RudduR Dance pursues its mission through performances, community engagement, and programs that reflect the company’s commitment to artist care and development.

Artist-Administrator

Career Pathway Program

The Artist-Administrator Career Pathway Program (AACPP) is a capacity-building initiative that integrates artists into core administrative functions at RudduR Dance. The program creates sustainable dual-pathway roles, embedding artists into areas such as grant writing, operations, marketing, donor communications, and community outreach - while maintaining their artistic practice.

BIPOC artists face severe exclusion in ballet, contemporary circus, and dance: Black artists comprise only 2% of professional ballet companies worldwide, with even less representation in leadership roles. This limits both artistic opportunity and economic mobility, as administrative positions offer career stability, higher compensation, and institutional decision-making power that performance careers often lack.

The AACPP addresses this gap directly. Participants rotate through two-year placements that build long-term capacity for RudduR Dance while expanding leadership representation across the field. The program currently supports two dual-pathway positions, with a short-term goal of six.

What participants gain:

  • Income stability through more consistent compensation than performance-only positions

  • Professional growth through exposure to development, marketing, operations, and community engagement

  • Leadership experience managing large-scale projects and initiatives

  • Career pathways into senior roles within RudduR Dance and the broader arts field

The program is supported, in part, by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and The Emma A. Sheafer Charitable Trust and is being documented as a replicable framework for diversifying leadership in dance, ballet, and circus institutions.

Dancer

Wellness

Program

RudduR Dance is developing a comprehensive wellness program that addresses the physical, psychological, and emotional needs of company artists. In a field where artists routinely absorb the cost of their own care, we are working to build support into the structure of how the company operates. We recognize there is always more to do.

Intimacy Direction & Consent-Based Practice

RudduR Dance was the first dance company globally, as recognized by The New York Times, to embed an intimacy director throughout its creative process. Under the leadership of Resident Intimacy Director Sarah Lozoff, the company maintains consent workshops, boundary-setting protocols, regular check-ins during emotionally charged rehearsals, and post-rehearsal debriefing sessions.

Physical Therapy & Injury Prevention

In partnership with FlySpace Physical Therapy, artists receive on-demand appointments with flexible scheduling to accommodate rehearsal demands and support the extreme physical requirements of work that blends ballet with circus disciplines.

Daily Technique Classes

During active rehearsal periods, the company provides professional morning classes in ballet and other techniques, guest instruction from master teachers, and specialized workshops in aerial bungee, trampoline dance, and circus apparatus safety.

Paid Auditions

RudduR Dance compensates all auditioning artists at minimum wage, ensuring equitable access from the first point of contact. Hired artists receive the difference between minimum wage and the standard company rate, reducing financial barriers to participation.

Hospitality

Recognizing the long hours, physical intensity, and economic precarity many artists face, the company provides healthy snacks, beverages, and light meals when possible, during rehearsals. This practice reflects the company’s belief that meeting basic needs is essential to sustaining an equitable working environment.

We are working to build support into the structure

of how the company operates, not around its edges.