Letter from Executive Director, Andrea Snyder

August 2008 Dear Colleague, YIKES! You haven’t received one of these accumulated narratives since March! So much for my quarterly communications. There was actually one in draft, dated April 2008, but as I think back over the last several months, nothing other than NPAC and the Dance/USA Roundtable seems to standout.

Wait! I take that back. Dance/USA is very proud of two publications that hit the streets this spring. First, our newly designed Dance/USA Journal garnered the following email correspondence:

“I wanted to tell you that I thought the latest journal was really terrific. Full of thoughtful and engaging articles that help us all to make informed decisions. Bravo!” Laura Faure, executive director of the Bates Dance Festival.

“I just wanted to say how lovely the newly designed journal looks, and that the content in the most recent issue is really meaty.” Anna Drozdowski, manager of Headlong Dance Company in Philadelphia.

Dance/USA welcomes your thoughts for future themes, special articles or areas of interest. Please email Lisa Traiger at LisaTraiger@aol.com with your suggestions.

Presenting Dance: Dynamic Dialogues from the National Dance Presenters Leadership Forum at Jacob’s Pillow was a year-long production effort among the leadership and staff of Arts Presenters, Dance/USA and Jacob’s Pillow Dance. Cookie Ruiz, executive director of Ballet Austin and Dance/USA’s Board of Trustees Chair, recently sent the following response:

I am currently in discussions with several people interested in creating dance and/or cross-disciplinary festivals in Austin. Just as I was trying to identify some helpful resources the book arrived! The content is exactly what I needed, and the inclusion of the sample budgets is so important. I am truly appreciative of this exceptional resource tool...so much so that I just purchased three additional copies for these colleagues. Thanks to everyone who shared their knowledge.

We’ve also been hard at work to get our technology infrastructure up to date. There is still much to be done, but this fiscal year will see a long-overdue website redesign along with many streamlined internal processes. Members will soon be able to manage and update profiles, renew membership, register for events, purchase publications, and access reports directly through the Dance/USA website.

Another highlight of the spring season was the annual rotation of the Dance/USA Board of Trustees, including officers, the Executive Committee, new members and Council Chairs. The attending board members officially approved the slates of new trustees, officers, and Executive Committee members at the recent June meeting. Members voted for or confirmed Council Chair positions through list serve email processes in the spring. A press release was distributed in the Dance/USA Spin, which you can access from http://danceusa.org/about_dusa/press.htm#board.

NATIONAL PERFORMING ARTS CONVENTION and DANCE/USA ROUNDTABLE

As you can imagine, we are still catching up following the staff’s return from the National Performing Arts Convention (NPAC) and Dance/USA’s Roundtable in Denver. There’s lots of number crunching to do on multiple levels, as well as the analysis of evaluation surveys and the results from the AmericaSpeaks process.

From the NPAC side, the convention brought together 3,739 registrants representing 1,813 arts organizations from 703 cities across all 50 states. The NPAC website contains a wealth of information in the aftermath of the convention, including blog entries, results from the daily AmericaSpeaks caucuses, and the final votes from the Town Hall meeting for strategies to strengthen the performing arts in three outstanding areas of focus – advocacy, arts education, and diversity. You can access all the information through the NPAC home page at: http://www.performingartsconvention.org/. The collective leadership of the NPAC will continue to debrief and determine next steps for activating some of these as well as other ideas and issues that emerged from this important gathering.

Below are a few highlights culled from the evaluation survey results of NPAC and the Roundtable. These are only from dance attendees, not all NPAC registrants. In general, responses to both the Convention and Roundtable have been glowing, although some of our colleagues commented that the imbalance of time between the two weakened Dance/USA’s offerings.

NPAC

• Approximately 105 people responded to the survey of 23 questions – that’s 46% of Dance/USA Roundtable registrants.
• 62% felt the strongest influence to attend the convention was to be able to meet with colleagues in their own discipline.
• The session/event that was deemed the most valuable was the “General Session: From Good to Great and the Social Sectors” by Jim Collins. Live Performances and Networking/Receptions were also indicated as most valuable.
• 90% of those surveyed agreed or strongly agreed that NPAC made progress in strengthening the performing arts community.
• 83% agreed or strongly agreed that they made new connections with colleagues and peers from other art forms.
• 69% disagreed or strongly disagreed that the balance between NPAC and D/USA events was about right – 73% wished for more D/USA time and 49% wished for more cross-discipline time.
• 57% said they would consider attending another similarly designed convention based on their experience in Denver and 37% agreed that another convention in the future like the one in Denver would facilitate the strengthening of the performing arts community in the future.

Roundtable

• 88% agreed or strongly agreed that they were glad they had attended the Dance/USA Roundtable.
• 95% agreed or strongly agreed that the council chair of the Council Meeting they attended was prepared.
• 74% agreed or strongly agreed that the Council Meeting discussion was productive and relevant to their work and that the environment was conductive to sharing confidential information.

RESEARCH

Dance/USA is embarking on long-needed research into trends, behaviors and attitudes of dance audiences. As a start, investigation will capture the simple numbers and demographics of dance audiences with the assistance of D/USA member companies and presenters. We will also seek to create usable standardized language for audience survey instruments that can be vetted and accepted by the field as a whole, bearing in mind that individual entities will have their own specialized areas of inquiry.

At a constructive, intense and creative session with several D/USA Councils at the June Roundtable, we determined that the Annual Data Survey needs to include more detail than we have gathered from 2004 through 2006 while, at the same time, it needs to be succinct. The following compromise is now being implemented:

1) The Annual Data Survey will occur in three parts spread over three months instead of just one massive instrument. Part One will involve “operations,” Part Two will involve “finances,” and Part Three will involve “compensation.” These will occur, respectively, in September, October and November of the current fiscal year.

2) Survey instruments are being redesigned to meet five criteria:

a. Significant consistency with past data;
b. Continuing consistency with the PARC harmonization language that permits some consistency with OperaAmerica, TCG and The League of American Orchestras;
c. Significant consistency with the Cultural Data Project;
d. Significant consistency with 990’s;
e. Some shortening and simplification of questions and language in order to ease the burden of survey-filling.

To this end a draft version of the “Operations” instrument, scheduled for September, has been developed, reviewed by D/USA research staff, and will now be vetted among a small test group of member companies before sending to the full company membership. Similar processes will occur for the October “Compensation” instrument and the November “Financials” instrument.

The NEA recently published the first comprehensive look at artist demographics and employment patterns in its report, Artists in the Workforce: 1990 to 2005. The report merges data from two large surveys conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau in 2000 and from 2003-2005. Not surprisingly, but unfortunately, among the findings in the Executive Summary about pay scale relative to levels of education are the facts that artists earn $6,000 less annually than other “professional” workers and that dancers have the lowest median annual income - $15,000. For more information, you can access a copy of the report through http://www.nea.gov/research/ResearchReports_chrono.html.

I also wanted to call your attention to a research report, Assessing the Intrinsic Impacts of a Live Performance, recently completed and published by Alan Brown, who was generous enough to share his knowledge with the Dance/USA participants in Denver. His hypothesis is that arts organizations have difficulty expressing their true impact, and rely primarily on “demand metrics” such as ticket sales and attendance in order to demonstrate their value. He advocates that intrinsic impacts can and should be measured. For the study, he investigated three levels of impact: the entire arts system on its community; the “value footprint” of an institution on its community, and the intrinsic impacts of a single performance on an individual. I encourage you to take a look at the report.

INTERNATIONAL TANZMESSE

Part of the spring was also spent securing funding for the U.S. delegation to the International Tanzmesse in Dusseldorf, Germany, August 27-31. With a lead grant from the NEA and our consortium partner, Dancers’ Group in San Francisco, we were able to match the NEA’s funding with support from the San Francisco Foundation, Heinz Endowments, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, U.S. Artists International Program of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, and the U.S. Consulate General in Dusseldorf. The total number of individuals attending under the Dance/USA banner as the U.S. delegation is 46, including choreographers, artistic directors, dancers, production staff, managers, agents and presenters.

As you may be aware, participating in this international dance conference is one opportunity to address the decline of presenting American artists and companies overseas. Since 2002, Dance/USA has encouraged delegation members to consider themselves “ambassadors” for American dance – to engage with and enlighten international counterparts about the range and diversity of American artists and companies, to encourage new interest in American dance, and to restore relationships that have been compromised by the political climate. Over subsequent years at the Tanzmesse, we have been pleased to see openness to new dialogue and interaction. This year, for example, six representatives from American “dance centers” have been invited to join their European counterparts in a discussion, and the French delegation is welcoming the U.S. delegation for an interactive dialogue to network and share presenting processes.

On a related subject about international exposure, our Dance/USA Philadelphia colleague, Lois Welk, recently attended the Arts Marketing Association Conference in Great Britain. She returned with a wealth of information, especially useful websites that we thought the D/USA membership would appreciate. Please share these with colleagues who may find the information inspirational and beneficial. Lois’ list is found here.

PERFORMING ARTS ALLIANCE (formerly the American Arts Alliance)

Over the last year, the board and government affairs staff of the American Arts Alliance focused strategically on mission, vision, goals and strategies to strengthen advocacy for the performing arts. As one element of this introspection, the board recognized the need to crystallize in name just what the organization stands for, and thus, voted to rename it. The PERFORMING ARTS ALLIANCE: The Coalition of Performing Arts Advocates is a national network of more than 4,000 members comprising the professional, nonprofit performing arts fields. Through legislative and grassroots action, the Performing Arts Alliance advocates for national policies that recognize, enhance and foster the contributions the performing arts make to America. It is currently comprised of the founding members – Association of Performing Arts Presenters, Dance/USA, League of American Orchestras, Opera America and Theatre Communications Group – and two new members, Chorus America and the National Alliance of Musical Theaters. The name change was announced at the National Performing Arts Convention and more information will roll out throughout the fall.

Staffing Results

There was a lot of staff movement this spring. At one point, we were juggling five searches, almost simultaneously.

Ann Norris, director of membership and communications, moved on to become vice-president and artist representative at Baylin Artists Management. Katherine Fabian, part-time membership associate, was promoted to full-time Membership Manager.

I am pleased to confirm that following a formal search process with the assistance of a team from the Dance/NYC Advisory Committee, Michelle Burkhart has been appointed Director of Dance/NYC. Michelle has done an outstanding job managing Dance/NYC this past year; she is prepared and excited to lead the office into the future.

There was turnover in the Dance/MetroDC office during the spring. Stephanie Wong, program assistant, has been serving as Interim Director, and we are in search mode for a new Director.

We bid farewell to Haley Gordon, who departed to Boston for an MBA with a special emphasis in non-profit public administration. In her place, we are pleased to welcome our new Director of Government Affairs, Amy Fitterer. (This is a shared position with Opera America.)

We also welcomed our new part-time Research Associate, Victoria Smith, in July. “Tori” will work closely as John Munger’s DC voice and colleague to strengthen Dance/USA’s research capacity. Feel free to check out the Dance/USA website for Amy’s and Victoria’s bios/pictures, etc.

The Performing Arts Alliance (formerly American Arts Alliance) Manager has just been hired. Townley Clardy begins on August 25.

All best for the rest of the summer and a terrific start to the fall season,

Sincerely,

Andrea E. Snyder
Executive Director