News
Joffrey Ballet: Back on Its Feet
Wall Street Journal
By Joel Henning
January 11, 2006; Page D14
Chicago
Fifty years ago, Robert Joffrey and Gerald Arpino mustered a New York-based troupe of six dynamic and unconventional ballet dancers into a station wagon pulling a U-Haul trailer. They toured America's heartland presenting original Joffrey ballets. In its first half-century, the Joffrey Ballet turned itself into one of the world's premier companies, commissioning ballets by Alvin Ailey, Laura Dean, Mark Morris and Twyla Tharp, performing in over 400 U.S. cities and around the world. The Joffrey's reputation was enlarged by its magnificent dancing of ballets by Sir Frederick Ashton. Its core repertoire includes Mr. Joffrey's own "Astarte," a multimedia rock ballet that made the cover of Time, and Mr. Arpino's "Trinity," both created in 1967.
But Mr. Joffrey died in 1988, and the company encountered financial woes and bitter takeover attempts. There wasn't enough money to support three New York ballet companies, and the Joffrey ranked third, after the New York City Ballet and the American Ballet Theatre. Ten years ago, the company relocated to Chicago, only to suffer another financial crisis here. Now, however, the Joffrey has accomplished a recovery more impressive than a tour en l'air by Nijinsky (whose works the Joffrey recently revived). Thus it is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year reasonably solvent and in excellent artistic condition, with the ink drying on a deal to move into new facilities.
When the Joffrey arrived in Chicago, its artistry was intact. But it had no administrative infrastructure and proceeded to make just about every mistake possible. At first, the troupe had a hard time enlisting enough big-name board members with deep pockets. It didn't help that it had changed its name to the Joffrey Ballet of Chicago, which suggested to audiences and potential donors that it was a mere road company of the New York troupe. (The original name has since been restored.)
By the time Jon Teeuwissen arrived in December 2001 to be the Joffrey's seventh executive director in six years, the Joffrey was $3 million in debt and had barely enough money to get through the end of the season. "Before I came," he told me, "the question was when to close." Mr. Teeuwissen combines an accountant's training with dance experience ranging from owning successful dance-supply shops in West Virginia to being company manager of the Dance Theatre of Harlem and general manager of the American Ballet Theatre. At about the same time Mr. Teeuwissen came, Pamela B. Strobel, a Commonwealth Edison executive, became board chairwoman. "She calmed things down and was able to move the company forward," says board member Stephen Neumer, a lawyer and real-state developer.
With Ms. Strobel leading the charge to collect patrons, Mr. Teeuwissen had the opportunity to transform the Joffrey's business model. "Our audience is 60% female, and most of the men who come do so because women bring them. So we had to market toward women," he says. Their ads were changed to show less athleticism, which appeals to men, and more grace and inspiration, which attracts female balletomanes. "We wanted to reach the inner ballerina in women who have taken classes," Mr. Teeuwissen explained. "We also started a very successful women's board, and organized affinity groups which featured professional women as keynote speakers before performances."
He has since added affinity groups for African-Americans, Latin-Americans, and gay ballet lovers. And he has high hopes for a father-daughter package. He also introduced live music to the Chicago performances. "It struck me during our Washington, D.C., tour of 'The Rite of Spring' with Igor Stravinsky's great score played live that it was wrong to dance to sound tapes in Chicago." Since 2003, Leslie B. Dunner has been the music director and principal conductor.
Mr. Teeuwissen also saved money and increased attendance by changing the company's production schedule. "By offering two different productions twice a year, we were asking people to come two weeks in a row, spring and fall, which they didn't want to do, and we suffered the financial drain of creating four major productions annually. We reduced the fall and spring seasons to one week with one program each, and added a week's winter program." The new schedule has been so successful that each of the three seasons now runs for two weeks. "But," adds Mr. Teeuwissen, "we save money because we're only doing three new productions a year." He also eliminated Thursday performances. "We were only drawing 21% of our audience during the week, with 79% showing up on weekends. Since we changed the schedule, our largest subscription audience books on Wednesday evenings," he added.
With the help of Mr. Neumer and Bruce Sagan, a fellow board member and real-estate developer, the company acquired a ComEd building worth $4 million as a gift early in its Chicago days. The site didn't pan out as a home for the Joffrey, but its recent sale yielded $6 million, making it possible for the company to pay off the last of its debt and allowing it to buy 45,000 square feet of condominium space in an important new mixed-use building to be constructed in the heart of the Loop and called the Joffrey Tower. The space will include seven studios, administrative offices and a small theater for workshopping new productions. "The dilemma," says Mr. Sagan, "was that the Joffrey came to town as a major institution without a major infrastructure. Who knew they were here? The Symphony and Lyric had developed lots of lines of communications to patrons and audiences over decades. The Joffrey had to create them." Demonstrating its success, Ms. Strobel has been succeeded as chairman by co-chairs Ronald V. Waters III, chief operating officer of William Wrigley Jr. Co., and former U.S. Secretary of Commerce William M. Daley, Midwest region chairman of JPMorgan Chase and the brother of Chicago's mayor.
"I think that the Joffrey's move to Chicago also saved the ABT," adds Mr. Sagan. Both troupes were in serious trouble in the early 1990s. There were even discussions about merging the companies. "Had both stayed in New York competing for the same funds, both might have died," he says. Reborn and now reasonably healthy, the Joffrey is celebrating its 50th anniversary by programming some of the best dances of its first 40 years, and looks forward this spring to a special anniversary celebration of performances in the Frank Gehry pavilion of Chicago's Millennium Park.
The next important question will be when and how the company will install a successor to Mr. Arpino, who is more than 80 years old. Known to be brilliant but also difficult and irascible, he only occasionally choreographs these days, though his simple "Ruth, Ricordi Per Due," called "a gloriously simple elegy" by the Chicago Tribune critic, demonstrates that he can still inspire dancers and audiences, and last spring's revival of his "Round of Angels" was described by the Chicago Sun-Times critic as "heavenly beauty."
As he said recently to a reporter, surviving in the dance world is "Like a duel....You arm yourself, you engage and you conquer." That doesn't sound like somebody preparing to go soon or go quietly.
Mr. Henning covers art and culture from Chicago.
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