Latest / Arts Unscripted with Monica Holt / CI to Eye | Transformational Leadership

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CI to Eye | Transformational Leadership · Arts Unscripted with Monica Holt

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Hi everyone, it's Christopher Williams.
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Last month I had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with Jonathan Stafford,
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the artistic director of New York City Ballet and the School of American Ballet.
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As a diehard balletomane myself, I can't wait to share this with you.
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Jonathan is not only an accomplished and well-respected figure in the dance
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world,
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but he's also a naturally warm and charismatic leader who genuinely cares about
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the wellbeing of his team and the future of City Ballet.
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Jonathan and I covered a lot of ground in this conversation.
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You'll hear about New York City Ballet's approach to programming,
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the digital transformation of their marketing,
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and how the company navigates the power and complexity of today's social media.
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We'll also touch on some broader leadership lessons that I think everybody can
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relate to,
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like ways to combat imposter syndrome and grow more comfortable taking risks.
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I personally found this interview so inspiring and I hope you will too.
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So without further ado, here is... Jonathan Stafford.
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Jonathan Stafford, welcome to the podcast. Welcome to CI to Eye.
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Thanks so much for having me. Looking forward to talking with you today.
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I have to tell-well,
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listeners of this podcast will not be surprised to hear me say that I am a
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balletomane, and in particular,
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I am a New York City Ballet super fan. So
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I will try to temper some of my excitement about being able to spend time with
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you today. But I'd love to talk about you personally just a little bit.
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Tell us how you came to ballet in the first place.
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Sure.
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So I grew up in a small town in central Pennsylvania and my
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younger sister actually started with ballet.
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I was dragged along to her early classes and to
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her performances,
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and I started to be somewhat interested in what I was seeing
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on the stage.
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And there was one moment where the advanced male dancer in the
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school was just flying around the stage, was just doing this really cool piece.
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It was cool music, it was just flying around the stage.
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And I said to my parents that night, I think I want to try ballet.
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And I was not coordinated.
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I was not good at sports because I was tall for my age.
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I was very gangly. I had very long legs proportionately,
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and I had trouble with coordination and I started ballet and instantly
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my body, my mind, everything-my energy took to it.
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And then I just started to love the freedom of the movement. Once you get a
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little more accomplished,
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you can fly around the room like the dancer I saw.
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And it just happened to be a very good ballet school,
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really accomplished ballet school that trains professional-level dancers.
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So I always had this idea in my mind that I really liked it,
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but I wasn't really thinking of being a professional dancer.
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And then I saw New York City Ballet perform live for the first time when I was
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15 and I called my parents that day and I said, that's what I want to do.
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I want to be a dancer. I want to join New York City Ballet.
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And a few years later, the dream came true.
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I came up to SAB when I was 17 so I could go through the school and then was
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named an apprentice when I was 18 and had a 16 year
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career. And my sister,
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who was the one sort of responsible for getting me into ballet,
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she also joined New York City Ballet and was a very accomplished dancer for many
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years.
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So at the end of your dancing career, when you stepped back,
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what did you actually think your transition was actually going to be?
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Well, my knees started to hurt quite a bit as I was dancing.
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That was the thing that kind of pushed me out was,
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I just was having problems with my knees and I was a principal
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dancer, so I was doing really hard repertory. I loved it.
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I loved all the partnering, the jumping, the dancing. I loved it all,
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but my body was starting to break down a little bit.
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And I had gotten my degree in organizational leadership and I had started
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teaching at SAB. That was a key moment for me. I loved teaching.
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I loved giving back the information that had been given to me.
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I loved being involved and invested in the students and their growth
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and development, teaching also. And then
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an opportunity was presented to me by Peter, by our former artistic director,
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to potentially become a rehearsal director here. So that really planted a seed
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as like, I have a future to go to. I have another step I can go to.
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And then I was getting to the point where I would do a hard show and I could
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hardly move the next day. I couldn't straighten my knee in bed at night,
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and I just was like, I can't do this anymore.
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I really was not fulfilled after a show
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as much as I had used to be.
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I was starting to feel my athletic ability slip a bit,
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and I was way more fulfilled with the teaching and coaching dancers.
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And so I picked a date, retired,
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and then the next day moved into my new role,
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and I was really fortunate to have that seamless transition.
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Would you say your transition and how...
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I'll call it smooth for lack of a better word...
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but is that unusual for dancers to be able to transition into
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something that still feels as satisfying?
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I guess I would speculate that a lot of dancers really mourn that moment when
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they have to step away from the stage.
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For sure. And there is no replicating it.
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And that's something I had to come to terms with right away.
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There's just no replicating that feeling you get.
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And now it's like when I watch the company and I have the nerves that I used to
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feel as a performer, I have the nerves watching them, wanting it to go well,
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desperately wanting them to be happy with their performance because I know how
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much work they put into it and I want them to walk away feeling good about what
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they did. And those are the nerves I feel, but it's different.
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And the adrenaline rush you get that I get now being on the other side is
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different than what I got as a performer.
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What is a bit unusual for those transitions is there's just not a lot of jobs
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out there for former dancers, no matter how accomplished they are.
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To step into a role as a rehearsal director,
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to step into a role as a teacher at a major dance school,
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and then eventually to step into an artistic director role... I mean,
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there's only I think like 30 ballet companies in the whole country.
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So I was very lucky in terms of timing.
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I do feel like I did the work to set myself up to be ready if an opportunity
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came up.
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That was always my goal as I was going to college and as I was paying attention
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to things here in the company. I always would think to myself,
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if the opportunity ever comes up, which is a dream, but if it ever comes up,
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I want to at least be ready for it.
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You are the artistic director of New York City Ballet and also of the School of
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American Ballet. Am I correct you are the third in history?
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I am the third.
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That's incredible.
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Which, when you think of 75 years of the company, 90 years of the school,
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just being the third does carry a lot of weight with it. And it was something
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that really sunk in when I was named to this role.
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And I think also you've said you are the first American born and
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the first to come out of the school as well, right?
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That's right.
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First American born leader of both organizations
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and the first SAB alumni to be at the helm,
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which is something that Balanchine always desired,
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that those who were taking the school forward would have trained at the school,
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danced in company, and then came back to the school.
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And you do this along with your partner, Wendy Whelan,
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who is a legend in and of herself.
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Yeah,
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it was clear when we were going through the search process,
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both Wendy and I had a lot of mutual respect for each other,
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and as they were looking at the job description,
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they were looking at the demands on that one person.
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What we found was that it's just going to operate and function better with two
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people really working as partners, and that's how we see each other.
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I'm the artistic director, she's the associate artistic director,
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but everything we're really doing together,
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and it's worked really remarkably well.
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And we didn't know each other so well five years ago.
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We both danced in the company and I had always looked up to her.
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She was such a role model,
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and continues to be that role model for me and for everyone else.
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Leadership positions can be so isolating.
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I think if you've never been in one, you may not know that, but it is isolating.
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So it must be nice to have a partner in that.
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It can be isolating. You hear that from everyone.
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I dealt with a bit of imposter syndrome, honestly, early on.
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I struggled at times to believe that I had what it took
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to be the next leader.
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And having someone like Wendy to talk through those anxious moments,
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those moments of, 'I'm not sure what to do here.
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I just have no experience with this specific issue.
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Let's talk through it.' And she really helped me always.
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We used to say-she has a couch in her office, and it was my therapy couch.
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I would just knock on her door and say, 'Wendy, we gotta talk.' And I would go.
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And that's been a constant in our partnership,
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is we're just both an open book with each other and share everything
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necessary for us to both excel in our roles.
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That's really wonderful.
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I value so much that you have said that you've suffered from
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imposter syndrome.
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I think it's very true for almost all leaders and many people probably wouldn't
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say it out loud, so I think that's really important.
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One thing that was absolutely critical to me too is I worked with executive
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coaches, and I've worked with a few over the now six plus years,
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counting the interim time that I've been in this role.
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And I would recommend that to anybody.
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Nobody has all the answers. No matter how much experience you have,
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no matter how thoughtful you are about things,
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no matter how good your instincts are,
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there's still things that are going to stump you.
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And those really good executive coaches, you walk away from a session,
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as I did with mine,
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feeling more confident and just bouncing
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ideas, role playing, saying, 'Okay,
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let's put ourselves in this person's shoes that you now need to have this really
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difficult conversation with. How can we do it with sensitivity, with empathy,
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but also being really honest and direct?' So that has been a
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huge, huge help for both Wendy and I.
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Yes, a hundred percent. We have a culture of doing that as well.
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And another thing that coaches do for us is really help us see blind
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spots. They are able to say things to us that we are not bringing to the table,
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but things they can very much see in us that help us just be better leaders,
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especially in today's world. So that's fascinating to hear.
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It would be interesting, I think,
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for people who maybe are not so entrenched in ballet to understand:
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what does it mean to follow somebody like Balanchine
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who held this role-first of all, who founded the company,
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and who held this role for so long and has such an incredible global
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reputation? Does it feel haunted in that office?
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Early on it was a bit terrifying because
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there's not a lot of room for mistakes. Not only is it really well respected,
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but our patrons who've been coming to the ballet for many years expect a
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certain level of quality,
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expect the Balanchine ballets to look their best at New York City
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Ballet because if they don't look their best here, what are we doing?
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That's our history. That's what we're supposed to be the best at.
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But it's also invigorating.
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I find that I come in to work and I haven't had a single day
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in six plus years where I've walked in the door and been filled with dread,
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or thought, 'I really would rather be somewhere else right now.'.
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What a gift.
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And I've always been proud to know that I've never felt,
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no matter how hard of a day I have,
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or sometimes at the end of the day where you just feel like, wow,
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I've got some stuff wrong today. But I've gotten used to that more. Like, okay,
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that didn't go as well as I would've hoped. Here's how I do it better,
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as opposed to just wallowing in the frustration of something.
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And it is a pressure and a responsibility that feels pretty huge most of the
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time. But it's also exciting and invigorating and I mean,
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it's the dream job. I've gotten sort of past the moment of like,
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is this really happening?
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That happened a bit in the first couple of years.
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'I can't believe I actually achieved this.'
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But now it's more, I'm just super focused on the work,
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focused on being better each day,
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helping those around me be able to be at their best each day and
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try to use those teachable moments to help somebody feel even more confident in
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their work going forward.
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Yeah. When you were a younger dancer, what were you thinking, like,
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'If I ever had this job, what would I change?
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How could I make this better?' Because you can do that now.
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Yeah. And fortunately, I was sort of thinking that way,
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mostly because I was going to Fordham to get my college degree
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while I was dancing.
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And I majored in organizational leadership and I was so just
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fascinated by that,
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shifting my brain from being a dancer and following the rules and
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just really trying to do what you're told to do and being at your best that way,
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to thinking much more broadly outside of myself and what this organization means
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to each person and how it's managed, how it's run,
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what works really well and what maybe doesn't.
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And in the course of pursuing that degree, I really thought of, okay,
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if I ever have some responsibility,
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here's something I would like to change.
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And I started doing some of that even before I was in this role,
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where we started an apprentice mentorship program, for example.
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You have so much support as a young person all the way up through 'til when you
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leave the school,
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and then you get in the company and it was a little bit of sink or swim.
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So it's like,
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how can we put the dancers on a better path to be successful?
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That was one of the things I was really proud of before I was even in this role,
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was creating and leading this program.
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And more communication with the dancers. We never had evaluations.
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We were not given regular feedback about how to
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improve. So it was hard to know where you stood or what you needed to work on.
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So right away as interim, it was one of the first things I did,
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was establish dancer evaluations and start talking to the dancers about what
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we're seeing and allow them to talk about what they're working on,
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and be fully invested in each of their success,
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their development,
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and how we help give them the building blocks to get to where they want to get
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to.
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When you think about how you want dancers to feel about
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the culture that you and Wendy are cultivating,
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what do you want that to feel like?
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I want them to feel supported, uplifted, seen,
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and heard.
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And I want them to feel like they can be themselves and not try to fit into some
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other ideal of what either they think we want or they think they're supposed to
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be. The dancers are at their best on stage when they can be vulnerable.
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You have to be vulnerable as an artist. You have to be willing to take risks.
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You have to be willing to fail.
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So providing a space where they feel safe to fail,
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they feel safe to take chances. We want to see people on the stage.
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We don't want to see robots or cogs in a machine where every
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last finger is in the exact same place as the person next to them.
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We want to see some freedom, we want to see some individuality.
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I kind of want to ask you a little bit about programming.
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Every time I get a City Ballet brochure,
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it literally always sits right here on my desk until that season is over.
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And I always wonder, how does this all come together?
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Every single mixed rep program, how do you all approach this? What goes into it?
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Well, thankfully that's Wendy's... one of her real areas of expertise.
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So she takes a lead on programming,
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and what Wendy really looks at is connections.
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What connects those three or four ballets, those mixed rep programs,
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which we mostly do. We do a few full lengths a year, but that's it.
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So much of our daily lives is these mixed rep programs that need to
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work with the production demands,
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need to work with the orchestral demands. When I started programming,
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I was like, oh my gosh, we have all these ballets to pick from,
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this is just going to be fun. It's not fun. I mean,
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I think there's some enjoyment in putting programs together,
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but it's so tedious. It's a months-long process.
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It has to go through multiple departments,
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multiple layers of edits and adjustments,
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because the other thing is we have subscribers.
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We have these great fans. We can't just start repeating the same works on their
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subscription night, so that's complicated.
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Like this is the program we really want to do,
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but that one ballet hits this subscription from one season to the next,
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so we can't do it. We have to figure out a different way.
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We think about the dancers we have, we think about,
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there are some ballets in the rep that really feature roles that are best
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performed by a shorter dancer, for example,
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or best performed by a taller dancer.
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So we can't have a season with just rep for only the tall dancers.,
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and then the dancers who typically would do this other rep are just left on
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the sidelines the whole season. So we have to look at that.
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And then Wendy and I love this because music has always been a leading
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focus for the company, and with Balanchine,
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the most important thing was the music matters first,
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then the steps come. So she really looks at how the music on a program
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fits together so that there's hopefully a flow through the
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program,
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that the one piece accentuates the other piece,
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or that there's something interesting about how they're paired together,
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both the dancing and the music,
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and that there's nothing that feels just jarring or out of place on a program.
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Like 'Why did that end up there?
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That doesn't fit with everything else.' We also think about,
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as we're programming, what is a gateway performance, a gateway ballet?
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What is something that could get a new audience in here that's never been in
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here before? Because we have this great base of people,
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but we have to always be cultivating and building, as you know.
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We recently did a collaboration with Solange, Beyonce's sister,
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who created the music for a piece,
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but it was very successful in that throughout that first run,
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70% of single ticket buyers were new to file. Which is
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huge for us. But we programmed it-hoping that that would
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happen-strategically with one of our tried and true,
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most iconic classic Balanchine works, Symphony in C.
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Complete polar opposite to what people were coming to see,
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but also showed the company off utilizing our strengths.
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And people were saying, "Oh my gosh, I came to see Solange,
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but I was blown away by Symphony in C." So trying to show an audience
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not only something new,
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an exciting collaboration that gets them into the theater,
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but give them a little taste of what we do throughout the rest of the year and
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what we're really good at.
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And that kind of approach is also really important.
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Is it hard for you because you are, I mean, you're the ultimate insider.
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Is it hard for you to understand what might appeal to someone who's a
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hundred percent new to ballet?
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It is.
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I love coming into my seat-I sit in the back of the first ring at every show-and
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I love coming into my seat, and I just sit there.
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I don't go on my phone five, 10 minutes before the show starts.
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And I just look around. I love just looking around the theater,
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looking around the first ring, looking to see who's there,
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what they're talking about before the show starts,
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just getting an idea of who they are and trying to figure out why they're here,
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what made them come in. Because it is really hard.
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I have those things that I love that I feel like make a great impact,
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and I love being sort of an anonymous fly on the wall.
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I love sometimes when I leave the theater and people don't know who I am and I
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hear what they're saying about what they saw,
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and it is really largely mostly positive.
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And hearing what on that program they're talking about when they walk out the
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door. I try to use that as a gauge. But yeah, it's hard.
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It is hard to put myself in the shoes of someone who's never seen the company
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before and how they might receive what we put on that night.
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One of the things I'd love to ask you is,
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if you find yourself with a stranger to ballet that says one of those classic
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questions like what does this dance mean?
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Something that's just a contemporary piece or a neoclassical piece that doesn't
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necessarily have a narrative. How do you answer that question?
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I say to them...
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and sometimes I have to preview a program that's all abstract works for a group
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of donors or one of our corporate sponsors, anything like that. And I say,
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the beauty of this work is it allows each audience member to feel the way
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they want to feel about it,
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to create a narrative if they feel that there is one there,
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instead of just being told a very generic story that you're supposed to follow
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along with. Those ballets,
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obviously The Nutcracker is incredibly important for us, Swan Lake,
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something like that where there is a story that's easy to follow.
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But so many people I talk to,
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what they really fall in love with is our abstract work because you can
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feel something different every time you watch it based on who's dancing it.
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And if you want to just be transported away,
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even the abstract works can do that because of the beauty of the
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music, the beauty of the choreography and the dancing,
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and the individuality that I talked about before.
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And I love hearing that from audience members who say,
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"I can't wait to see this dancer in this ballet.
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I've always wanted to see them in that ballet." And I love that they're that in
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tune with each of our dancers,
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and they're excited about how that dancer is going to dance that ballet.
24:08
Your career at City Ballet certainly
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predated digital transformation.
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You and Wendy certainly have experienced what it's
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like to sell ballet to the public
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both in a traditional analog approach and
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certainly how dramatically that has changed on the other side of digital
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transformation today.
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But I'm just curious to hear what the process of digital
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transformation felt like to you over the course of your career.
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It was hard. It was hard to know
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how people were going to consume and what would attract them to
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us, because things change so fast, as you know. And we just...
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seeing that with our dancers, how can we harness that?
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Because they have so many followers, some of them.
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How can they harness being a dancer at New York City Ballet for their own
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feeds and their own brand development stuff? How can we work together?
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How do we reach more eyeballs? How do we get more people interested?
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How well are our feeds being curated?
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And then when we put our marketing efforts out there,
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it's got to look like New York City Ballet.
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So when someone looks at it right away, they know what they're looking at.
25:30
But it still has to be innovative. I mean,
25:31
people are not okay with you doing the same thing.
25:35
We just have to shout out Karen Girty, our senior director of marketing,
25:38
because she's just as good as it gets.
25:39
Yes. Super fan!
25:42
And she's built a great team around her. The artists we collaborate with,
25:47
the directors we collaborate with, the short films we do...
25:51
It's just really top notch,
25:53
and we're really lucky to have such a good team here and be able to just keep up
25:57
with the ever, ever evolving trends out there.
26:01
It's a lot.
26:02
What goes into managing just the
26:06
power of social amplification that dancers have in
26:11
their own hands? And as you say,
26:15
so many of the dancers have massive followings.
26:18
What is the push pull in that for you all as a company?
26:24
What has the friction been? What must be the power of some of that?
26:29
It is tricky because they are themselves.
26:34
They curate their feed as if they're in a way an independent
26:38
operator, an independent employee,
26:41
but every single one of them represents New York City Ballet,
26:44
has New York City Ballet on their name,
26:46
talks all about their performances at New York City Ballet and stuff.
26:49
So how does that relationship between the organization and the employee work
26:54
when they are public figures? So where are the boundaries?
26:58
What can you say? What should you shy away from?
27:02
How do you all navigate that? Do you have systems in place?
27:06
I can imagine there are people listening, being like, how do you do it?
27:09
How do you navigate that? Because you are particularly public.
27:13
There's such a bright light on the company.
27:17
We don't have enough systems in place, but it's something we're working on.
27:21
I mean, we're doing strategic planning around digital strategy as we speak,
27:26
and really
27:30
our dancers are unionized. So there's a collective bargaining agreement.
27:34
So something we didn't have before,
27:35
we now have a code of conduct as part of that.
27:38
And what's laid out there is how the dancers are representatives of the
27:43
company in their public lives and private lives to a certain extent.
27:47
And there's a social media policy in there, what's allowed to be filmed,
27:51
what's not allowed to be filmed, what's allowed to be posted,
27:54
what's not allowed to be posted because of permissions, because of copyright,
27:58
because of respecting your colleagues' privacy. I mean,
28:01
our dancers are really thoughtful for the most part, and are really good,
28:05
and do want to amplify the company in the best light possible,
28:10
not just amplify themselves. They understand their role in that place.
28:14
And then when something happens that's a little bumpy,
28:17
we try to learn from it and we try to use it as a moment where everybody can
28:21
learn from it about maybe something to avoid in the future.
28:25
But walking that line is really complicated. So I mean,
28:29
having a union workforce helps because there are policies and protocols in
28:34
place just because of the collective bargaining agreement.
28:38
So there is an understanding of what's not only allowed, but what's possible.
28:43
And we just keep experimenting.
28:46
In sports,
28:48
they talk about something called the Star System where you really rely
28:52
on some of the marquee value of certain players. And I always wonder,
28:57
how are you thinking about that internally?
28:59
What's the friction for actually taking advantage of some of that so that you
29:04
don't sort of 'other' any of the dancers?
29:08
Is this something that you guys think about or talk about?
29:11
We do, more so now than I think before. So yes,
29:16
we need to try to highlight those beautiful artistic collaborations that happen
29:20
and those dancers that come up, rise through the ranks,
29:24
come up out of the corps,
29:26
and are the ones that are going to take this company forward.
29:29
But we can't forget about the corpse de ballet.
29:32
We can't forget about what we do call the backbone of the company,
29:35
that holds the group collectively at a really high level.
29:38
And so we do really try to focus on
29:43
everybody in our marketing efforts. We try to focus on everybody,
29:46
and we're much more based around the importance of the ballet and the
29:51
success of the ballet than the importance of one dancer.
29:54
And it doesn't matter what they dance, they're always going to be great.
29:57
It's like we just want the caliber of our ballets to be as high as the caliber
30:01
of our dancers. Maybe in some other companies,
30:05
there's that lead dancer that dances those few full lengths a year or something.
30:09
That's what someone goes to see. They go see the dancer, not the ballet.
30:11
In most cases, we have people, yes, they come to see certain dancers,
30:14
but they come to see the ballets over and over again, which is really great.
30:19
But it is tricky,
30:21
and in this age of visibility across everyone in the company,
30:26
managing and harnessing a star dancer who has a big following,
30:30
who people do come to see,
30:32
while also not ignoring or ostracizing the other dancers in the company who are
30:37
working just as hard and who are just as excellent in their work.
30:41
I want to talk about your brand really quick.
30:44
I remember the moment in time, I can't remember how many years ago,
30:47
when the brand of New York City Ballet was reimagined,
30:51
and I just love it. It's one of my favorites.
30:54
I think it might be one of the best visual identities of any arts organization.
30:58
Tell me what you strive for consumers to take away
31:03
from the identity you all have cultivated.
31:07
Well, we have to walk that line between giving them something fresh, innovative,
31:12
exciting, while also making sure they know it's New York City Ballet,
31:16
but it has to be dynamic.
31:19
We can't come up with something that feels stayed.
31:22
You have to feel the energy of New York City Ballet come through the page.
31:25
You have to feel that the dancers are able to present that...
31:29
kind of what's asked of them, and why they are at the top of their game,
31:34
which is that really clear, dynamic movement quality.
31:39
And it's hard to do.
31:40
It's hard to do in a picture or hard to do in something that is a still shot.
31:45
There's even, with our 75th anniversary,
31:48
that lineup of dancers that's on the front of our theater and on the brochures
31:51
and stuff. It is them just standing in place.
31:54
But there's still something about it.
31:56
There's like an attitude that's very clearly New York City Ballet.
31:59
There's a freshness as you look across the lineup of dancers,
32:05
and it feels very current.
32:07
How do you specifically work across marketing?
32:12
As a marketing person myself,
32:13
what does it mean to you to work across that department given what they need to
32:17
do for everyone?
32:19
We're just really honest with each other, honest about what we need to see.
32:23
I try to trust my instinct of what hits me when I look at an image or I look at
32:28
a video treatment or something like that,
32:31
trying to step out of my artistic directorship role and just be a consumer.
32:37
But just trying to look at it as objectively as possible because we're trying to
32:40
reach the broadest group as possible.
32:43
And while we do do very targeted marketing, of course,
32:46
to specific groups of our audience, the overall brand identity, all that,
32:50
stays very consistent.
32:57
It's a busy time for you all.
33:00
It is New York City Ballet's 75th anniversary.
33:03
It's the School of American Ballet's 90th anniversary.
33:08
You had a big event this week, did you not?
33:11
We did. Still recovering from it.
33:13
On Monday we did a stage production unlike anything we've done at the school
33:18
before.
33:19
And it was the ball that you guys have every year for the school, yes?
33:22
Yeah, but an upgraded version for the 90th anniversary.
33:26
Amazing. Amazing. It's so incredible that it has been around for that long.
33:31
I think for a lot of people,
33:33
they may be surprised to know how much longer than the actual company it has
33:36
been around.
33:38
Yeah, it was really important to George Balanchine and Lincoln Kirstein.
33:42
They were very thoughtful in how they wanted to establish a performance company,
33:46
but very thoughtful about their idea of creating an
33:50
identity for that company. And that comes with the dancers,
33:54
and the dancers have to be trained a certain way,
33:55
and so they started building a real pipeline of dancers that
34:00
then were able to eventually populate the company.
34:03
And that's what we still do today.
34:05
We hire really exclusively from the School of American Ballet into the
34:10
company because they're trained in a way that they can be successful.
34:14
What do you think is going to be happening at City Ballet in the next
34:19
five years?
34:20
What can we expect that may not be on anyone's radar and might
34:24
change the paradigm?
34:27
Well, we have two of the most important creative voices in classical ballet with
34:31
Justin Peck and Alexei Ratmansky here in-house now, which is huge for us.
34:35
I mean, that's a game changer for us to have those two icons,
34:40
leading voices who are going to experiment and do all kinds of fun things here
34:45
in the company and push each other and push the dancers and push us as an
34:49
institution forward.
34:52
I think one thing that we're trying really hard to do is be a bit more
34:56
curatorial with our new works and be really strategic in how they roll out so
35:01
that they have a better chance of success. And not just...
35:04
Sometimes City Ballet throws new works out at such a high rate,
35:10
maybe they didn't have the time they needed to really be as good as they could
35:14
have been if they'd gotten a bit more time, a bit more care,
35:17
a bit more focus of how they get from creation to the stage. So that's a bit of
35:22
a shift for us where we're actually doing slightly fewer new works going
35:27
forward,
35:27
but really focusing our time and resources on each one so that each one
35:32
can be as successful as possible.
35:35
But what I'm really excited about is how we stay fresh and edgy
35:40
and at the cutting edge of the classical ballet world.
35:43
And I think we have a great sense of momentum here.
35:46
I think we need to have another...
35:49
we want to have another high profile collaboration
35:53
down the road.
35:55
It takes sometimes years of planning to get something like that to come
35:58
together, but we're really focused on that.
36:01
We've made great strides in building our audience,
36:06
like audience development.
36:07
Our audience is younger than it's ever been on record,
36:10
and it's the youngest on campus at Lincoln Center,
36:14
in terms of our demographics.
36:15
And so what do we do with that now? So we've got the people in the building,
36:20
how do we keep them? How do we cultivate them?
36:23
What kind of partnerships with other brands, corporations,
36:27
things that are really important to us? Those are down the road.
36:31
We've got some really great ones in the works,
36:34
some ideas that we're just starting to flesh out that could be game changing for
36:38
our brand,
36:39
and then what's the next generation of dancers going to look like?
36:44
And we've got so much talent in the corpse de ballet.
36:47
I've never seen the corpse this talented,
36:51
but also this unique and individual and strong,
36:54
but they also work really well together. So there's that individuality.
36:57
But they work really well as a group.
36:59
And we've done some ballets this season where I'm just like, wow,
37:03
the future looks really bright. We're never going to rest.
37:06
We're never going to sit back and say, okay, we've done it,
37:08
now we can just ride it out. And I love that about this organization.
37:12
We're always like, okay, so that went really well,
37:16
but how are we going to do it better next year?
37:18
Or how are we going to do it better next time?
37:19
Or what more can we add to what we're doing well already?
37:22
Not only maintaining a level of excellence, but striving for more. And again,
37:27
it's what makes me excited to walk into the theater every day,
37:30
even though I know it's like I have 13 meetings today.
37:34
It's going to be a long day,
37:36
but I'm still really excited to come in every day to work.
37:40
That's wonderful. We have run out of time,
37:43
so we have reached what we call your CI to Eye moment. So the question is,
37:48
if you could broadcast one message to the artistic and executive directors,
37:52
leadership teams, staff,
37:54
and boards of a thousand arts organizations, what would it be?
38:01
Be courageous.
38:02
I think it's so nervy to sit in this chair
38:07
sometimes, knowing that people are not going to like what you do,
38:10
knowing that dancers are going to be unhappy with casting,
38:13
knowing that there could be board members who don't like the most recent
38:17
commission you did, knowing that you can't keep everybody happy,
38:21
but you have to have the courage to go for it,
38:25
especially in the arts and with what's going on in our world right now.
38:29
We have to put what we believe is beautiful out there.
38:32
We have to put what we believe is interesting, what sends a message,
38:35
what tells a story, what uplifts something or somebody...
38:40
we have to put it out there. We cannot play it safe.
38:43
Performing arts organizations, the minute you become too safe,
38:47
you become irrelevant and you fade away. Prudency,
38:53
thoughtfulness, not being impulsive, of course. As a leader,
38:56
you have to be really careful with certain things,
38:58
but you can't just play it safe with every decision you make.
39:03
That's very inspiring. Beautiful, and well said. Jonathan Stafford,
39:07
artistic director at New York City Ballet,
39:09
thank you so much for spending time with us today. Thank you.
39:12
Oh, thanks so much for having me.
39:13
It's great to talk about the company and to talk to someone who's such a fan and
39:16
believes in what we do. I don't ever take that for granted,
39:20
that there's so many of you who find joy in what we do,
39:24
and it makes me continue to stay focused and
39:30
enthused for what we're doing. So thank you.
39:32
Absolutely. A pleasure. Thank you so much.
39:47
Thank you for listening to CI to Eye.
39:48
This episode was edited and produced by Karen McConarty and co-written by Karen
39:53
McConarty and myself, Dan Titmuss.
39:55
Stephanie Medina and Jess Berube are CI to Eye's designers and video editors,
39:59
and all work together to create CI's digital content.
40:02
Our music is by whoisuzo. If you enjoyed today's episode,
40:07
please take a moment to rate us or leave a review.
40:10
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40:28
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40:37
Until next time, stay nerdy.