Pro Company Hiring Practices

[cheetah]

Colorado Ballet

 

Principals - 3of 5 foreign-born and trained

Soloists - 3 of 5 foreign-born and trained

Corps - 8 of 18 foreign-born and trained

 

14 of 28 positions = 50%

 

One corps member trained at Colorado; one came up through Studio Company; one principal trained at Colorado but went elsewhere (actually overseas!) before coming back as a principal.

 

Richmond Ballet

 

18 company members - only 3 are foreign-born and trained (17%)

 

At least four came up through Richmond School of Ballet, though several more indicate joining training at the trainee level at the school (which may be required, or so I've been told) followed by apprentice years.

[Treefrog]

Perhaps you should have split off the thread. Changing my original post changes the flavor of the post I made.

 

I empathize with dressage's feelings here. This has happened to me before, and it does feel upsetting. Would it be possible to leave the original discussion on one thread, move all the research to another, and maybe end the original thread with a link to the second one?

[Momof3darlings]

Did something happen to the Contact us link today or something? Or the pm's to moderators not working? Since they are working, those with board complaints or suggestions can use them easily.

 

I personally am seeing a great connection to the information being deciphered here and the original question. Mainly that what has been heard may very well not be the truth. I'm only seeing a few companies where I can evenly closely constitute generalized statements like "most" dancers coming from other countries. In fact, quite the contrary is what I'm seeing so far. It's the danger of generalizations.

[Mel Johnson]

BalletMet Columbus (OH)

 

28 dancers, 6 trainees, no data available on trainees.

 

unranked company

 

24 dancers born US(86%)

 

4 dancers born elsewhere(14%)

 

Naturalization may have significantly changed the figures as to citizenship, but that's where they were born.

[cheetah]

Texas Ballet Theater

 

28 company dancers - only 5 are foreign-born, with one or two of those actually trained in the states during the final few years (Harid or Houston)

 

Of those 28, 18 claim training at Houston Ballet's Ben Stevenson's Academy, at least for a year, often two.

 

Of the remaining, 4 or 5 have bios that claim work at Houston Ballet, presumable in the company.

 

Only 1 claims training through TBT.

 

They also have 3 apprentices. One trained with TBT for a little while. Two claim at least some training through Houston. None of these trained overseas.

 

It's almost like Houston is their own feeder school! Very interesting statistics, though!

[its the mom]

I find this very helpful. I am hoping everyone else is, too.

[Mel Johnson]

Are we seeing a trend here? Do the numbers speak about the cosmopolitan nature of employment in the field of ballet? People from all over seem to be dancing all over, and that's a good thing, I think.

[NutsaboutBallet]

As the Mom, what I am getting from the thread is be careful where you spend your ballet $ $$ !

[cheetah]

I find the numbers reassuring. Although from what I've seen, those that are trained overseas - and hired by US companies - are most often men! I know that these gentlement have certain bravura skills that my son isn't likely to ever have. So that brings up the question - is it the training they are getting, is their a genetic predisposition that some have and others don't, or is is something else? For now, we have a good feel for where DS can start looking!

[Victoria Leigh]

When Ben Stevenson left Houston for Texas Ballet Theatre a number of company dancers went with him. Since then, others from the school have been hired by Mr. Stevenson. The school still produces incredible dancers, IMO. The dancers who are in Level 8 and HB II are really talented and VERY well trained. No, they did not all come up through the school. Some did, many did not, however, the training they get in that program is quite exceptional, and if they are lucky enough to be accepted in 8, and move on to HB II, they will end up highly employable dancers. This comes from first hand observation. I also found the younger students in Levels 6 and 7 to be exceptionally well trained.

[cheetah]

It would seem logical that members would follow Mr. Stevenson when he headed north, so that would explain some of the more "mature" company members. Given that he continues to hire from the school, it's obvious that he thinks highly of the training that is received! Even if students are only there for a year or two, this means the finishing process is doing what it was designed to do. Reading the bios, and seeing Houston over and over, was kind of strange though - simply because it was a first! TBT's school has a lot of respect in the area now, so it will be interesting to see if those students will start feeding into the company.

[cheetah]

Alabama Ballet

 

Says they have 21 company members, but there are 26 bios. Only 4 claim training overseas - 15%. At least 3 trained came up through the school and a few more came from the local arts magnet school in Birmingham (close to the company.)

 

They have 20 apprentices which do the corps work. All 20 are from the US, with 4 being from Birmingham.

[Treefrog]

There's another number-crunching thread we could do. How about doing a tabulation of company-employed dancers by school (and SIs?)? I realize there are all kinds of problems -- total training vs. finishing year, hard to tell whether it's a large or small proportion, etc -- but at least it would be something more than mere impression.

 

We could divide up the companies the way we have already, and then one person could add them up in the end.

[cheetah]

Yes, I'm very bored. And I love trivia. So...

 

Sarasota Ballet

 

Only has pictures of company members. While it appears to be a very international group - above the corps level - there's no way of knowing where they received their training

 

Bolshoi Ballet

 

16 Principals - 5 have no bios - of the remaining, 8 are Russian, 2 are Ukranian, 1 is Georgian

10 Leading Soloists - 5 have no bios - all others are Russian

12 Soloists - all have Slavic names, which could mean anything

Corps - kind of interesting; there is a greater variation in names - not all are Slavic - that would indicate that perhaps not all of the corps are Russian; there are no bios

 

This was interesting simply because we were told you had to be Russian (even though DS had a teacher that danced with them and he's from Tashkent!). Not everyone attended the Bolshoi's school, either.

 

Kirov Mariinsky

 

Statistics that also dispel a lot of rumours DS has heard:

 

12 Principals - 6 Russian, 2 Ukranian, 2 Georgian, 1 Belarus, 1 Uzbekistan

14 1st Soloists - 11 Russian, 1 Moldova, 1 Turkmenia, 1 Uzbekistan

12 2nd Soloists - 10 Russian, 1 Ukranian, 1 Kazakhstan

20 Coprhees - 17 Russian, 1 Ukranian, 1 Kazahstan, 1 South Korea

 

No profile on corps members.

 

These statistics were interesting because not all dancers attended the Vaganova School (a rumor told to dancers often). This is true of corpheees as well as principals. The women tend to be almost all Russian, except for a few from Ukrania, a woman from South Korea, 1 from Moldova and Georgia, while the men come from a wider pool of applicants. Though, like many of the US companies we've looked at, the corphees tend to me predominantly Russian - even listing Leningrad as their birthplace - while more diversity is seen at higher levels.

[Mel Johnson]

There's another number-crunching thread we could do. How about doing a tabulation of company-employed dancers by school (and SIs?)? I realize there are all kinds of problems -- total training vs. finishing year, hard to tell whether it's a large or small proportion, etc -- but at least it would be something more than mere impression.

 

We could divide up the companies the way we have already, and then one person could add them up in the end.

 

Yes, but there's a problem with doing that. Not all companies list their personnel in a manner that makes that information derivable, except with a lot of speculation.