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winter 2004

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It's not your mother's ballet company any more. After almost 30 years of British classicism and homegrown Texas talent, Houston Ballet is morphing into a new company for the new millennium. The appointment of Australian choreographer Stanton Welch last year upon Ben Stevenson's retirement as artistic director brought new dances, new dancers and a new way of promoting the company.

 

 

Houston Ballet: On the Edge
Houston Ballet is transforming into a newer, edgier company, under the direction of Stanton Welch

By: Marene Gustin


"You have to keep the integrity, of course," says Welch, 34, "but I am also a young choreographer. I want our advertising to reflect that. It needs to come across different, that this is a new time." No one who saw the provocative poses and Vogue-like images of this season's calendar and posters would dispute that. And Welch has been involved in that process every step of the way, including a gruelling 12-hour photo shoot and extensive work with the graphic designer, Morgan Bomar, of Bomar Designs. "He's quite a bit, let's say, less traditional," says Bomar. "He's much more willing to go out on the edge." Bomar notes that this was the first year the ballet company's season poster started popping up in windows of hip coffee shops and non-dance establishments.

Houston Ballet has long enjoyed local arts-community support, from the high-dollar donations of energy companies to patrons who shell out $1,000 a ticket for the annual ballet gala. Since its creation in 1969, Houston Ballet has grown in a typically Houston boom-town with the fifth-largest ballet troupe consisting of 51 dancers under contract for 44 weeks a year. During Stevenson's reign, from 1976 to 2003, the company toured China, won international medals and received rave reviews from The New York Times and The Times of London. In 1984, the company opened its state-of-the-art studio and office facility in a renovated dress factory in the middle of River Oaks, a tony
neighbourhood near downtown. Just three years later, it moved into its current performing venue, the multi-million dollar Wortham Theater
Center, built specifically for ballet and opera. The company's annual operating budget went from a little over $1 million to its current
$13,866,736. Stevenson also oversaw the creation of an endowment that now stands at around $40 million, making it the second largest

ballet endowment in the United States. Not to mention that he won artistic and international acclaim for himself and the company as the originator of such full-length ballets as his Cinderella, the new Dracula, The Snow Maiden and Cleopatra. Welch, it would seem, has some very large ballet slippers to fill.


From an artistic standpoint, Welch appears to be well on his way. He survived the company's The Sleeping Beauty, as well as his first The Nutcracker. "It was great," he says, "because it was new for me. Ask me in three or four years, it may be different." Audiences got a taste of vintage Stanton with his plotless Divergence in February, and glimpsed the future with the world premiere of his first full-length ballet for the Houston troupe, Tales of Texas. He then announced the 2004-2005 season, Houston Ballet's 35th, which features new works by such up-and-comers as Julia Adam, Natalie Weir and Lila York, as well as Mark Morris's first piece to enter the company repertoire, Sandpaper Ballet. There is also an evening of Rock, Roll and Tutus. Also an evening that will include Serge Lifar's Suite en Blanc, Christopher Bruce's Rooster - which has always been hugely popular in Houston, and a new work by Welch to Rachmaninoff. There are also the chesternuts - and audience-pleasers - Romeo and Juliet and Giselle. But big ballet companies world wide are facing financial issues in a post 9/11 world, in addition to the old question of aging audiences. And in Houston, the collapse of energy giant Enron and the devastating floods of tropical storm Allison in 2002 have added to the financial instability of the city's major arts organizations. So, will Welch sell?

"I think," says Cecil C. Conner, Jr., the company's managing director, "that his generation is more aware of marketing than were previous generations. And I think that was on the minds of the search committee when they chose him. They didn't want a caretaker; they wanted someone to take the company to the next level. He has his own view of what he wants it to look like and it's different from Ben's, it's a different generation. Those pictures from the season brochure got overwhelmingly positive response." But, he cautions, "there are always those who want to see Giselle in arabesque."

Under Welch's first season, in 2003-2004, the company's subscription sales projections of $1,787,006 did fall $170,000 short. But Conner and crew expected a flat sales season and attribute it less to Welch's takeover and more to the packaging of the ballets. What did happily surprise them was the increase in single ticket sales for The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker. In fact the holiday classic turned out to be Houston Ballet's second biggest grossing

Nutcracker, almost $300,000 over projections. Sales and media interest in Tales of Texas, with its cartoonish images of cowboys in bright-coloured patchwork chaps, was at an all time high. But will the marketing work? Will it retain the old patrons and bring in new, younger ones? Douglas Sonntag, director of Dance for the National Endowment for the Arts, says that's really the question. Old-time patrons may come just to see what it is and new ones may come just to see what it is, but will they come back? That's the real question companies are facing now. It is a tricky thing to challenge and educate your audience. Billboards were unusually popular for The Joffrey Ballet, but only with audiences that liked Prince. They
didn't come back for the classics.

 "What Stanton brings to the company," says
Conner, "is a fresh eye to the creative process," both choreographically and for marketing." When you have a change like this, it is an opportunity to create visibility and excitement. It is always an opportunity fraught with danger." But, he adds, dance companies must move forward in attracting new audiences. "The picture of the
ballerina in the tutu will attract the audience you already have." And so the ballet world will keep a close eye on Houston Ballet's marketing under Welch, looking for a way to increase audiences and sales while walking that tightrope of maintaining the integrity of the art and the
quality of the dance.  <end>

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TABLE OF CONTENTS: Winter 2004-2005 ISSUE [top]

Features
  • Houston Ballet: On the Edge
    by Marene Gustin
  • Finding Life After Ballet
    by Eileen Nesbitt
  • Edward Hillyer: Pilgrim's Progress
    by Alana Roland
  • Constructive (Dance) Criticism
    by Kena Herod
  • Pilates' Appeal for Dancers
    by Margaret Jetelina

Departments
  • Dance Notes
  • Commentaries from Vancouver, Winnepeg, Montreal, Toronto, New York, San Fransico, Britain, Italy, Denmark, France and Russia
  • Reviews of Dancing on the Edge, Lyon Opera Ballet, Akram Khan, Stuttgart Ballet and Hamburg Ballet
  • Book Reviews
    by Michael Crabb & Elizabeth Godley
  • Notebook
    by Michael Crabb