The Sunday New York Times went on a bit about the on-going trend of ‘selling’ major ballet stars to donors in an effort to squeeze contributed income. Through individual dancer sponsorships, endowments, auctions, and other means, at least seven of America’s 14 largest ballet companies have put their dancers on the block, with four more considering it.
It’s not a particularly new trend (the hazy boundary between star dancer and major patron is part of ballet lore), but it now carries a slightly more corporate sheen. At the more aggressive ballet companies, dancers host a reception for their sponsor, provide an autographed photo, and make themselves available for special backstage meetings or one-on-one events (check out Atlanta Ballet’s sales page, where plenty of dancers are still available). At other companies, sponsorship of individual dancers is more like a smaller-scale version of event sponsorship, where the donor’s name is presented next to the artist’s photo and bio in the program.
Fortunately, the Times doesn’t give way to the obvious ‘shock and awe’ response, but attempts a balanced perspective of the challenges. ABT über-star Ethan Steifel sees the effort as one more necessary cost of high-stakes ballet (he says: ‘You have to have a practical sense of what the business of ballet is. It’s kind of a fact of life of arts in America’). Atlanta Ballet’s John Welker finds a vague inspiration in his auctioned sponsorship, saying ‘In a way, she’s investing in a product…And you’re that product.’
A few ballet companies are wary of the market forces they unleash by offering individual sponsorships for what is supposed to be an ensemble organization. The market value of some dancers over others could strain the internal artistic rankings that drive professional companies, or even pressure artistic leaders to feature high-value dancers more often.
But at the end of the day, individual dancer sponsorships are just another channel for access and connection between audience and art — another gate that can carry a ticket price. Unlike a traditional gate, however, this point of access involves an artist’s and organization’s privacy, dignity, energy, and longterm value, making it a particularly important and dangerous gate to manage.
