The Armstrong Center for Dance, home to the Colorado Ballet, was abuzz with activity Saturday.
In a downstairs studio, 4-year-old Roma, in a pink leotard, was in her pre-ballet class. Teenagers in the pre-professional division were being fitted for costumes in a lobby, and upstairs in a large studio, corps de ballet dancer Sarah Tryon, 24, was rehearsing for the company’s final program of the season.
Tryon had pulled a muscle in her torso during a lift, which left a rib occasionally popping out, so her rib caged was taped and bound. “It’s ballet,” she said with a shrug.
Seven years ago, the Colorado Ballet appeared to be at a financial death’s door, but Saturday’s bustle and a 2017 season finishing with record attendance and box-office receipts show the company is very much alive.
The ballet pulled in $4.2 million in ticket revenue from more than 87,000 theatergoers and posted total revenue of $7.3 million — all records in the company’s 56-year history, based on annual reports and figures provided by the company. The ballet also made those numbers without having raised ticket prices in the last four years.
It is a marked contrast from the organizations fiscal woes between 2004 and 2010 when it suffered repeated deficits, was overextended on projects and saw the firing of its longtime artistic director, Martin Fredmann.
In 2006, Gil Boggs took over as artistic director, charged with righting the ship, but ran into strong headwinds with the 2008 recession. “We were doing ‘Swan Lake,’ and tickets sales were doing well, and then in October, the financial crisis hit, and ticket sales stopped,” Boggs said.
The budget was slashed by more than $1 million, but the ballet, one of Denver’s major art organizations, still ended 2009 with a $500,000 deficit.
So concerned was the city of Denver that in 2010, the Division of Theatres and Arenas required the ballet hold in reserve all ticket revenues related to future performances in the Ellie Caulkins Opera House for refunds in case performances were canceled.
The company ended 2010 with a deficit of $214,500 and since then has worked its way back into the black, reaching a surplus of nearly $250,000 in 2016. The ballet’s current fiscal year ends in June.
“I don’t think it is any one thing,” said Mark Chase, the ballet’s managing director. “It is a combination of things. It is a much better product than it was a few years ago. Our new building has done very positive things. There is more studio space for the academy. It helps attract better dancers.”
The company moved into the $6.5 million Armstrong Center for Dance, in the Santa Fe Arts District, in 2014. It allowed for the expansion for the academy, which offers dance classes for toddlers, children, teenagers training to be professionals and adults.
In 2010, the academy posted a loss. By 2016, the weekly classes and summer intensive classes notched a $360,000 profit. Attendance had more than doubled to 1,000. The center has eight studios, but could use more, Boggs said. “We are already outgrowing our space.”
The choice of ballets also had a lot to do with the season’s success, Boggs said. “The great thing going on with Denver is how many people are moving here, and we wanted a way of introducing ourselves. What is the most recognizable ballet? We went for ‘Swan Lake.’”
And unlike that ill-fated, recession-victim, last October’s “Swan Lake” production exceeded expectations and brought in $883,000. Boggs said that the excitement and interest it generated fed into the “Nutcracker,” always the company’s biggest grossing production. This season again surpassing targets with nearly $2.7 million in box-office receipts.
The repertory program — Ballet MasterWorks — which Boggs said is always the “toughest sell,” pulled in $414,000. The ballet for children, “The Little Mermaid,” which closes the season this coming weekend, was sold out in October, earning nearly $250,000.
To be sure, the company still faces financial challenges and risks. In 2016, performance revenue made up 57 percent of the company’s $7 million budget and the academy another 18 percent, but individual and corporate contributions, which tend to offer budget balance, made up just 27 percent.
A review of financial documents of 405 dance companies by Dance/USA, an organization focusing on dance management, found that on average, contributions made up 44 percent of revenues.
“It’s a challenge,” Chase said. “Ticket sales as part of the revenue stream is higher for us than most.” And in 2016, almost a third of the contributions, $664,000, came from the Scientific and Cultural Facilities District, which is funded by a regional sales tax. “The SCFD has been very important for us,” Chase said.
Administrative costs over the past four years have been held to slightly more than $1 million, and the company is “aggressively paying down” the mortgage on the new building, according to Chase.
“We are in pretty good shape right now, but it hasn’t always been that way,” Chase said. “This is a cyclical business, and when the next dip comes, we want to be sure we can weather the storm.”
