Opening Reception

The Houston Host Committee for the Opening Reception at the George R. Brown Convention Center. 

The Opening Reception was sponsored by the City of Houston’s Convention & Entertainment Facilities Department which manages the George R. Brown Convention Center, the Wortham Theater Center and Jesse H. Jones Hall.

Opening Plenary Session

Finding the Future: Creative Sustainability in Uncertain Times
The economy has hobbled the budgets, if not the thinking, of many in the nonprofit sector. But there are ways that dance companies, long practiced in the realm of economic insecurity, can re-assess resources to make it through an economic crisis.   While no one has a magic wand of certainty, our guest economist will reveal the findings of a current study of the importance and geography of creative industries and occupations, and aspects of local culture, habits and consumption that can be a springboard for innovation and a more sustainable future.  In addition to the economist's point of view, three seasoned colleagues of the dance field - a contemporary choreographer, a ballet company manager and a dance presenter will offer their perspectives about finding the future of creative sustainability in uncertain times.
Presenters: Joe Cortright, Margaret Jenkins, Charles Santos, Rachel Moore
Moderator: Alicia Anstead
Location: Hyatt Regency Houston, 1200 Louisiana St.
Available to read from this plenary session:
Margaret Jenkins's speech "Keeping On Keeping On"

 Dance/USA is grateful to TRG Arts for sponsoring the Opening Plenary

Break-out sessions (+ concurrent SmART Bar)
Location: Hyatt Regency Houston, 1200 Louisiana St.

A) Let's Talk about Diversity: Today's Realities, Tomorrow's Possibilities
By the year 2050, there will be no majority population in the United States, yet today 80% of dance administration and 80% of dance audiences are Caucasian/White. What can we do today to ensure long-term sustainability for the dance community? This session will reveal statistics from a recent dance study, and begin a discussion on how we individually and organizationally perceive diversity, inclusion and culture. Inspired by NPAC's priority strategy of diversity, this session will open minds and provide ideas for next steps.
Presenters: Michelle Burkhart, Ebonie C. Pittman, Diana Hossack
Download PDF documents from this break-out session:
1)  Let's Talk about Diversity: Today's Realities, Tomorrow's Possibilities
2)  Recruitment, Retention, and Development of People of Color in Middle and Senior Level Management Positions and New York City-Based Dance Companies
3)  Why is Cultural Competence Work Important?

B) Dance is Part of the Solution – New Ideas for Effective Dance Advocacy
This session is inspired by dance company administrators who worked on the Obama campaign, and who helped lawmakers shift from seeing the arts as “pork spending” to seeing the arts as job generators, ultimately leading to the restoration of NEA funding in the stimulus bill. Expect to leave the session feeling re-energized and empowered to take action creatively and collaboratively in support of the arts and dance.  We’ll strategize on how to borrow from President Obama’s most effective campaign tactics, hear advocacy stories that will get your creative juices flowing, and brainstorm ideas for taking grassroots action in your own communities – locally, regionally and nationally.
Presenters: Matthew Keefe, Jen Abrams, Peter DiMuro, Amy Fitterer

C) Development in Today’s World
This is your opportunity to learn more about what’s REALLY going on in philanthropy.  We will discuss the latest findings from Dance/USA’s Rough Waters survey, and hear about the current status of funding for state arts agencies and trends in individual, corporate, and foundation giving.  There will be plenty of time to discuss strategies for surviving the recession and insuring your organization’s long-term sustainability.
Presenters:  Jim Hackney, Angela Han, John Munger
Download PDF documents from this break-out session:
1) Public Funding for the Arts by NASAA
2) US Dance Company Trends by Dance/USA
3) Results of the Dance/USA Rough Waters Survey 2

D) Think Like an EcoSystem – New Opportunities for Survival 
One definition of insanity is doing the same thing but expecting different results! This session explores a fundamentally different approach to collaborating with other disciplines about topics that affect us all. Learn how dance companies can attract more funding, audiences, and media coverage by working “eco-systemically” with science, sustainablist, and other organizations about climate change and sustainable living. Leading scientist James White will dispel myths and clarify facts about climate change, plus we’ll offer successful dance/science case studies,  how-to’s, and hands-on opportunities so you can imagine a successful eco-systemic project in your own town. Learn how to reposition the arts and your organization for greater financial stability, maintain artistic excellence, and (no kidding) even help human kind. The session will include a hand-out with websites, bibliography, funders, and for the first 25 people, a DVD.
Presenters: Marda Kirn, Sixto Wagan, James White (on video)

E) Less Overhead, Better Marketing: The Changing Nature of Arts Administration
Who pays no rent or mortgage during these times of cutbacks?  Who has doubled their email distribution list in six months?   This session will highlight how some performing arts organizations save thousands of dollars by using Facebook, Twitter, online social networks and other emerging technologies to foster dance education, audience engagement, and infrastructural efficiency. You’ll be surprised at the huge tangible results accomplished with tiny budgets.  Given today’s economic climate, learning from these successes is imperative. Troubled economic times require reconsidering how good art is marketed, and necessitates a re-conception of how arts organizations function. Cutting costs to survive while increasing the effectiveness of marketing and infrastructure:  it’s about spending less but getting more.
Presenter: Sydney Skybetter

Daily Dialogue: A participant-based discussion to augment and collaboratively explore the day’s objective and questions.
Moderator: Alicia Anstead 
Location: Hyatt Regency Houston, 1200 Louisiana St.

Evening Reception and Honors Celebration at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston

Dance/USA is deeply grateful to DeWitt Stern Group for their support throughout the year and their generous sponsorship of the 2009 Honors Celebration.

Dance/USA and the Houston Host Committee thank the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston for their generous contribution of the venue for the Honors Celebration.

Plenary Session

Fair Use and Piracy: How they each support a sustainable dance field
The issue of copyright and fair use will be central to whether dance companies can maintain (let alone increase) their concert-going audience in the next decade.  We need to be sure that we understand the benefits of copyright alongside detrimental effects of absolute copyright enforcement when technology and information-delivery are radically changing the way the public expects to enjoy culture. In this session, we’ll examine the legal and illegal aspects of copyright by discussing piracy and fair use. We’ll study real-life scenarios in which structures like libraries and YouTube influence society’s behavior, social norms and add value to artistic works.  The learning objective of the session is to review and debate the question: “How can we collaborate to ensure that copyright structures strengthen the whole dance field?”
Presenters: Matt Mason and Peter Jaszi
Moderator: Lois Welk
Location: Hyatt Regency Houston, 1200 Louisiana St.

Break-out sessions (+ concurrent SmART Bar)

A) Engaging Dance Audiences:  Current Practices and Future Possibilities
In a peer learning community format, hear recent findings and new thinking about engaging  dance audiences—or going beyond selling tickets to building lasting and meaningful relationships with those who support your work.  Share your own ideas and learn from others about engagement practices that will build and sustain audiences.
Presenters: Alan Brown, Jennifer Novak, Suzanne Callahan
Download PDF documents from this break-out session:
1) Audience Engagement WolfBrown Presentation
2) EDA Ideas Presentation by Suzanne Callahan

B) Patron Retention: Foundation for 21st Century Audience Growth
Is “finding more new patrons” central to your marketing plan?  If so, think again.  National patron behavior research shows that organizations are already doing a great job of acquiring new audiences.  However, patron attrition – also called “churn” – is the source of stagnation and, too often, audience decline.  In this session, learn how investments in patron retention campaigns can work for you, just as these efforts have at the Houston Ballet, a churn-busting pioneer in the arts industry.  Find opportunities for your own campaigns when the team that taught Houston Ballet teaches you about patron retention.
Presenter: Joanne Steller 

C) Financial Scenario Planning for an Uncertain Future
This is an interactive working session for Executive Directors, Board Members and Financial Staff interested in learning more about coping with declining funding and who want to develop 2-3 scenarios for the future.  Participants will engage in some “fast forward” planning which will enable them to practice using the scenario planning process.
Presenter: Emil W. Angelica
Download PDF documents from this break-out session:
1)  Financial Scenario Planning for an Uncertain Future
2)  Organization Life Stages

D) Copyright and Fair Use: Next Steps – Engaging Future Audiences by Creating Strategic Partnerships for Sustainability
Find out how institutional structures can serve and support your company’s mission through their cultural and educational services, with no cost to you.  Facilitators in law, libraries/archives, and higher education professionals will guide a discussion based on feedback questions and comments from the morning plenary on copyright and fair use. We will engage in problem-solving, about how to involve the under-utilized institutions of libraries, museums, archives, and educational/cultural organizations to create new models of outreach, programming, and services to the public that will apply fair use in a manner respectful to the artists and others who are stakeholders in creative content.  Questions may include: 

• What sort of people might encounter dance through libraries, museum exhibits, online library websites, academic classroom teaching, etc. that your dance company hasn’t been able to reach through its advertising and outreach?
• Are there strategies that libraries/museums can use that copyright may prevent your company from using? (Hint: the answer is yes, and we’re prepared to explain a few) 
• Are libraries or colleges seen as “neutral” purveyors of culture, and if so, why? 
• From a practical standpoint, what does a library or college need from a dance company and what does the company need from the library or teacher for the collaboration to be beneficial to all? 
• What fears about copyright or what misinformation about copyright has prevented you from exploring partnerships with outside cultural / educational institutions?

Presenters: Peter Jaszi, Jan Schmidt, Libby Smigel

E) Making Healthier Dancers with the Taskforce Screen
A hands-on workshop focusing on the assessments in the Health Screen created by the Dance/USA Taskforce on Dancer Health. With over 25 companies now using the Screen, we’ll go over each test in the Screen, discussing their benefit while reviewing how to perform each. Everyone interested in dancer welfare and a healthier season is welcome. It’ll be fun!
Presenters: Mickey Cassella and members of the Taskforce on Dancer Health

Dance/USA thanks The Methodist Hospital Center for Performing Arts Medicine (CPAM) for their generous support of this session.

F) Daily Dialogue: A participant-based discussion to augment and collaboratively explore the day’s objective and questions. 
Moderator: Alicia Anstead

Turnaround: Personal and Organizational Change
Focus and strategy are evermore required to meet the demands of these challenging times, and our personal and professional lives seem more complex than ever. In this session, an expert executive coach and an important leader of the performing arts field share their approaches to change and decision-making that profoundly affects the quality of our work, our institutions, and our personal experience.
Presenters: Marc A. Scorca and Betty Henderson Wingfield
Location: Hyatt Regency Houston, 1200 Louisiana St.

"The Power of Movement", a dance showcase at the Cullen Theater, Wortham Theater Center.

Dance/USA is grateful to Houston Arts Alliance for their generous sponsorship of "The Power of Movement."

                       
Dance/USA also thanks the Houston Downtown Alliance and the Greater Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau for their support of "The Power of Movement."

Plenary Session

A Sustainable Future: Cultivating the dance-literate population we all dream of
There is no doubt that a sustainable future for the dance field includes a population of patrons that is more aware of and literate about dance.  Pointing the finger at teachers, or outreach programs doesn’t get us a critical mass.  We are all responsible for this work, no matter what our role in this field.  Our attention must focus on every aspect of patron cultivation from including dance in the core curriculum of K- 12 primary schools to expanding the role and responsibility of dance teachers from dance companies and universities, all the way to continuing education of patrons done by presenters, advocates, dancers and you.  Hearing from a few of these many aspects, we’ll be better equipped to plan what can be done at the field level, the organizational level and the individual level to effect positive change.
Presenters: Alistair Spalding, Joan Finkelstein, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar
Moderator:  Anne Dunning
Location: Hyatt Regency Houston, 1200 Louisiana St.
Dance/USA is grateful to the British Council for its generous support of this Plenary Session.

Break-out sessions (+ concurrent SmART Bar)

A) Financial Strategies for an Uncertain Future
This is an interactive working session for Executive Directors, Board Members and Financial Staff interested in making major changes in how they will operate in the future.  Participants will engage in some “fast forward” strategy planning which will enable them to decide which strategies make sense for them.
Presenter: Emil W. Angelica
Download a PDF document from this break-out session:
Financial Strategies for an Uncertain Future

B) Building an Organizational Culture of Philanthropy… Going from Good results to Great
This is not Fundraising 101… this is a session intended to align the needs of organizations with successful thinking in regard to the discipline of fundraising and its importance in achieving our missions. For example, we’ll discuss questions such as: What are the characteristics of nonprofit organizations that regularly meet or surpass their philanthropic goals? What are the best practices of those whose development enterprises are stamped with excellence?  Organizations with a track record of success in fundraising often share many similar characteristics and practices.  We will be looking to identify, through an open dialogue, those specific to dance in America.
Presenter: Cookie Ruiz and Nora Linares-Moeller

C) The new Form 990 – How to prepare for it and how to file it
The IRS has redesigned the Form 990 that not-for profit dance organizations must complete for fiscal years beginning on or after January 1, 2008.  The new Form has been exponentially expanded with increased reporting for governance, compensation, and non-cash contributions, as well as many other areas.  It is crucial that you understand the changes so that you may complete the Form correctly and with a view to its public availability. This session will aim to give an overview of the new Form with a focus on areas of specific concern to the dance field and an extended question-and-answer period. Please be sure to bring your copy of the Form and related schedules as limited copies will be available on-site. Download a copy of an outline covering the essential changes to the Form and Schedules here.   
Presenter: Amanda Adams 

D) Articulate your Success: Outcome Measurement for Dance Companies
Articulating the results and successes for your dance organization may be the difference between achieving your mission-based outcomes and simply having a lofty vision. Effective measurement is a critical component of building a healthy and stable organization, especially in our current economic environment.  This session will work to increase comfort with various tools, through relevant examples that will help dance companies to thrive.
Presenter: Debra Natenshon

E) Sustaining Your Presence: Marketing and PR Tactics for Today’s Economy
Maintaining relationships with your constituents during this time of economic uncertainty can be challenging, but those connections are vital to your sustainability.  In this interactive session you will discover best practices and new marketing and public relations tactics to reach out to the public and the media in today’s economy.
Presenter: Steven Libman and Chris Lavin 

F) Let's Talk About "The Power of Movement": A workshop on critical thinking and writing about dance.
With the proliferation of blogs, Twitter and other formats for writing about dance, everybody is a critic. But the power of the pen (or keypad) is only as powerful as the critical insight the writer brings to the conversation. This workshop will use the previous night's performance showcase "The Power of Movement" to explore the "power of words" in engaging audiences through media.
Moderator: Alicia Anstead

Daily Dialogue: A participant-based discussion to augment and collaboratively explore the day’s objective and questions. 
Moderator: Alicia Anstead
Location: Hyatt Regency Houston, 1200 Louisiana St.