Ballet BC dancer Emily Chessa performs in Medhi Walerski's just BEFORE right AFTER. Chessa says a $2-million philanthropic gift to raise salaries is 'a turning point' for the company's dancers.Supplied
Ballet BC, Vancouver’s renowned contemporary dance company, has received its largest-ever philanthropic donation and plans to pass all the money on to its dancers, the company announced today.
With a gift from Jane McLennan, a long-time supporter of Ballet BC and other Vancouver performing arts groups, the company has established a 10-year, $2-million Dancer Investment Fund. The money will be distributed by way of contracts extended from 48 to 52 weeks, as well as increased weekly compensation for dancers.
In the United States, by comparison, the longest unionized ballet contract is 43 weeks, and among modern companies, only Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York works more than 40 weeks a year, according to a spokesperson for the American Guild of Musical Artists.
“It is a turning point for us, for sure,” said Emily Chessa, Ballet BC’s longest tenured dancer.
McLennan’s donation will help the company’s dancers “survive in this expensive city,” Chessa said, noting that Vancouver’s skyrocketing rents prevent her colleagues from living close to the company’s new headquarters on artsy, in-demand Granville Island. “To get help like this is amazing.”
Company leaders declined to share specific details about Ballet BC’s contracts, but said salaries now start at the same hourly rate as those at National Ballet of Canada in Toronto. New corps members are scheduled to make just under $1,196 a week next season, according to National Ballet’s publicly available union contract.
“It’s really about the dancers and creating an equitable and sustainable salary base for them throughout the year,” said Rupert Tookey, Ballet BC’s interim managing director.
McLennan’s forthcoming gift was announced internally last fall. Once funds were available, the dancers received a retroactive salary bump. The company closed out its 2023-2024 season with a June residency and performance at Italy’s Orsolina28 Art Foundation, and thanks to the gift, will receive paycheques during their four weeks off for the first time.
In years past, dancers have supported themselves with summer side hustles, ranging from waiting tables to teaching at their hometown dance studios. But for Ballet BC’s foreign dancers with limited work permits, choosing to travel home meant forfeiting employment insurance benefits, Tookey said.
McLennan didn’t want Ballet BC’s dancers to continue making that choice.
“She has always been deeply committed to supporting the dancers and their professional development,” said Medhi Walerski, Ballet BC’s artistic director, and Tookey’s partner in life and work. Chessa, meanwhile, described McLennan as the Ballet BC donor who is closer to the dancers than any other, including hosting the company for an annual pool party.
Both McLennan and her late husband, Norval Hume McLennan, were born into storied Vancouver families. His grandfather, Robert Purves McLennan, was a politician, banker and hardware store magnate. Her father, F.R. Graham, was a financier and industrialist who owned the Union Steamship Company and was among the original 11 donors to the Vancouver Foundation, one of Canada’s largest non-profits.
Now in her mid-90s, McLennan began discussing her major gift to Ballet BC a decade ago, Walerski said. He took the helm of the company in 2020, after former artistic director Emily Molnar departed to run Nederlands Dans Teater. Under Molnar’s leadership, Ballet BC emerged as a top incubator for dancers and choreographers in Canada, including new Ballet Edmonton artistic director Kirsten Wicklund. The company also enjoys a long relationship with Vancouver-based choreographer Crystal Pite.
Just one spot in the senior company opened up for the past two seasons, a remarkably low turnover rate. The company also hires four “emerging dancers” each year, for a total of 20 members. Only Chessa opted to retire this year, and she’s staying on in a transitional role. For that single full-time spot and four junior positions, Ballet BC received 700 audition tapes.
“This dancer investment fund really goes toward attracting great dancers and then wanting to stay with us,” Tookey said. “We are very lucky and grateful.”
For Chessa, the mid-season raise provided by the gift has allowed her to buy a car so, for the first time in her career, she’s not dragging her heavy dance bag full of gear on a 40-minute bus ride. “I’m getting home to rest earlier,” Chessa said. “We’re going to be able to have lives outside of rehearsal and eat good food.”
In a world of arts philanthropy that seems to prioritize names on buildings and shiny new commissions, dancers sometimes feel like they are “the last ones on the list,” Chessa said. McLennan’s gift changed that. “We’ve been like, “Wow. Someone wants to give a gift to make our lives better, and to recognize all our hard work,’” she said.