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July 7, 2010

Executive Director of Ballet Hispanico Steps Down
July 1, 2010

After 31 years as Executive Director of Ballet Hispanico, Verdery Roosevelt has decided to step down this week as the company closes its 2010 fiscal year. A transitional period has been carefully planned during which Eduardo Vilaro, Ballet Hispanico’s Artistic Director, will take on the additional responsibilities of the administration of the organization.

Roosevelt joined the staff of Ballet Hispanico in 1978, and became Executive Director a year later. In partnership with Founder Tina Ramirez, she was responsible for the growth of the nation's preeminent Hispanic dance company and school from a community-based organization into a nationally recognized cultural institution.

During her tenure with Ballet Hispanico, she oversaw the production of more than 50 new works for the company’s repertory, working with internationally renowned choreographers and designers to realize Ramirez’s vision. Under her direction, scholarship support for the Ballet Hispanico School of Dance grew to over $150,000 annually, while Ballet Hispanico’s Education and Outreach programs expanded to serve 15,000 students on average around the country each year. In addition, she oversaw the purchase and dramatic expansion of Ballet Hispanico's headquarters on Manhattan's Upper West Side, as well as the establishment of working capital and endowment funds.

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Shubert renamed to honor John and Sage Cowles
June 29, 2010

The Minnesota Shubert Center for Performing Arts recently announced that it is changing its name to the Cowles Center for Dance and Performing Arts, in recognition of John and Sage Cowles’ lifelong commitment to the arts and their reputation for being passionate champions of dance. The change is effective immediately.

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Doug Varone and Dancers Welcomes New Executive Director Thomas Ward
June 28, 2010

Doug Varone and the Board of Directors of Doug Varone and Dancers (DOVA, Inc.) are pleased to announce the appointment of Thomas Ward as Executive Director. Mr. Ward will permanently assume the position after Interim Executive Director Sarahbeth Grossman departs in July.

Mr. Ward joins Doug Varone and Dancers as Executive Director following a 20 year career working with dance, theater and music artists, nonprofit organizations and philanthropies in roles that have ranged from marketing strategy and business development to program management to fund raising and board development. Early on, in his home town of Cleveland, Ohio, he worked in junior positions at organizations including The Cleveland Play House, Great Lakes Theater Festival, Cain Park Theater, and in the programming department of Playhouse Square Center. From 1998 to 2003, he served as Executive Director of Dance Cleveland, and subsequently relocated to New York, where he continued his career in the arts, serving as agent and company manager for the Paul Taylor Dance Foundation from 2004-2008, and as Director of Development and Marketing for Lar Lubovitch Dance Company from 2008-2010. He has also managed special projects for independent artists including Mikhail Baryshnikov, Diamanda Galas and others. Mr. Ward was a 2002 Fellow at Stanford University Graduate School of Business’s Center for Social Innovation, and took part in the program’s Executive Program for Nonprofit Leaders in the Arts. In 2009, he earned his MBA in finance from New York University’s Stern School of Business.

He will officially assume his position with Doug Varone and Dancers on July 5, 2010.

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The New Ballet Ensemble and School benefits from Al Roker's 'Lend a Hand Today' tour
by Barbara Bradley
June 24, 2010
The Commercial Appeal

"I don't even know where to put all the stuff," Katie Smythe said Thursday morning, as crews unloaded two truckloads of goods brought by NBC's "Today" weather anchor Al Roker to The New Ballet Ensemble and School in Midtown.

The charity, featured as a recipient of "Lend a Hand Today" charity tour on Roker's segments of the "Today" show, learned it would receive part of $817,883 worth of donations in goods, services and cash to be split with Hands On Nashville, a charity added to the tour after the city was hit by floods. New Ballet's donations included a Chevy van and a Silverado pickup and trailer to help haul a new state-of-the-art portable studio.

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Making the leap: NCDT moves into new home
by Steven Brown
June 11, 2010
Charlotte Observer

Only a few years ago, N.C. Dance Theatre was based in a dingy one-story building backed up to I-277. During rain showers, buckets collected the water dripping through the ceiling. After years of fundraising and planning, the company went to work this week in its new home on North Tryon Street, which it shows off with an open house Saturday. The dancers and NCDT’s school have six studios at their disposal – and a sturdy roof over their heads.

When NCDT hired two former standouts from the New York City Ballet to move south and direct the company, its leaders promised to build the company a home of its own. Fourteen years later, they’re making good on their word. As a tribute to the duo’s artistry – and patience – the building is named for them: the Patricia McBride and Jean-Pierre Bonnefoux Center for Dance.

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Martha Clarke receives Scripps/ADF award
by Daniel J Wakin
June 23, 2010
The New York Times

Martha Clarke has won what is described as the largest yearly prize given to a modern dance choreographer, the $50,000 Scripps/ADF award, the American Dance Festival said Wednesday. Ms. Clarke, 66, is also a director, known for weaving together music, dance, visual art and texts. The festival on July 5 is presenting the premiere of her work “Angel Reapers,” which is based on the life of Ann Lee, the founder of the Shaker movement.

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NEA Announces New Report on How Americans Use Electronic Media to Participate in the Arts
June 25, 2010

When compared with non-media participants, Americans who participate in the arts through technology and electronic media -- using the Internet, television, radio, computers, and handheld devices -- are nearly three times more likely to attend live arts events; attend twice as many live arts events; and attend a greater variety of genres of live arts events, according to a report released by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Audience 2.0: How Technology Influences Arts Participation looks at who is participating in the arts through electronic media, what factors affect their participation, and the relationship between media-based arts activities, live attendance, and personal arts creation. The findings in Audience 2.0 are intended to help arts organizations better understand their audiences’ uses of technology and electronic media.

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Conversation: The State of Ballet in America
June 24, 2010
PBS NewsHour

Ballet in America was once dominated by a few major companies and concentrated in New York and a handful of other cities. But today there are more than 65 professional, million-dollar-budget ballet companies all around the country.

Nine of these companies came together for a series of performances titled 'Ballet Across America' at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

Jeffry Brown of PBS spoke to three of the companies' artistic directors about the state of ballet in America: Dorothy Gunther Pugh, founder and artistic director of Ballet Memphis; Ashley Wheater, former ballet master of San Francisco Ballet and current director of Chicago's Joffrey Ballet; and Ib Andersen, artistic director of Ballet Arizona and member of the George Balanchine Trust, the organization responsible for preserving and licensing the late choreographer's work.

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NEFA Receives $3.3 Million for National Dance Project
June 3, 2010

Rebecca Blunk, executive director of the New England Foundation for the Arts, announced that NEFA has received a new two-year $3.3 million grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation for the National Dance Project. Since 1998, DDCF has provided more than $21million in funding for NDP.

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Dancing Through Tough Times
by Valerie Gladstone
June 26, 2010
theRoot.com

The Great Recession has hit us all hard. Dance is no exception. From Alvin Ailey to Dance Theatre of Harlem to Bill T. Jones, a look at how America's best black dance companies are faring in a tough economy.

You can find thrilling black dance companies in every part of the country, a fantastic improvement over the situation 50 years ago when dancers of color could hardly find a professional troupe to join. The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and the Dance Theatre of Harlem started the revolution: The first was the triumph of choreographer Alvin Ailey in 1958, and the second was the hard-earned achievement of former New York City Ballet dancer Arthur Mitchell in 1969. But fate has not treated them equally. The Ailey company ranks as one of the most popular dance troupes in the world, with a touring schedule that matches that of any pop star. The Dance Theatre of Harlem, on the other hand, nearly went out of business in 2004, a victim of substantial debts and poor management. Its once-sparkling troupe disbanded, and its stellar school, as significant as a community center and as a ballet academy, almost closed. The main company has been sorely missed.

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In New York, Arts Trump Social Causes for Philanthropic Recognition
by Miriam Kreinin Souccar
June 27, 2010
Crain's New York

People who regularly read New York's daily newspapers are likely to know that oil and gas billionaire David Koch donated a whopping $100 million a few years back to renovate the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center. And many have heard that Wall Street financier Stephen Schwarzman ponied up $100 million for the New York Public Library, which is renaming its Fifth Avenue flagship after him as a thank-you.

But when New York investment managers Fiona and Stanley Druckenmiller last year gave $100 million to NYU Langone Medical Center to establish a neuroscience unit, the donation failed to make headlines. And when the couple, who donate generously to organizations that fight poverty and cancer, turned up as the No. 1 giver of 2009 on The Chronicle of Philanthropy's annual list, many in the city's nonprofit world wondered, “Who?”

A source close to the Druckenmillers says the couple is “traditionally very quiet about their giving.” Yet there's another reason why they stay under the philanthropic radar: They don't give to the arts.

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