Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation

With only three weeks until the October kick off the Dodge Foundation’s Board Leadership Training Series, past workshop participants share valuable “takeaways” that have changed the way they work. The series began with Laura Otten of the Nonprofit Centre at LaSalle University’s School of Business. She challenged board members to make a commitment to gain the tools to become a more effective governing force. Last week, Alan Levitan, the Board President for the Arts Council of the Morris Area, reported how his board made changes in their board recruitment and meeting structures. This week we hear from both the Artistic Director and Board Chair of the Lydia Johnson Dance Company who provide their unique perspectives on how the workshops influenced their perception of the challenges they face. It doesn’t matter what size your organization is, or where you are in your organizational lifecycle, these workshops promise to be transformational.

Changing the Face of Reality
By Lydia Johnson and Camilla Finch Teitelman

Lydia Johnson, center, with dancers Kerry Shea and Jessica Sand

Lydia Johnson: Artistic Director and Founder

When I first arrived at the Dodge Workshops I was hesitant to share all of the reality of our small Dance Company’s situation. We were presenting full-scale performances with 10 professional dancers in both New York and New Jersey. We had recently performed at Jacob’s Pillow (a prestigious dance festival). We had received insightful and deeply positive reviews from the New York Times, and Backstage Magazine and articulate listings in About The Town in The New Yorker. A well-known New York arts Blogger had come forward asking to feature the Company in a series of articles on the creative process. He wanted to follow the creation of a new dance from start to performance and publish photos of our rehearsals on his blog. We had plans for a Gala Celebration of our 10th Anniversary at both our home theater, SOPAC in South Orange NJ, and in New York at The Ailey Citigroup Theater. Our dance classes were steadily growing and we had an expanding scholarship program for underserved children who wanted to dance.

But this was not the whole picture! There was a reality that our glowing reviews and newly redesigned website did not expose. Our dancers are paid by the project and thus the scheduling around their other commitments and jobs is extremely difficult. We have no office. We had no paid administrative staff. Our Board is a small group of dedicated supporters who meet in each other’s houses. At that time, they were constantly trying to figure out how to divide the never-ending list of volunteer jobs for the next event. Our equipment was unbelievably old and difficult to use. I had to race back and forth between two 10-year-old computers when I was working since one would not open PDF’s and the other held our old hard drive- based database. I functioned as Executive and Artistic Director and Administrative Assistant. I choreographed, taught and did publicity and all of the secretarial work. The Board members who had been with us for a number of years were exhausted from doing everything from cutting up vegetables for fundraisers to planning how to raise awareness of our performances. And most importantly, our understanding of the process of focused fundraising was just beginning to emerge. We were consulting with a development professional but only sporadically.

Ensemble for DUSK, Lydia’s two-part Gorecki ballet

I assumed we would downplay the difficulties of being so small and underfunded. True, we were accomplishing miraculous things with almost no resources, but what we couldn’t possibly have seen, without the Dodge workshops, was that this path we were on had been traveled many times before by creative nonprofits who were now integral to their communities! Nonprofits we admired and aspired to be like had actually been where we were now!

As David Grant began to speak on the Lifecycles of nonprofits, I felt the lifting of the burdens I had been carrying. The burden of thinking we were alone in this experience, that the difficult path was unique to us and therefore somehow our “fault.” The burden of thinking we would be judged harshly if anyone really knew how we were functioning. The burden of being unable to ask questions regarding how to progress since we were reluctant to expose the whole situation – assuming it would shock and upset possible advisors.

Josh Kurtzberg and Laura DiOrio

What a revelation the workshops were! We were given the tools to place our journey in perspective. We had markers and concepts with which to understand our strengths and our limitations. And most importantly we began to understand the tools to change and grow in ways that simply would have been impossible without the structured information and warm support we received.

Kerry Shea and Eric Vlach; Laura DiOrio and James Hernandez, from Lydia’s Untitled Bach

We realized, for example, that while our programming was at a “mature” level, our infrastructure was at a “start up” stage! Well okay that wasn’t such a bad realization – I began to honor and respect even more the wonderful people I was working with and to respect our persistence and ingenuity in moving forward given a pool of resources which were as yet inadequate! The pathway we were on had been traveled before. It had colorful and clear signposts! We were in good company – we were in fact a part of the community of growing nonprofits – and our strength could be expanded by opening up to the pool of collective knowledge I now realized existed. •

Camilla Finch, right, with founding Board member Rayna Pomper

Camilla Finch Teitelman: Board Chair, Founding Member

There was a moment of truth for me during the Dodge fundraising workshop that helped LJD put in place many new changes. Allison Trimarco (the instructor for the Board as Fundraisers workshop) said “You can’t continue to work at this level of sacrifice. It’s just not sustainable.”

We had all known this for years but hadn’t found the right way to change it. We knew the next level for LJD was right around the corner, but we didn’t seem to be able to get there. Of late, we had put in place a number of new initiatives. We had added two new board members—bringing our grand total to six, we expanded our fundraising activities to include individual asks in addition to mail solicitations and income from performances and events, and we began writing more grant applications. But it clearly wasn’t enough. It just took too much to keep the organization going at the current level; moving it forward was another matter.

Going to the Dodge workshops galvanized us to treat LJD more like a business. (Although if I had known what a lousy business running a dance company is I might have had second thoughts!) Our Board meetings became more structured. Board roles were more defined and responsibilities laid out clearly. We faced and changed some of our fiscal management and changed our view of fundraising from a huge sometimes embarrassing chore to a game, even a puzzle. And finally, the Dodge workshops gave us a platform from which to discuss issues that we had often found difficult. “That’s OK, but you know Dodge said…” I dare say was uttered more than once.

In the future, I can see using other tools we learned at Dodge, including strategic planning, methods for assessing our programs. And of course, rubrics for the board and all the activities of our organization! •

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Lydia Johnson, (Choreographer, Artistic Director)

Originally from Massachusetts, Ms. Johnson is the Artistic Director of Lydia Johnson Dance, which has received generous support from the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation in 2008, 2009 and 2010. LJD performs and teaches regularly at SOPAC in South Orange, NJ where they are Dance Company in Residence, as well as at The Ailey Citigroup Theater in New York. The Company performed recently at Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Massachusetts. LJD was founded in 1999 and has received additional support from The Garden State Arts Foundation. The Company has been featured in a series titled “The Creative Process” written by Philip Gardner and photographed by Kokyat on the New York arts blog Oberon’s Grove.

Ms Johnson studied at SUNY/Purchase and on scholarship at The Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. She continued her studies in New York with Finis Jhung and Sara Rudner among others. She presented her early work in New York at numerous dance spaces and founded One Night Stand, a series of Co-operative showcases, which allowed choreographers to present new work inexpensively. She has received a Monticello Foundation award sponsored by The National Association of Regional Ballet as well as a Harkness Dance Center Space Grant from the 92nd Street Y.

Camilla Finch Teitelman, LJD Board President

A journalist by trade, Ms. Finch Teitelman worked on the ABC Network News programs, 20/20, World News Tonight with Peter Jennings and Business World with Sander Vanocur. She has also worked in print journalism with, among other publications, Crain’s New York Business. A native New Yorker, she moved to New Jersey 17 years ago where, along with Lydia Johnson and Rayna Pomper, she began the process that led to the founding and development of Lydia Johnson Dance. Currently LJD’s Board President, Ms. Finch Teitelman is moving into the nonprofit sector and is near completion of a Certificate in Nonprofit Management.

Performance photos courtesy Oberon’s Grove

Wendy Liscow, Program Officer

I owe Dale Busch a long-deserved thank you; it’s a thank you 30 years in the making. Aside from my parents, I would have to say that Dale Busch, and her husband Ted, are responsible for shaping who I am today, my career path and my work ethic. I wrote about my experience with these mentors who first introduced me to the theatre in my previous blog about leadership. Fortunately, thanks to Facebook, last night I was able to reconnect with these two teachers/artists and finally thank them for transforming my life.

The real inspiration for this sudden need for closure with my treasured, though unrecognized mentors came from my recent visits with grantees who have shared inspiring stories about how their education, environmental and artistic programs are impacting lives. I realized that for every story of a kid’s transformation that an artist or teacher can tell, there are hundreds more that they will never know about.

Think about it: if you are an artist, you rarely know how your art impacts others. Sure, you hear the applause, get letters and other positive feedback, present to sold-out crowds, get great reviews, and even make it to the “big time” (whatever that means for the artist’s particular discipline). But you rarely find out the full extent to which you impacted someone’s life or changed the way they view or live in the world. How do you measure the true impact?

If you are an educator, either in a traditional classroom or as part of a nonprofit endeavor, you hopefully get sufficient indicators to keep you motivated and passionate about your work. You see a kid turn around their grades or discover their talents. You witness the blossoming of a student who hasn’t said a word in class suddenly reading a poem out loud in front of the class. You watch a kid decide to make different choices that lead to a totally new future to them. But again, for every story you know about, there are thousands you don’t hear. How can you know when the kids don’t yet know?

At a recent site visit to see a dance class for the youth company of the School of the Garden State Ballet at Symphony Hall in Newark, I witnessed Jody Jaron, the school’s astounding teacher and executive director, in action. She had a group of 30+ kids, ages 7 to 19, primarily from Newark and the surrounding area, laboring in their toe shoes to execute demanding warm-up and dance routines. Jody alternately bellowed compliments and corrections, the girls immediately made subtle adjustments, and indeed there was improvement.

I asked a young woman who had been watching the class with me how she felt about the intensity of the teaching. Turns out she had grown up in Newark, trained under Jody for many years and adored and respected her so much that she came back from college in Virginia whenever she could to help teach classes. While she hadn’t chosen dance as her career, the classes she took at the School of the Garden State Ballet taught her discipline, endurance, the value of working hard for something you are passionate about, and how important it is to give back to your community. This young woman was a metric of Jody’s success and impact.

Although Jody doesn’t always get to see the grown-up end results, she gets to see students accepted into great schools and highly respected companies like Alvin Ailey. Recently a past student wrote Jody on Facebook to tell her that her successful business in cruise lines entertainment planning began when Jody asked her to be in charge of a small section of the Nutcracker. Jody is willing to work 80 hours per week because one student who happens to be in the DYFS system nonchalantly told her that “when she is unhappy, she just thinks about her ballet walks.” These are everyday miracles that often go unnoticed and don’t get measured by quantitative yardsticks.

Sometimes you just have to be comfortable with qualitative measurements.

I am thinking that today would be a good day to celebrate an artist, teacher and/or mentor who impacted your life. Help reveal some of the untold stories. Tell us about your mentors, or if you are lucky enough to know how your work influenced another, share that story too. We would like to know. And don’t just tell us, tell your long lost teacher.

Photos courtesy School of the Garden State Ballet

Laura Aden Packer, Program Director, Arts

Saint Vitus may be the acknowledged patron saint of dancers, but New Jersey dance companies and artists know that the true patron saint of dancers is Randy James.

Saint Randy, currently an assistant professor of dance at Rutgers University and the President of Dance/New Jersey (the statewide service organization for dance companies and dancers), is the founder and artistic director of Randy James Dance Works, an acclaimed company that he started in 1993. Through the years, his company grew to have a national and international touring schedule, while also maintaining a focus on educational and community-based residencies, master classes, lecture demonstrations and workshops here in New Jersey.

Randy put his company on hiatus after an impressive fourteen year run. The demands of running the company day to day coupled with the death of his best friend were exacting a toll and so he decided to devote his time – full-time – to Mason Gross School of the Arts, his alma mater, where he had been teaching for many years. During all this time, and still today, Randy also played an integral role in the development and growth of Dance/New Jersey.

So Randy knows firsthand the inherent challenges of running and sustaining a professional dance company in New Jersey. And he has, single-handedly, changed the fortunes and increased the exposure of a number of New Jersey dance companies while instilling a true appreciation of dance in a new generation of audiences.

Since Randy started teaching his Dance Appreciation class at Rutgers three years ago, it has grown from one section with 53 students to three sections with 1,100 students this spring. In the fall of 2010, Randy anticipates four sections with over 2,000 students enrolled. Amazing. He had to turn away hundreds of students this semester because of space issues, which Rutgers promises to solve for the fall semester. Macada Brandl, Dance/New Jersey’s Executive Director, told me, “Randy’s class is remarkable. I wish I could take it every semester.”

As part of Randy’s class, students are introduced to a range of professional dance companies, many from New Jersey, who perform and lead master classes and lecture/demonstrations. This year, Randy has engaged a number of Dodge grantees: Nimbus Dance Works, Nai-Ni Chen, Carolyn Dorfman Dance Company, American Repertory Ballet, Freespace Dance, Terra Firma, Cleo Mack and The Shua Group. This is an incredible win-win for everyone involved, and needless to say, dance companies in New Jersey are tremendously grateful to Randy for his loyalty to them and his determination to showcase the best of the best work being done by New Jersey dancers and choreographers. The dance companies are receiving excellent compensation from Rutgers. These engagements allow the companies to have more rehearsals, performances, and exposure.

The students at Rutgers are learning about dance in a meaningful way which can only lead to them being dance audience members in the future. (Randy told me, “I see many former students at dance performances all around the state, and they say they love dance now and will continue to seek out dance events in New Jersey.”) In fact, another component of Randy’s Dance Appreciation class involves students going to see performances in other venues. Because he can guarantee the sale of 1,000 seats (his students are required to attend these performances), he has had great success in negotiating with two major presenters, Raritan Valley College (in Branchburg) and The State Theatre (in New Brunswick). He is in conversation with other presenters now, and knowing Randy, it won’t be long before New Jersey dance companies are being featured in venues across the state.

In a creative and sustainable New Jersey, you would hope that the state’s leading university would be making this kind of a difference for an entire genre. Thanks to Saint Randy, it’s happening.

For more information on New Jersey’s dance community, including upcoming performances, check out the Dance/NJ website.

Photo of Randy James courtesy Randy James Dance Works

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