Two Companies in Transition.

Cleveland San Jose Ballet and Ohio Ballet remain afloat after tossing in seas of financial troubles.

One cold day last February, when the dancers of Cleveland San Jose Ballet showed up for class in downtown Cleveland, they found the doors chained shut and the electricity turned off. The company had fallen $75,000 behind on rent for its studios and offices. CSJB's landlord had accepted delayed payments in the past. This time he was unwilling to wait. For the next few days, the staff scrambled to remove leased office equipment from the building and find temporary rehearsal space for the company and its school. "It was the worst time of my professional career," said school administrator June De Phillips, one of several staff members who went into the building with flashlights to clean out the dark and unheated quarters.

Meanwhile, forty miles down the road in Akron, the dancers of Ohio Ballet were facing a crisis of their own. With only eleven women and seven men in its ensemble, the hardworking company had barely enough bodies to dance a tour repertory that featured large-scale ballets by Kurt Jooss and Ruthanna Boris. Because of injuries, illness, and irresponsible behavior, some of the dancers were unable to perform on tour at the Joyce Theater in New York City. The company got through the engagement by drafting former dancers and students from the University of Akron, where Ohio Ballet is in residence. But by the end of the season, three other dancers had been fired and nine others had decided to go to other companies or different careers. In addition, general manager Howard Parr left to join the Akron Civic Theater. And to the shock of the community, founding artistic director Heinz Poll announced his decision to retire at the end of the 1998-99 season. "This is the right time," he said. "I can help the company in transition. It's much better if it's a slow transition." Poll's long service to Ohio Ballet will be saluted with a gala in May 1999.

Since its inception as a student company in 1968, Ohio Ballet has projected the clear vision of Poll and associate director Thomas R. Skelton, the world-renowned lighting designer who died in 1994. The polished chamber ensemble, with its eclectic repertory of neoclassical ballets, mainstream modern dance, and contemporary choreography, was the perfect foil for the grand theatricality of Cleveland Ballet, the classical company that was founded in 1976 under the leadership of artistic director Dennis Nahat and the late Ian Horvath. (The merger with San Jose occurred nine years later.) While the Cleveland company mounted razzle-dazzle spectacles that wowed the public with lavish costumes and scenery and exciting performances by an international roster of dancers, Ohio Ballet stayed true to the pared-down ideal that stemmed from Poll's roots in German expressionism. Dancing on a bare stage in simple costumes, the company glowed under Skelton's magical lighting.

With Poll stepping down, an era ends for Ohio Ballet. And with CSJB forced to reconsider its mission because of severe financial problems, the larger company also enters a period of change. "The situation in ballet is horrendous," says Barbara Robinson, chairwoman of the Ohio Arts Council and of Cleveland San Jose Ballet. "It's very important to have a complete infrastructure and a wide choice of dance for the community. You have to give companies time to make the right decisions."

Ohio Ballet, currently in the black on a $1.5-million budget, expects to have a new artistic director by January. Poll, seventy-two, has willed seventeen of his ballets to past and present members of the company, and he has planned the 1998-99 season, which features the premiere of a work to Duke Ellington, commissioned from Donald Byrd, and revivals of works by Poll, Boris, and Laura Dean. The challenge to Poll's successor is not only the maintenance of high artistic standards but also the booking of tours needed to keep the dancers adequately employed. Each season the company performs a three-concert series on its home stages in Akron and Cleveland. It also presents a six-week summer festival of free outdoor shows in parks throughout northeast Ohio. To fulfill its contract with the dancers, the company depends on touting.

During the dance boom of the 1970s, Ohio Ballet became a favorite on the national circuit. It also traveled through South America and made its European debut at the Spoleto Festival in Italy. For more than a decade, the dancers were employed thirty-six weeks a year. But they took pay cuts in the 1980s and early 1990s, and a long-range plan to increase the size of the nonunion company to twenty-four dancers was never realized. In the last few years, the board has been strengthened with new trustees from Cleveland and Akron, and the dancers' weekly salary has been brought up to an average of $558 a week.

Despite the loss of significant funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, the company has managed to operate within its budget, thanks largely to the efficiency of its bare-bones administration, the frequent substitution of recordings for live music, the spartan but rent-free facilities the company shares with the dance department at the University of Akron, and Poll's realistic view of the limited support available to an Ohio company that does not mount classical story ballets.

In the harsh touring climate of the 1990s, however, the company has struggled to find work for its dancers, and the 1998-99 contract has been reduced to thirty weeks. Last year, the saving grace was a monthlong American tour of Jungle Book: The Adventures of Mowgli, an experimental East-West story ballet based on the classic tales of, Rudyard Kipling; the full-length work was co-choreographed by Poll and V. P. and Shanta Dhananjayan of Madras, India. The cast consisted of ten Ohio Ballet dancers and ten bharata natyam dancers from the Dhananjayans' Bharata Kalanjali Dance Company. To kick off Poll's farewell season, the Dhananjayans had arranged a month of Jungle Book performances in India. But the tour was postponed indefinitely when the United States Embassy withdrew its support because of political tensions in Southeast Asia.

Although the dancers were disappointed by the loss of touring, they were more stunned by Poll's surprise announcement. A few company members had been let in on the secret. But dancer Amy Hayes said that she knew nothing of Poll's impending retirement until she read about it with dismay in the morning newspaper. "It's going to be very difficult to replace Heinz," said artistic administrator and former dancer Jane Startzman. "Most people, including funders, came to see Heinz's company. It's going to be a whole different thing." Rehearsal director and senior dancer David Shimotakahara agrees. But he expresses confidence that the company's integrity will be maintained. "The structure is there," he said. "The reputation is there. The new leadership has a responsibility to let that go on. It's bound to be quite different. But I think it will be fine."

Cleveland San Jose Ballet dancers have never had to adjust to a comparable change of artistic leadership, but they are accustomed to seeing distressing stories about their company in the local media. Throughout its turbulent history, the troupe has repeatedly survived crises that took it to the brink of financial ruin. In the 1997-98 season, the company operated on an $8.1-million budget in Cleveland and a $3.5-million budget in San Jose, California. This season, the Cleveland budget has been slashed to $5.9 million, and the San Jose board has agreed to help pay for rehearsals in Ohio.

For years, Nahat's grandiose productions were generously funded by local foundations, corporations, and wealthy trustees in Cleveland and, to a lesser extent, in San Jose. But the ballet's ever-changing administration consistently had trouble controlling spending and projecting box-office earnings. In 1992, the company fell to its knees and asked the Cleveland public to bail it out of a $2.5-million deficit. Two years later, the company had racked up a deficit of $1.7 million in San Jose. In each city, the community rose to the challenge and rescued the company. At one point, the dancers accepted a short-term wage freeze. But they were always paid, and the distressing financial problems were never visible onstage. "Finances dictate everything," said Nahat. "Tell me what we can afford, and we will still have a beautiful production. We do what we can afford. We never look cheap."

Since the 1992 "Save the Ballet" campaign, the company has struggled valiantly to operate within its budget despite financial setbacks. In 1995 The Nutcracker, the company's surefire holiday favorite, fell $500,000 short of expected ticket sales. In recent seasons, fewer people have attended large-scale story ballets, another of the company's regular bread-and-butter offerings, because touring Broadway productions, ice shows, sports events, and other forms of popular entertainment have depleted families' budgets.

On the verge of declaring bankruptcy three years ago, the trustees asked Nahat to come up with a popular show that would appeal not only to loyal subscribers but also to a new and larger audience at home and on the road. Nahat pulled out all the stops and choreographed Blue Suede Shoes, a high-energy rock ballet set to master recordings of thirty-six songs sung by Elvis Presley.

Traditional funders were unwilling to grant the $1.2 million needed to mount the flashy production with glittering costumes and cartoonlike scenery by Hollywood designer Bob Mackie. Instead the money was raised by New Dance Ventures, a for-profit organization headed by David Oakland, the company's former general manager. A separate organization, Dance Adventures Ltd., subsequently raised $450,000 to pay for a videotape that premiered last winter on PBS stations nationwide and won two Emmy nominations. Since its premiere in 1996, Blue Suede Shoes has played in Cleveland, San Jose, and six other American cities. Although the tour dates helped fulfill the dancers' thirty-six-week contract last season, the show did not meet box-office expectations. As a result, the company was unable to bridge the chronic gap between income and expenses.

The problem was exacerbated last fall when the 1997-98 subscription series was compressed into a five-week season of rotating repertory so the company could tour in the spring. Ticket sales fell nearly $265,000 short of the goal. With no cash reserves or endowment to fall back on, cash-flow problems mounted, and the board of trustees launched a long-term stabilization plan. "We're not sure we'll survive," executive director Dick Bennett said when announcing austerity measures last winter. "We have to cut expenses to protect the company's artistic integrity."

Trustees promised to honor contractual commitments to the dancers providing fat could be trimmed from the budget. The administrative staff was immediately reduced from thirty-two to eighteen. Settlements were negotiated with creditors. Affordable offices and studios were found in the Masonic Temple, a huge but run-down historic building with potential for expanding the company school and outreach programs. The concept of paying for new productions through ticket sales was replaced by a strict new policy that requires funding in advance.

To get the company up and running for the 1998-99 season, the San Jose board agreed to pay for five weeks of fall rehearsals in Cleveland. But because of the lack of capital and a $52,000 box-office shortfall for the homecoming run of Blue Suede Shoes in June, the company was unable to announce its 1998-99 season until mid-July.

Dancers learned of the seriousness of the company's financial problems during the spring tour. Fearing that they might not have jobs they returned to Cleveland, many of the forty-eight company members hedged their bets and auditioned for other companies. Six dancers joined other companies or retired. Although the rest opted to return, the contracts of some dancers were not renewed. "The dancers have a come-what-may attitude," said regisseur Christopher Tabor. "So many are here only for Dennis Nahat and his talent. People enjoy working with him while they can."

The new three-year contract, negotiated by the American Alliance of Dance Artists (the Cleveland-based dancers' union), specifies thirty-two weeks of work for thirty-one dancers and twenty-eight weeks for an additional sixteen dancers. The size of the company will remain the same for the next three seasons, but the length of the contract will increase by two weeks each year. In the first year, weekly salaries range from $315 to $580 a week for twenty-eight-week dancers and $580 to $785 for thirty-two-week dancers, with annual cost-of-living increases for all.

Besides reducing weeks of employment, the company has saved money by moving to inexpensive facilities and receiving free theater usage. It also plans to cut $230,000 from its budget by using taped music rather than orchestral accompaniment for all shows except The Nutcracker. Unfortunately, the elimination of live music violates the troupe's contract with the Ohio Chamber Orchestra, which has played for the company since its inception.

In addition to The Nutcracker, the 1998-99 Cleveland season consists of repertory programs featuring choreography by Nahat and members of the artistic staff and company dancers. Involution, a pas de deux by Cuban choreographer Gustavo Herrera, will be the only outside choreography premiered. (The San Jose season is similar, but it includes a reprise of Blue Suede Shoes, which will also tour to San Diego in June.)

Although the belt-tightening has been. painful, the stabilization plan is working, and the dancers are not complaining--at least not in public. "I give the company and the dancers credit for trying to do what's right," said Terry Ryan, the dancers' lawyer. "This company always weathers the storm. Despite the traumas, it has always paid people."

Wilma Salisbury is an' Ohio correspondent for Dance Magazine and dance critic of the Plain Dealer in Cleveland