DFW musicians to protest Texas Ballet Theater

by Kevin Buchanan of West and Clear

It wasn’t long ago that I wrote about the Texas Ballet Theater’s recent financial woes, which have led the troupe to commence fundraising activities to stave off collapse. One of the decisions TBT made to cut costs for the upcoming 2008/2009 season was to use pre-recorded accompaniment music instead of the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra, which saves money for TBT but removes a long string of engagements for the FWSO.

Now, the local musicians’ union, the Dallas-Fort Worth Professional Musicians Association, has announced their intention to protest TBT performances during the upcoming season. Says the DFWPMA press release:

The company’s decision to go “canned” will affect seven weeks of Ballet in Fort Worth and one Nutcracker week in Dallas, and has evidently been planned for months, according to information obtained by Union President Ray Hair. “The Ballet company artistic staff traveled to China in June, 2008 and obtained a recording utilizing the staff orchestra of the National Ballet of China, which the company intends to use in place of the Fort Worth Orchestra for performances of Cleopatra at Bass Hall in March 2009,” said Hair. “By using recordings instead of professional musicians, the Texas Ballet Theater is cheating its patrons out of a legitimate ballet experience. Patrons’ tickets reflect the price of a live orchestra, and they should get what they’ve paid for. By outsourcing a live orchestra with Chinese-made recordings, Texas Ballet Theater is guilty of artistic fraud,” said Hair.

The union plans to protest with picket lines and leaflets at all TBT performances using pre-recorded music during the season. More on the saga of the ballet as it progresses.

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Anonymous

if i enjoyed ballet, i would gladly pay more money to hear a live orchestra preform it... why couldn't they just raise the ticket prices? or charge $7 for a bottle of water.

Collin Gouldin Verified

1 year, 2 months ago
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Tough call. From my sources, DFWPMA isn't making it easier on anyone lately, so to kick a ballet when it's down, may be just the way to guarantee that if you can go canned, you better do so quick. On the other hand, the patrons have assumed that there would be a live pit since there always has been.

Man, talk about being between a rock and a hard place. Man, I like my problems much better.

Jason Rice Verified

1 year, 2 months ago
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If you perform a classical ballet like Swan Lake or Coppelia it's expected that you have a live orchestra, BUT if it's a modern ballet it's usually OK and more acceptable to have canned music. The trap TBT has fallen in to is that they usually only present classical ballet instead of modern ballet and audiences are tiring of it. Most large ballet companies spend most of the time presenting modern pieces and relegating the classics to a "treat" where they bring out all the stops (and the orchestra).

Of course to do modern ballet you need good modern day choreographers, and while Ben Stevenson is good he is highly stylized. There needs to be more variety. Their (TBT) idea of modern is Balanchine who now has been dead for over a generation, and while Balanchine is genius the dance world has moved on, and I suspect so have the audiences!

This by the way is coming from someone who used to dance ballet for a living!