Sudden Finale

By DANIEL J. WAKIN
http://www.nytimes.com/

As a sulfurous smell from the nearby mineral springs drifted past, a half-dozen dancers looked into the waning light of a cool Saturday night here recently and took their final bows as members of the New York City Ballet.

They were among 11 members of the company’s corps de ballet, some barely in their 20s, who have joined the swelling ranks of laid-off workers nationwide struggling to find new ways in the recession. They were told in February, shortly before the deadline for new contracts to be issued, that their employment would not be renewed, mainly for economic reasons. Some left soon after. Others gave their final performances the week ending July 18, as the company closed its summer season at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center.

The layoffs have produced a complicated set of responses among these dancers, who, since childhood, have endured grueling hours of cloistered study to achieve a remarkable level of artistry, a position at the pinnacle of the ballet world and then, suddenly, unemployment: anger mixed with grief but also a sense of new possibility and youthful optimism.

The emotions are especially acute because, more than many other workers, ballet dancers define themselves and their self-worth by their profession. Losing a job is like losing one’s identity.

“You’re just erased, as if you were never there,” said one of the dancers, Sophie Flack, 25 and an eight-year veteran of the corps. “It was the end of the life I knew since I was a little girl.”

Some, like Ms. Flack, have decided to quit dancing and go to college. Others will audition for other companies, a task made all the tougher by hard times at performing-arts institutions around the country. One, a recent mother, is moving back to Ohio, where her husband will look for a job. Another, a 21-year-old woman, plans to study costume design.

Those leaving their cosseted sphere are moving into a scary world where they have to learn about financial-aid packages and job training. They are receiving severance pay and an extra three months of union health coverage, and are generally eligible for unemployment insurance.

The layoffs, though part of the company’s cost-cutting strategy, produced a round of questioning for each individual: Did I have too many injuries? Too many outside interests that made it seem dance was not my top priority? An inability to attract the ballet masters’ favor? Was I not attending class regularly?

In short, why me?

“Everyone’s asked themselves that question,” said Darius Barnes, 21, who was let go after only one season in the corps. “You can’t possibly know.”
Mr. Barnes said he had auditioned for several companies and for Broadway shows, “but no bites yet.” He did receive a job as an understudy for a Metropolitan Opera production of “Aida” next season.

Some of the dancers also questioned why new members were being added to the corps when they were been dismissed, and why other companies had managed to find cost savings without resorting to dancer reductions.
For some, the way the layoffs were handled only reinforced the anonymity of their existence.

The corps, like the chorus in an opera, is the body of workhorses who provide the backbone for most of the repertory. Individual members often have featured roles and some may nourish hopes of achieving principal status someday. While listed in the program, they rarely receive the spotlight of soloists and principal dancers, who are often showered with flowers and recognition when they retire.

In this case City Ballet tried to keep a lid on information about the dancers, refusing to release their names or even to ask them if they wanted to be interviewed, for what it called reasons of privacy.

The ballet master in chief, Peter Martins, who was the subject of grumbling by the laid-off dancers, declined to be interviewed, although when he announced the layoffs he called the decision “the hardest thing I’ve done my entire professional career.”

City Ballet’s general manager, Kenneth Tabachnick, agreed to make limited comments on the nonrenewals. They were determined by “an extremely difficult process for everyone,” he said, and they came in the context of a $7 million deficit this year on a budget of $62.3 million and an expected $5 million deficit next year.

The reduction, he said, would save $1.2 million. He said the size of the roster would drop from an unusually large 101 — a result of relatively little attrition in recent years — to about 90. The company has also cut staff salaries, imposed a staff hiring freeze and reduced administrative spending.

Mr. Tabachnick confirmed that an undisclosed number of new corps members would be promoted from the ranks of eight apprentices, but he said the promotions would be part of a renewal of company talent vital to keeping City Ballet artistically healthy. The apprentice spots will be filled by members of the School of American Ballet, the company’s feeder, thus creating openings for new students. So the talent pipeline will continue to flow.

“Everything happens in the context of managing our business,” Mr. Tabachnick said.

Some of the dancers took their departures into their own hands. Ms. Flack took an extra-flamboyant bow after her last performance and gave herself a party. Others invited family and friends to last performances.

Six of the departing corps members agreed to speak; three declined to comment or did not respond to messages; and two could not be identified without the company’s help.

Those who spoke described a day of tears and interminable walks down the long hallway to Mr. Martins’s office in February to hear the news, frantic phone calls comparing notes and a slow acceptance of the reality.
“We just can’t afford to keep you,” Ms. Flack said she was told by Mr. Martins. And that was it.

“My first reaction was to rid myself of the ballet world,” she added, saying that her dismissal felt like receiving a diagnosis of terminal illness. “It was so painful.”

But as the news settled in, Ms. Flack said, she decided to leave dance to explore the broader world, away from a place where adult corps members are usually called girls and boys. “I feel more like a grown-up now,” she said, “more like a woman.” She said she would attend Columbia University.

A Boston-area native, Ms. Flack followed a route to the corps typical of that of many dancers. She said she had wanted to join the company since she saw her first Balanchine ballet at 11. Then came admission to the company’s School of American Ballet at 15, followed by two years of intense work and competition.

“On top of that I starved myself,” Ms. Flack said. She lost so much weight that company officials had to intervene.

She won a coveted spot as an apprentice at 17. “It was the happiest moment of my life, getting in,” she said. She described the grueling hours of classes and rehearsals, and coming home exhausted but deeply satisfied. “Wow, I lived today,” was how she described the feeling. As a more senior member of the corps, Ms. Flack earned about $70,000 to $80,000 a year at the end.

Eventually, she said, she began feeling frustrated at not being assigned more important roles. She said she approached Mr. Martins, who agreed to give her more responsibility, but nothing came of it. “That was a blow,” Ms. Flack said. In 2006 she tore a hamstring, another setback.

But Ms. Flack was also discovering a world outside the ballet bubble, moving to Greenwich Village, acquiring her first boyfriend, visiting museums.

“I never wanted to be a ‘bunhead,’ ” she said, speculating that she had been chosen to be laid off either because her attention was not totally on the company or because Mr. Martins felt less concerned about releasing a dancer with better prospects of coping with the outside world.

Another dancer, speaking on condition of anonymity because she was changing careers and did not want her layoff to become the focus of attention, said Mr. Martins had noted a lack of attendance at company class or early departures from it. “He said that I lost my spark,” she added.

Mr. Tabachnick declined to comment on the criteria for choosing who was not renewed.

Normally a City Ballet pedigree would be a big boost in finding a job at another company. But less so now. Layoffs have occurred recently at several companies, including Ballet Florida, which folded this month, and Miami City Ballet, and post-dance career counselors say requests for help are pouring in.

“There’s nowhere hiring,” said Briana Shepherd, 22, a native of Perth, Australia, and one of the nonrenewed corps members. “It’s not like I’m saying: ‘Pat on the back for getting into City Ballet. I must be talented, and I’ll go somewhere else.’ ”

But other companies have managed to make budget cuts and maintain their roster, including Boston Ballet, Pacific Northwest Ballet and American Ballet Theater in New York, where dancers agreed to forgo vacation pay and pension contributions.

The dancers’ union, the American Guild of Musical Artists, said City Ballet was well within its rights not to rehire the dancers. “We would have preferred to have a discussion about it and see if there was a way to preserve jobs, which is what we’ve done elsewhere.” said James Fayette, the guild’s New York area dance executive. “They just moved forward and were not interested in having that discussion.”

Mr. Tabachnick said comparisons to other companies should not be made, because of City Ballet’s large roster and huge repertory.

Ms. Shepherd last danced in March but stopped to recover from a torn ankle tendon, the latest in a series of injuries that kept her idle for half of her four years at the company. She said she had contemplated leaving dance in 2008 but the loss of her job coupled with the latest injury changed her mind. “That was a little bit sad,” she said. “I don’t want to end on that note. I want to make sure if I do give up ballet it’s for the right reasons.”

Ms. Shepherd said she planned to return to Perth, undergo rehabilitation and then audition in Europe. She said she sympathized with the difficult task Mr. Martins faced. “When the chips were down, he had to choose 11,” she said.

Katie Bergstrom, 25, who has been in the corps for seven years, said her dismissal proved “incredibly scary and intimidating.”

“But I feel really liberated,” she added, speaking in a Saratoga Springs diner on her day off. She had been feeling restless for several years, she said, and City Ballet’s decision was the nudge she needed to leave the company and the field of dance. She is considering becoming a yoga teacher and plans to attend Hunter College.

Like the other dancers interviewed, Ms. Bergstrom said she would chiefly miss the camaraderie of the corps — “being able to walk into the dressing room and just feel like you’re at home” — and the joy of performance. “It’s a liberating experience, the only time of the day where you just get to dance for yourself,” she added, and not for ballet masters or others judging her abilities.

Ms. Bergstrom also lamented the lack of recognition for the departing dancers. “It’s pretty pathetic,” she said, but added that she preferred to slip away quietly. She, like several other dancers, had hard words for Mr. Martins, although she acknowledged his skill at running the company and the necessity to cut costs. “Do I think he treats his dancers with respect?” she said. “Absolutely not. He has absolutely no idea who we are.”

Max van der Sterre, 23, who was also let go, said City Ballet’s entire system, with its unusually heavy workload, is based on the interchangeability of dancers, who, because of injuries, are often replaced.

“I’ve seen so many dancers come and go,” he said. “Everyone is expendable. Even principal dancers are replaceable. It’s all about the system, the end product.”

Mr. van der Sterre, whose energy keeps him constantly in motion, plans to return to San Francisco, his hometown, and seek freelance jobs before striking out on a European audition tour in the winter. He said an “amazing four years” at City Ballet helped him see the world, on tours, and gave him the capacity to absorb steps quickly.

The day after he was interviewed at the house he was renting with friends and family, Mr. van der Sterre was back on the Saratoga stage, wielding a crossbow as a huntsman in “Swan Lake.” On July 18 he took his final bow as a member of New York City Ballet.

He said he was leaving with mixed feelings: “It was really emotional to be working here and having such amazing times, and also some really hard times. It was definitely not my choice to have to leave so soon, but it is what’s happening.”

Truth be told, he added, he is happy to be free to do other work.
“It’s always nice,” he said, “to change it up.”