Colorado Ballet stares down union.

Denver - In late autumn, gale winds up to 70 mph rattle along the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, wreaking havoc over everything in their path. An equally fierce flurry recently blasted into the Denver arts community - disrupting the equilibrium between artists and audience, dragging in local government and funding organizations, and spreading bad faith.

Martin Fredmann, artistic director of Colorado Ballet, wanted to raise dancers' salaries and extend artists' contracts, continuing a two-year process of bringing CB's pay closer to the national average. He discovered he could rent a superior sound system for the entire season for $50,000. The cost for an orchestra for Nutcracker alone: $133,600. The choice seemed obvious - and, for one season, artistically and fiscally sound. CB normally uses an orchestra of thirty to forty musicians for two of its four ballets per season; this season it would not use any.

Although many saw Fredmann's logic, a debate, stirred up by the local musicians' union, has raged. Following CB's announcement in late September that "moneys historically used for live accompaniment... must be channeled to further the health of the primary product: the dancers," the Denver Musicians Association saw red. Despite never having been hired for the season, despite no contract being broken and no work agreement extant between the DMA and Colorado Ballet, union president Pete Vriesenga went on the offensive.

Money drives what has become a cause celebre in Denver. Union musicians earn $90 to $100 plus 10 percent pension per two-hour performance; their call is curtain time. Those working a seven-performance week earn $700 for 17.5 hours of work.

During the Nutcracker run, the dancers work from noon until 9:30 p.m., six days per week. They receive no pension and minimum benefits. Depending on rank, during the same seven-performance week of Nutcracker, dancers earn $150-800 per week for 51-plus hours of work. This schedule continued during the Nutcracker run, as CB prepared for January performances at Brooklyn Center for the Performing Arts.

CB's budget of $3.2 million leaves no room for pensions. Executive director Rita Sommers explains: "The only employees to receive pension benefits are contracted musicians and stagehands. No one else does, not Martin, not the staff, not our dancers - no one." Fredmann has refused a salary increase for the past two seasons, explaining, "Though the board voted me a substantial raise this year, I spent it all on my dancers, every bit of it."

For the four seasons prior to this one, musicians have been hired on a show-by-show basis. Although none were contracted for 1997-98, Fredmann and CB's board of trustees have been incorrectly accused of breaking an agreement. Patrons arriving at the opening-night of Romeo and Juliet October 11 faced musicians in evening dress, carrying instrument cases and distributing flyers that accused CB of selling "a full-price ticket for half a performance." A tuxedoed Vriesenga stood next to the line at will call, accusing Fredmann and his board of "perpetuating public fraud."

Vriesenga has not stopped there - he filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, claiming, inaccurately, "CB refused to bargain in good faith." The sting was felt immediately, when Colorado Symphony Orchestra canceled a performance with six CB dancers. The union head wrote to Denver's Scientific and Cultural Facilities District - which collects a percentage of taxes to fund arts and science organizations - questioning CB's "budget priorities." (CB received $443,000 from SCFD this season.) He pressured the mayor's office, continued to picket performances of Romeo and Juliet and disseminated libelous information.

DMA's Web site continued its misinformation. Entitled "Martin Fredmann & his Colorado Karaoke Ballet, and other Information About How Art Forms in Colorado Get Diluted," a link on the site excerpts news articles and letters negative about CB. It includes Vriesenga's interpretation of what he says is confidential CB budget information, supporting "concerns over [CB's] money management."

According to Fredmann, Vriesenga also told him: "I'm going to get you, Martin, I'm going to destroy your ballet company." Vriesenga denies making these threats.

Says David Busch, CB's contractor for musicians and an oboist and union member for twenty-five years who plays with the orchestra, "No one did anything against union rules in not hiring the orchestra. Nothing was ever promised, then rescinded. The DMA does not have a work agreement with Colorado Ballet. [Although] as a union member, I lament that we don't have the orchestra this year, I see the bigger picture. It can be nothing but personal, the way it's unfolded. It certainly isn't logical."

The DMA is upset that CB refused its offer of a one-year, interest free loan of up to $75,000 to help pay for an orchestra for Nutcracker. Fredmann says CB did not want to take on debt; "We have no endowment. No foundation, no corporation will touch you if you cannot show solvency."

Vriesenga cites "precedent" as grounds for this dispute, based on "a 25-year history of live accompaniment for CB." However, CB only began using a live orchestra for Nutcracker, as well as the rest of the season, in 1979. That expense pushed the company $450,000 into debt. While using an orchestra for Nutcracker since then, CB did not adopt live accompaniment for other ballets until 1985. Since 1994, CB has used live music for two of its four yearly programs.

As a result of the cuts, Fredmann has increased by 15 percent the salary for half of his 33 full-time dancers, with 85 percent of the entire company receiving an additional four to five weeks of employment.

In mid-October, Fabby Hillyard, director of the Mayor's Office of Art, Film & Culture, tried to bring the parties together. The city, through the Foundation for the Denver Performing Arts Complex, found an anonymous donor who would contribute $36,000 of the $133,600 needed to hire live accompaniment for Nutcracker. On November 5, the CB board and Fredmann met with Hillyard and Vriesenga and agreed to have live music for Nutcracker if the remaining money (except CB's reserved $12,000) were raised by November 14, when Fredmann felt musicians had to be hired for the Nutcracker season that opened November 29. CB also agreed that after the run it would enter into negotiations for live accompaniment in the future. Hillyard said the city would try to help CB find private money, adding that "Colorado Ballet has a regional and national reputation which we support and value tremendously."

At press time, notwithstanding the darts tossed at his company by the DMA, Fredmann was upbeat: "It's wonderful that we found out through this experience that the city is here for us, supportive of CB maintaining our fiscal solvency, and caring about our Nutcracker tradition. My dancers are mature men and women who do this for a living." He said he has emerged with "more confidence" that he has done the right thing.