis can almost be a position for life.
We're seeing an extraordinaryturnover in the industry.
Just the sheer number oftransitions in artistic
director positions is, Iwould say, unprecedented.
But it's not like we're goingto see a crop like this again,
which means the decisions being made noware going to have a generation's worth
(17:07):
of impact.
One of the interesting thingsyou said there was in the top 10,
that number seemed even lower.
Do you feel that the biggeran organization gets,
the slower they are to update,the slower they are to move?
(17:30):
Overall,
there's an inverse correlationbetween the size of a budget and the
likelihood that they'll programwomen, is what we're telling you.
Up until recently, they wereless likely to be run by a woman.
And I will say we are seeingsome really exciting changes.
When I started Dance Data Project,
[among] the largest 10 balletcompanies in the United States,
(17:52):
only one was run by a woman. Andtypical glass cliff situation,
it was Miami City Ballet, whichwas in real financial trouble.
There are now four. But toreiterate what Isabelle was saying,
across the board,
we see fewer works by womenand the company is less likely to be run by a woman
the larger it gets. One of the thingsthat we're researching right now is,
(18:15):
is there a relationship betweencompanies founded by women and as they
grow, the boards tend to bringin a man to signal success or
competency? "We want to hire arockstar." You hear that all the time.
In our conversations with consultants,with board members, et cetera,
we're really having to look at:
(18:36):
is there an assumption thatbeing a rockstar and being a draw
is equal both on the artistic directorand choreographer side with being male?
It's interesting what you said aboutwanting a rock star because I think that
often comes with a lotof preconceived biases.
I think a lot of the time menare allowed to be rock stars,
(19:00):
whereas women have moreemotional labor to have to
keep everything organizedand within the guidelines,
within the bumpers.
I think that's absolutelyfair and that is absolutely...
We see that in the data.
Because if you look at the executivedirector side-which is to keep the lights
on, keep the donors happy, keepthings running-first of all,
(19:23):
there's almost wage parity.
One of the few places you're going tosee men and women making almost exactly
the same amount of money.
And there's a lot more prevalence ofwomen because they're doing the high
touch involvement, they'redealing with unions, plumbers,
security, et cetera, and very oftendoing a brilliant job. But yeah,
(19:44):
being an executive director for the mostpart does not mean you're a rockstar.
Yeah.
When you have a study or apiece of data-some analysis that
can be seen as criticism-how dopeople generally react to that?
Yeah, I mean it's interestingbecause we're working in the arts,
(20:05):
which is so subjective.
It's weird to have thisobjective point of view now.
And I think that's been startling for alot of organizations that weren't used
to being under this microscope before.So it's kind of scary for some people.
We always approach our collaborationswith organizations and our research from a
positive way.
We want to celebrate and upliftorganizations that are doing their part
(20:29):
to elevate women in theindustry, to hire equitably.
We're never trying to strikefear into their hearts.
We want everyone to succeed. And Ithink there's been this transition,
and Liza and I speak about it allthe time, from kind of: who are you?
To (20:45):
Why do we care? Why are we talking about women in dance?
There are plenty of women in dance. To:
You have no right to this information.Meanwhile it's all publicly available,
and we know that and they know that,but there's some conflict there.
And then now, we're hearing,
"Please include us." And we get requestsall the time from organizations,
(21:06):
small and large, nationaland international,
that want to be a part of our research,
that want to be featured by us inour newsletter, on our website,
on our social media.
It's great to see nowreporters coming to us for the
statistics that can help elevate andcontextualize the work that they're doing.
And same with companies who arelooking to us to try and help better
(21:30):
their ecosystems.
We usually don't focus on individualcompanies. We're looking at trends.
So if we're citing individual companies,
it's because what our data showsis that they're an outlier.
I think people also, they want toknow when they're outliers as well.
It reminds me of thenudge group in the U.K.
(21:53):
I don't know if you'veever heard of this concept,
but there was a group put togetherwhich looked at data and basically
told people when they were outliers.So one of the studies they did,
there was the top 5% ofdoctors-so "GPs" in the
U.K.-who were prescribingthe most antibiotics.
They just sent a letter out tothem to tell them that, "Hey,
(22:14):
you are an outlier."And a lot of the time,
I think I'm going to messup the stats exactly here,
but a lot of the doctors who were in thattop 5% then dropped to the bottom 50%
just because they knew they were outliers.
So I think often when peopleunderstand that they're outliers,
they naturally adjust.
Yeah, I think to just add to that,
whether you're an outlier becauseyou are doing great work and you are
(22:38):
programming or hiring more womenthan the average company, or less,
then we can use this data tocollaboratively work together to
figure out what best practices are andhow we can just overall make the industry
better for everyone.
Yeah. I think earlier, Liza,
you mentioned profitability and how
(23:03):
that can be kind of a harmful assumption.
So many arts organizations are continuingto recover from financial effects of
the pandemic.
Have you noticed those revenue concernsstalling the movement towards equitable
programming?
I think [there's] embeddedunconscious bias here. Very often,
the assumption-we just ran into thiswith a dance writer and I wanted to reach
(23:25):
through the screen and grabhim because he said, "Well,
companies can only afford so much equity,"essentially if you boil down what he
said. And I was like, huh?Because that assumption is,
if you hire a woman or aperson of color for your full
length world premiere,nobody will show up.
And that's absolutely not the case.
(23:47):
I would like to see the data on thatbecause I don't think it exists.
I think that the reason there'shalf as many people going to ballet
performances now versus 20,
25 years ago is that we do need newstories and we do need new ways to
tell them. So the answeris: Excellent question. Yes,
there is that embedded assumption,
(24:08):
and if people don'tfigure something out soon,
we're going to be seeing Nutcrackerending in July and starting again in
October. I mean, the sector has gotto come up with something interesting.
I think you can get newpeople in the seats,
[but] there has to besome creativity there.
And I understand that budgets aresmall, but we need to try new things.
(24:29):
We really do.
We were in a conversation with theArtistic Director at Hubbard Street,
Linda-Denise Fisher-Harrell,who's fantastic,
and she was just talking about all thenew types of people who were coming to
Hubbard Street's performances.
And it's because they've been creativeand they've brought in new voices.
And I think to sustainthis industry long-term,
that's exactly what we need to bedoing and we need to figure it out now.
(24:52):
I think that's such agood point, Isabelle.
And I think it also pointsto how it is so important
for the artistic side and themarketing side to just talk more,
just have more conversations, belinked more. Because as marketers,
the more we can honestlyrepresent what is on stage,
the better connection we'll have withour audience and the more people we're
(25:13):
going to bring in as well.
Exactly. How can we keepinforming our audiences?
How can we keep them excited and helpthem learn more and want to come to the
show?
Let's talk about what happensafter people interact with the data
(25:35):
that you've provided. After an artistor leader reads one of your reports,
how do you encourage them tofollow up with the next steps?
So to speak to the data side of things:
I think referring to the reports andthe data that we are presenting and then
using that as a comparison towhat the organization is doing
internally in terms of hiring,
(25:56):
just to compare and reflect onwhere things could be better,
where improvements can be made,where things may be lacking,
or just identifying whereroom for improvement is.
I think it's such valuable information.I know on the consultant side,
one of the biggest questions is,
"How are we doing in comparison withother people?" It's such a useful thing to
know.
(26:16):
I also go on listening tours.
I'll let Isabelle talk a littlebit more about our listening tours,
but I think we've beento almost 30 companies.
Yeah.
Something that's hard to get a sense ofwhen you're just looking at the numbers
is sort of the culture at a company.
And Liza's been going to visitto meet with artistic staff,
hear from the dancers,
and just sort of be an open earto hear about their experiences,
(26:40):
learn more about what's happeningbehind the scenes at the organizations,
and then when her face is putwith the work that we're doing,
and she can have these one-on-oneconversations with artistic staff,
there's so much room forcreativity and collaboration,
and honestly just thesourcing of new names.
Why do we keep-even though somecompanies are doing great and are
(27:01):
commissioning female choreographers,sometimes they're the same ones!
We keep seeing the same ones.
And there are a plethora oftalented women who are flooding this
industry that is, I think Jenna said,
a 75 to 85% female-identifyingworkforce population.
And so many are interestedin choreography.
There is so much creativity that we canbe using to try and get more women in
(27:24):
the door and on the stage sothat audience members who are 70%
female-identifying can seethemselves represented.
So Isabelle, here at CI, we lovedata. The more stats the better.
But some people prefer to processinformation through anecdotes and stories.
Do you have any resources that can helptell this story in a more emotional way?
(27:45):
Yeah, this is what I spend alarge portion of my day doing,
so thank you for asking.
And it's funny because DDP existedto kind of shift us from anecdote to
hard numbers, and now we also,
we love a story and we love hearing fromthese actual people because when you
put a face behind the workand behind the statistic,
it's a lot harder to dehumanize that. Sowe're trying to make these connections.
(28:10):
And we have so manyresources on our website.
Raising the Barre is our biggestprogramming initiative to accomplish this.
It launched last fall.
We've also had interviews andvery candid conversations with
mothers in the industry withour Moving Forces series.
Our DDP Talks To interviewseries really spans
(28:32):
written and verbal interviews.
And our Global Conversation series wastruly groundbreaking because it happened
during the pandemic, and because wedid 50 interviews in about 14 months,
I want to say. And we talkedwith people all over the world.
They were lighting designers, they werein production, they were stage managers.
We talked to a fight coordinator,
(28:55):
and it was basically just to kind of hearwhat else can we do in this industry?
We're so used to knowingas dancers that our career
maybe ends in our thirties if we'relucky, maybe our forties, and we retire.
And then you either teach or you goback to school and do something else.
There are so many other creative avenuesfor staying in the industry that we
(29:18):
love,
and we see a disparityin who is pursuing those
opportunities.
And so just kind of putting them on aplatter for people is how we like to
structure our interview series and reallyconnect audiences to those stories.
Amazing.
And can you tell us a little bit moreabout the leaderboard you created?
(29:38):
Sure. So Dan, we're very practicalat DDP. We're not just numbers.
It's see a problem, solve a problem. Iwas dealing with the perception that,
quote,
"there are no good femalechoreographers." Or in looking for new
leaders, "Oh, I don't know anywomen." And the answer is, "Well,
here you go. Set, costume,
(29:59):
lighting designers." But theidea is if somebody wants to take
that extra step, whichI sure hope they do,
and look for a female set,costume, lighting designer,
back of house people, et cetera,there's a listing of names.
And Isabelle will correct me, butwe're moving towards 900 at this point.
Yeah, I actually will correct you becausewe're moving towards a thousand now.
(30:22):
We have 979 entries and it's been steadily
growing.
And it's just funny becausethe excuse that we don't
know women who we couldhire for this position,
don't know of other femalechoreographers than this list of 10,
is funny because we have the proofand it's really easy to navigate.
(30:43):
You can search by position,you can search by company,
you can search by first or last name,
you can download it as aCSV or an Excel or PDF.
So it's really interactiveand very useful day to day.
I love that it's 'see a problem, solvea problem' but also 'see an excuse,
debunk an excuse' as well.
(31:05):
So conversations about gender equitystretch far beyond the dance world,
obviously. For listeners whowork at museums, theaters,
presenting organizations,
what's one thing they can do today topush for gender equity at their own arts
organizations?
Yeah,
I think this is why ourdata is so useful to track
(31:27):
change across theindustry. But then again,
individually reflecting and usingthat data to compare how you
measure up against other organizationsor measure it up against the average and
how can we use that data to push theaverage in a more favorable direction.
Absolutely.
And information is power. I'mjust going to come back to that.
(31:51):
The more you know, themore you can advocate.
Change is iterative and themore informed it is, the better.
I think learning to read a taxreturn, as boring as it sounds,
there's a wealth of information in there.
And I would also say that allyshipwith other organizations is
super, super important.
(32:11):
The other thing I would say isthat if you are a donor... I mean,
for $50 you may not geta seat at the table,
although there's no reason why a largegroup of $50 donors couldn't get together
to create change. I starteda hashtag #AskBeforeYouGive.
The minute before you turn over the checkis the minute of your greatest power.
(32:32):
On the other side, onthe organization side,
a friend of mine in the business who Irespect a lot, she said, and I quote,
"Performing arts philanthropy hasnot changed much in the last 40
years." And I think that's whywe're all in quite a bit of trouble.
So let's look for opportunities. Forexample, fund a daycare initiative.
(32:56):
Or if you have the means to builda building, which most of us don't,
instead maybe think aboutfunding opportunities within a
community.
Support the leaders ofcolor and support the women.
Find out what they need. Maybe they needdaycare supplement, maybe they need...
(33:16):
There's a lot of ways tointervene, but it takes creativity.
And I also think it takes perseverance.
We always end our interviews withthis question, the CI to Eye moment.
If you could broadcast one message to theexecutive directors, leadership teams,
staff and boards of a thousand artsorganizations, what would that message be?
(33:40):
I'd say let's look beyond whatwe've always done. I mean,
we know that we need to break down someof these traditions that aren't serving
us anymore, especiallyin the ballet industry.
If you have the same listof choreographers you always pull from for a mixed rep
show, let's shake it up and let's takea chance because we're in the arts,
(34:01):
we're trying to make change. This isexactly where change should start,
but we're lagging behind.So use some creativity.
I really would say engage withyour marketing department,
engage with your community.
Engagement is so importantand education is how you
create an audience thatwants to come back.
(34:21):
They're not just going to come for aone-off show because you say that this
world renowned choreographeris coming in from Europe.
What about this process, what aboutthis new work, is revolutionary?
And why should it matter to them?That's how you get people in the door,
and that's how you get them to stay.
And I don't think we can continue to usethe excuse that it's too risky to take
(34:43):
some of these chances because Idon't think we've tried enough yet.
On the other hand,
I love to think about what we asindividuals in the audience can do,
because I don't have the money to bedonating to a major ballet company,
but I'm buying tickets. I love dance,so where am I buying a ticket to?
Because the company's going tolook and see what sold out and what
(35:07):
didn't. And if you keep buyingtickets to see Swan Lake...
I know it's beautiful. I love SwanLake. I was in Swan Lake. It's great.
But can we also purchase tickets tosupport a new up-and-coming choreographer
and her journey? That's really somethingthat's tangible on our own level,
and it matters.
I think let's look within andfigure out what we can do on just a
(35:31):
performance level as audience members.
Awesome. I love that.
I think just allowing numbers,
using numbers and this data tobest benefit your community,
your organization, the whole industry.
How can we make it a more equitablespace? We love to say that as artists,
(35:51):
that we're change makers and that we wantto change the world and make a better
place,
but if we don't use this data andactually follow through on our
practices, are we really able to say that?
So I think just practicingwhat we preach and embodying
that and taking that upon ourselves.
Amazing.
(36:12):
And I'll go last. I'm goingto put on a different hat,
which is my donor hatsitting in board meetings.
It is a reality that developmentdirectors sit in on programming meetings,
and they can very often havean overweighted influence.
Their job is to curate a small group of
(36:33):
older, usually more conservative donors,
and make sure they come through withbig gifts. And I've seen it happen,
and that really alters programming.
And that's across the board. It's "Oh,
I can't sell that" or "I don't know howMrs. So-and-so is going to feel about
that." That really to meis a dereliction of duty,
(36:55):
and that is an asymmetric use ofpower that I think most people
outside of performing artsorganizations or museums,
et cetera-"I can't sell." Thatbecomes the mantra. "I can sell this.
I can't sell that." And theassumption is if it's a piece
done, made, curated, whatever,
(37:15):
by a rock star filmmaker, choreographer,
usually white and male, "Oh,
I can sell that."And I see that insidious tilting.
Any not-for-profit existsto benefit the community.
So we are answerable to our constituents,
who are our taxpayers, or morespecifically the communities around us.
(37:38):
And I think we really do need areorientation of thought that way.
Nobody has to go to a performance anymore.
There are so many more outlets outthere that the competition is much
fiercer, and instead ofdoubling down on retrograde,
I think to Isabelle's point,
opening yourself up anddoing the tough work of
(37:59):
introducing yourself to audiencesand people you didn't know before,
which is uncomfortable, but I thinkthat's where the obligation is.
Amazing. What great points toend on. Liza, Isabelle, Jenna,
I've really enjoyed this conversation,
so thank you so much for takingthe time and joining with us.
Thank you so much, Dan.
(38:26):
Thank you for listening to CI to Eye.
This episode was edited and produced byKaren McConarty and co-written by Karen
McConarty and myself, Dan Titmuss.
Stephanie Medina and Jess Berube are CIto Eye's designers and video editors,
and all work together tocreate CI's digital content.
Our music is by whoisuzo. Ifyou enjoyed today's episode,
(38:47):
please take a moment torate us or leave a review.
A nice comment goes a long way in helpingother people discover CI to Eye and
hear from experts in the arts and beyond.If you didn't enjoy today's episode,
pass it on to all of your enemies.Don't forget to follow us on Facebook,
Instagram, LinkedIn, andYouTube for regular content to help you market smarter.
(39:08):
You can also sign up for our newsletterat capacity interactive dot com so you
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please click the subscribe buttonwherever you get your podcasts.
Until next time, stay nerdy.
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