Ballet and Artistic Direction with RWB's Artistic Director Christopher Stowell

Hi everyone and welcome back to the Art-O-Log. Today, I'm excited to be kicking things off with an interview with Christopher Stoll, the new Artistic Director of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. The Royal Winnipeg Ballet is Canada's oldest ballet company and longest continuously operating ballet company in North America. Christopher Stoll was born in New York City and received his training at the Pacific Northwest Ballet School and the School of American Ballet. In 1985, he joined the San Francisco Ballet School and the School of American Ballet. In 1985, he joined the San Francisco Ballet, where he danced for 16 years, appearing in theaters throughout the world.

An established interpreter of the George Balanchine repertoire, stoll has appeared in almost every Balanchine ballet performed by the San Francisco Ballet. In 2003, stoll was named the Artistic Director of Oregon Ballet Theatre, a position he held until 2012. In 2017, stoll was named the first Associate Artistic Director of the National Ballet of Canada, a position he held until 2022. Stoll has taught and coached in San Francisco, new York, japan, china and across Europe. He's created works for San Francisco Ballet, pennsylvania Ballet, the National Ballet of Canada, the Los Angeles Ballet and the Pacific Northwest Ballet, as well as the New York City Ballet Choreographic Institute. His ballets are in the repertoire of the Carolina Ballet, grand Rapids Ballet Ballet, idaho Diablo Ballet, orlando Ballet and the Oregon Ballet Theater. Stoll is a representative of the Balanchine Trust and has also staged the works of Mark Morris and Christopher Wheldon. This month, stoll begins his tenure as the Artistic Director of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. Hi, christopher, welcome to the Art-O-Logue.

Hey Madison, Thank you so much. Delighted to be here.

How did you first get involved with ballet?

Okay, so my story is maybe unexpected a little bit. Both my parents were dancers with the New York City Ballet when I was born, and they pursued a career in the dance sector their entire lives. They were leaders of arts organizations in Europe and then they were the founding artistic directors of Pacific Northwest Ballet, which is one of the biggest companies in the United States, and now they are happily retired.

How did you decide to pursue ballet full-time?

Again, potentially surprisingly, my parents really hoped I would not become a ballet dancer. I think they just recognized that, as exciting and rewarding as it can be, it's also challenging, and I think they were looking forward to having their first child maybe pursue something different. I was initially interested in scenic and costume design, so everything about the theater interested me. I wasn't particularly engaged by the idea of dancing myself, but that was when we lived in Europe, and something that I discovered when we moved back to the United States was the annual production of Nutcracker that every ballet company in the United States does, and I saw that it was full of children having this great theatrical experience. So suddenly my imagination was opened around. Maybe I could be one of those kids.

So I started studying ballet, reluctantly in order to dance one of the children's roles in Nutcracker, and then I thought about this before. I can't remember when something clicked, but I remember finding ballet class boring and then I remember suddenly being completely, overwhelmingly obsessed with trying to do it well, and I think this happens to a lot of kids, which it's a longer conversation maybe, but I think the positive impacts of studying an art form, even if you're not gonna pursue it as a profession. I think just there's so many valuable lessons and just attributes you walk away from with that discipline at an early age and that commitment to something and that collective passion for it. I continued my training at the School of American Ballet, which is the school for the New York City Ballet in New York, and then I joined the San Francisco Ballet as my first professional company.

Can you tell me a bit more about your experience as a professional dancer?

Yeah, so I was incredibly lucky. My first day with the San Francisco Ballet was also the first day of the new artistic director, who had been a dancer. I really admired a star of the New York City Ballet. His name is Helgi Thomas and he is Icelandic. I was incredibly lucky because when a new leader comes in, there's, of course, a shift and a new energy and a new focus and values, change and stuff like that. So I just got in on the beginning of that and I became one of the dancers that he really relied on and was really interested in, and so I got a lot of opportunities right away. He also had wonderful foresight and taste in that he asked a lot of young choreographers to come in and make work on the San Francisco Ballet, and these were choreographers that were at the beginning of their careers and names we weren't familiar with yet. No one was particularly familiar with these names, but they ended up being William Forsyth, james Koudelka and voices that became the most important choreographic voices of the generation I am part of.

Again, incredibly lucky, this guy named Bill Forsyth walks in and makes a leading role for me. I don't know who he is, but he's fascinating, intelligent, captivating. We became friends and he made brilliant dances that I just again so lucky. I always want to recognize that my experience was really special. I also really valued that the San Francisco Ballet was full of dancers from all over the world and we were all sort of specialists in different areas so we could really learn from one another and felt that we were amongst other great artists. Rather than it being overly competitive, we really wanted to learn from one another and we all felt like we were brought something special to the table. So that is another sort of culture that Helgi, the director, created. That I felt was really impactful, not just on my career but on the success of the San Francisco Ballet.

As a dancer, you appeared in almost every George Balanchine ballet and have even gone on to stage some of his works. Can you tell me more about George Balanchine's importance to ballet and why you gravitate to his work?

So, as I mentioned, my parents were dancers with the New York City Ballet when I was born and Balanchine was the director and artistic. I was going to say God, that's overt stating, but just really the inspiration behind that whole organization, really a singular leader and also the most important choreographer on the planet at that moment. So they were incredibly influenced by their relationship with George Balanchine and they also now, for many years, have felt that they were so lucky to be in that place at that time. He was creating many of his masterpieces. They were involved. My mother became one of the foremost stagers, so teachers, of his work. For instance, she was the first person to go back to Russia after Balanchine's death and he had been with the communist regime. His work was no longer allowed to be performed for many years. He was one of the most famous Russian artists, but his work had not been seen for over 50 years in Russia and he chose my mother to be the person to go back to St Petersburg and stage the first Balanchine Ballet at the Berensky Theater. So they had this incredible relationship with him.

My training was incredibly varied, which I really appreciate and something that I really bring to how I do my work now as a leader and teacher and choreographer.

But there were a lot of specific values that related to the work of Balanchine that were fundamental aspects of my training. So I feel like I had both an intellectual and a physical understanding of his work and, like I was saying, san Francisco Ballet was made up of artists from so many different backgrounds. I felt like what I brought to the table that was different from someone trained in France or Russia or Cuba was that I really understood viscerally the work of Balanchine and there's a lot to speak about there. He incredibly musical choreographer and like a brilliant musician himself, so he could dissect the Igor Stravinsky score, understand it, understand the blueprint of it and try to recreate that blueprint in movement. So the connection between movement and music is something that I continue to find incredibly satisfying and I think that was one of, I'll just say, a unique quality that I brought to my dancing. So I felt like a specialist in his work and therefore it was the area of the repertoire at San Francisco Ballet that I was the most involved with.

After you retired as a dancer, you began to teach ballet. How did teaching the art form affect your understanding of ballet?

When I started teaching I was still dancing, so I recognized at the time I was really bringing what I needed as a performer to the classroom, which had its attributes, because I felt very connected to the students. And I still feel very connected to the dancers that I coach and teach, because I feel like I still have a very distinct memory of being one of them. I don't feel like I've moved on from that. Although I don't dance anymore, I still feel like a dancer.

But my teaching has changed over time because as a 30 something year old dancer, what I needed in daily class is different from what a 17-year-old needs. So I've tried to over the years that I've been teaching which is many now find a balance between what is necessary for a mature person who is trying to get their body, keep their body as healthy as possible and really keep it flexible and open to different styles, and what a younger dancer needs that is, still developing muscle memory, strength, coordination, the fundamentals. So I try to find a middle of the road that can, because I often teach a group of dancers that can range from 17 to 47. So I can't create a class that is ideal for any one person, but I can create a class that has values that connect or make sense to dancers of a variety of experiences.

So there was a bit of crossover between your time as a dancer and teacher, but I'm wondering what the transition was like from going from being a dancer to then being a choreographer and artistic director at several prominent companies.

Yeah, so I began my career my post-dancing career and leadership career, I should say very early. I was appointed the artistic director of Oregon Ballet Theater when I was 36. I think at the time I was the youngest artistic director of a ballet company in the United States. I say that because that had an impact on how the next phase of my career went. I feel like I had a lot. My sort of naivete and enthusiasm and immediate connection to being a dancer brought a lot to how I led. But there was also a whole bunch that I didn't know at that time and sometimes not knowing things is actually helpful because you don't get overwhelmed. I just felt very confident at the beginning of my career and had a lot of enthusiasm and drive and felt very connected to the global dance world and I wanted to bring all of that to my position in Oregon.

I feel like I've grown and my perspective has just a much bigger range now than it did then, which is something I'm really excited to bring to my role.

I feel like a cornerstone of how I enter a community or lead an organization or just make art with people or bring art to people is through relationships and relationship building. So right now I'm focusing for the beginning of my tenure I begin my role in Winnipeg officially on June 1st really about building relationships, connecting with people, connecting with the community, understanding where people are coming from, with this sort of deep sense of gratitude that I and I hope other people feel this too in our sectors that we're so lucky to be making art and much of running or being part of an arts organization can be stressful, of course, but I try to always remind myself that at the end of the day, we're so lucky or I feel in any way incredibly lucky and I want to bring that sense of gratitude and the day we're so lucky or I feel in any way incredibly lucky and I want to bring that sense of gratitude and excitement about what we get to do to every conversation and every relationship I have.

What differences have you found in the Canadian ballet world in your career so far compared to the other parts of the world that you've performed and worked in?

Yeah, that's a great question. So Karen Kane invited me to join the National Ballet of Canada back in 2016,. I think it was as associate artistic director. They'd never had one and she and I had known each other for a number of years and she really wanted to have me part of the organization and for she and I to work really closely together. Although I knew many Canadian dancers there was a whole influx of Canadian dancers at the San Francisco Ballet during my time as a dancer there I had never worked in Canada beyond sort of some guest stints as a teacher.

So I think one big difference is and I'm so grateful to Canada for this Canada understands the value of the arts and there is some sort of foundational funding for arts organizations in Canada which, although there's still pressure to raise more money, do better at the box office because we want to be ambitious all the time.

I haven't felt that there's a nail biting scenario for arts organizations, because it's probably not the dollar amount.

It's just the sense that with that the country, you don't have to prove your relevance, the relevance of the art, the impact the arts can make on communities in Canada the same way you do in, let's say, the US and Canada is a great example of a happy medium.

You work very hard with US organizations to to fundraise and make sure that you are financially stable and can still take risk and support artists well and put things on the stage that really reflect your values. And and in Europe there's a lot more government funding and while I 100% agree with that, I can also see in some instances in European organizations that there can be a little bit of complacency or a feeling that is always going to be there, so we don't really need to worry about that, and making sure your public is happy and making sure that you aren't vulnerable to changes in government is important. I guess that's all to say. I think this sort of happy medium of a real understanding of the value of the arts and a show of support from governments and foundations and individuals in Canada creates just a tiny bit more of comfort that allows us to remain focused on the risk-taking and the community building and all the values that are important to arts organizations.

As a dancer and as a professional. You've had a lot of experience as dancers, an artistic director, in different capacities. Can you tell me more about what an artistic director of a ballet company does?

Yeah, good question. I suppose it might vary from organization to organization depending on the size of the organization, what community it's in. I'll tell you what I love about how I go about it and the various aspects of it that I see I love that, being the artistic leader, I can influence and be part of conversations. That I see I love that, being the artistic leader, I can influence and be part of conversations throughout the organization. So I love teaching, I love coaching. I have really I have really valued developing relationship with artists to create new work, but those are all in the studio and very specific relationships. So, getting to program, getting to influence the impact an organization has on a community, feeling like I'm the voice and face which can feel like a lot of pressure or a lot of pressure just so important to it. There's so much writing on that, but I also really appreciate that Everything from fundraising, building relationships, programming the work, making sure the training and the rehearsal processes for all the artists hold the values that I think are important and really supporting artists and making sure that they are well taken care of.

One great thing about the RWB is it has a professional school and boarding and housing within its building.

So I have been the leader of an organization in the past that had a school, so I feel familiar with that. But this is a larger school with more arms to it and the whole residency side of it the residence is new to me. That is something that doesn't happen very often in the United States at all, so I also really am looking forward to getting involved in the school side of things. So there's the performing organization and then there's the training organization, which is everything from training young people that want to become professional dancers to adults, to people that want to have a more recreational connection to dance, and I love that the RWB school has that full spectrum and I'm really excited about getting involved in that. I love that I need to be, and can be, involved in all aspects of the organization. It does become a huge amount of responsibility and work, but I think if you're only responsible for one portion, it's hard to have the impact and create the relationships that you want. So I'm really appreciative of and excited about building those relationships in Winnipeg.

What does it mean for you to become the artistic director of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet?

Again, super excited and grateful. I started going to RWB performances when I was a teenager. They used to tour all over the United States, so I would see them probably on an annual basis for several years and I just remember what an exciting and unique, dynamic, diverse, distinct ballet company they were. They weren't like any other dance company I had ever seen. Just a little pinch me moment that this, many years later, I'm being asked to lead that organization. Also excited because we get to move back to Canada. My husband's Canadian and I loved living in Toronto and Canada. Those two things together a brilliant organization with a fantastic reputation that I feel very lucky to be a part of, and the opportunity to move back to Canada and create a new life with my husband and our dog. So all of that I feel, as I said, incredibly excited and grateful and looking forward to everything we can make happen there.

What are some of your goals as artistic director?

Let's see, I feel like I have so many and I've been struggling lately and whittling down putting them into a list of priorities. But first of all, to get to know everybody within the organization, particularly the dancers, but of course everyone, everyone but develop a relationship with the artists, because I think that's really important, and alongside that, develop relationships within the community and, as I was saying earlier, that's already happened. People have been so welcoming and stepping forward and introducing themselves and saying I work at the theater company, the opera, the symphony and other organizations Please, let's get together, let's find ways of collaborating and how we can support one another. So that's incredibly exciting to me. You mentioned earlier some programming and directions that I might want to take the organization. I do need to get to know the organization and particularly the community and its audiences. So you want to strike a balance between challenging everyone but also making sure that you're getting people along for the ride. You don't want to step off a cliff with a new aesthetic or approach and alienate or scare or disappoint people that have long relationships and love for the organization. So I have to strategize how to go about that.

But I'm working hard on the projects I want us to do. A lot of them have to do with building a repertoire of Canadian art, so working with Canadian artists in particular, I'm working on launching a program that is really about supporting Canadian artists, not just dance artists, but artists of different mediums. There are some voices, choreographic voices, that have not been seen in Winnipeg and that I want our artists and our audiences to experience, and I also want to make sure that we have a real an arc to a season, an arc to our artists' experience and our audiences' experiences, and that we build up our ability to tour again, because that's a big part of the history of Royal Winnipeg Ballet, and I'm already in conversation with presenters and tour managers about how we can start molding more specifically who we are and what we do to appeal to audiences and communities of both larger and smaller, across Canada and beyond.

This February, the Indigenous Advisory Committee and one board member of the RWB resigned, stating that the IAC had been tokenized by the organization. Be resigned stating that the IAC had been tokenized by the organization. Can you tell me more about how the RWB and you, as artistic director, plan to move forward towards reconciliation and mend the company's relationship with Indigenous communities?

Yes, so I'm glad we're talking about this. It happened almost right after I arrived. After I was appointed, I was really disappointed and concerned about this. One of the first things on my list was to get to meet and get to know the members of the IAC. One of the reasons I was interested in joining RWB was that it has actually a very interesting history in the dance world of building relationships with indigenous communities and telling their stories. So I was surprised that this rift had happened. I have made sure that I'm a part of the conversations that are, of course, going on now.

A lot of work is underway. I said I really need to understand how the organization is addressing this because it's going to be important for me and the organization in the future. So I'm happy to say some important steps have been taken. There is education and training for the board and the leadership team underway, really working on understanding Indigenous history, dealing with anti-racism, cultural literacy, just to really make sure that RWB is stronger, moving forward. They've also hired an independent consultant to do a sort of third-party review of everything that led up to the resignation, because so many people internally are just very upset understandably but really feel so terrible that anyone working with the organization would feel not respected or welcome, and that's because those are values that are really important to the organization. And then, once we have the learning from that third-party review, really applying the learning to all the processes and policies to make sure we're reflecting equitable and inclusive practices throughout the organization.

On a personal level, I've been mentioning relationships since we started talking today. As I said, they're really important to me and I want to be involved in building more stronger relationships. Understanding the history One of the things that is exciting to me about this job is getting to know what makes Winnipeg, manitoba and Manitoba distinct. So I don't I've worked in Toronto, but I don't I would never say Canadian dance companies are the same. I want RWB to reflect the communities that it serves and that it's a part of and indigenous. The indigenous community is such an important and valued part of the cultural climate, the landscape in Manitoba. That is one of the primary relationships that I really want to be a part of building and understanding and learning from.

Conversations like this go to show that ballet is just as relevant today as it was in the past. In your opinion, what is it about ballet that makes it so enduring?

Sometimes I feel like one weakness of mine is that I was immersed in the art form so early that I don't have an aha moment where I discovered ballet. But I do believe and I say that only because it's always been part of my life, and that's just not true for everyone. I love to hear the stories about, let's say, a child that you know ended up in a dance class, didn't know what the what was going on and suddenly felt like the world made sense to them Cause that happens to a lot of people or adults having these epiphanies at the ballet and the theater. Just how beautiful it is.

I do feel like the language has so much to say. It's such a detailed and distinct language and it doesn't have to be used in a 19th century in a tutu classical way at all, but it's so expressive. It's almost like you can say things in the language of ballet that we just can't say with our voices and with spoken language, and I love that. It can illuminate the human experience in ways that we don't have definitions for in English or any other language. There's never going to be a limit to how we can explore what this language can do and the beauty of dancers who make being fluent in this language sort of a life's goal. I admire dancers so much for diving into the necessary immersion and training into being fluent in this language and then feel like anything is possible with those artists. I'd love to actually hear when you discovered ballet and what it means to you.

My mom put me in ballet classes when I was really young and took me to the ballet in Toronto, but I was not interested in it whatsoever when I was a kid. It wasn't until I was an adult and I watched the movie Black Swan that I had a reintroduction to it, although I'm not sure how accurate the movie is. But from there I started watching videos randomly of Mikhail Baryshnikov. Everything that he was in. I found him so interesting in the way that he moved to be so powerful and lyrical, and from there I just got really into ballet, started going here in Winnipeg. I got the opportunity to chat with Cameron Fraser Monroe as well, who choreographed at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. Ever since then I've just been so interested in learning more and more about ballet, which actually leads me on to my next question who are some ballet dancers that inspire you or continue to inspire you?

What's so interesting about that is so Baryshnikov, who I know, long time idol. What I really admire about him now more than when I was a 16-year-old, is his interest and commitment to dance in general. Even though he was the foremost classical technician of his generation, he didn't rest on his laurels or limit himself and explored every kind of movement, and that's the kind of he was way ahead of his time and that's the kind of thing that dancers now are much more committed to. Our sector is more committed to really being able being fluent in a variety of movement styles and traditions. So he is definitely an idol.

There's two things I'll categorize. They're the dancers that when I was a teenager that you're in that sort of frame of mind. When you're a young ballet student at 15 or 16, when you're just in awe of certain people Baryshnikov, gelsi, kirkland and at that time there was no way of seeing these dancers. There's no social media. I could only see them live or in maybe some what's it called, I guess, black market or footage snuck by someone in their purse, and it was all just very different than now. And I do have some concerns about young dancers' connection to the art form because of what's available to them constantly because people are not posting themselves failing. They're not posting themselves doing a whole ballet where they have to sustain the arc of a story or of a choreographer's intent or the sections that were hard for them. So I think there's a little bit of lack of reality around what a good ballet dancer looks like.

If you're looking at social media all the time, I like dancers where the whole arc is the interesting part, not the moment where they could lift their leg the highest or turn the most. And I am fans of dancers that no one has ever heard of because I've seen what they put into their work and how they have grown as artists. And I will say increasingly there are brilliant dancers all over the world that none of us have ever heard of. I go to large and small organizations and sometimes the most lauded or famous artist in the organization is by far not the most interesting one to me. So I don't really want to name a whole bunch of people when in fact I feel like there's probably I know for sure there are dancers that we don't know that are brilliant and doing brilliant work wherever they are, and that's true in Winnipeg as well.

What have been some career highlights for you.

Wow, so many. Again, a lot of gratitude, working with great choreographers when I was a dancer, like really important artists, like I already mentioned, so lucky Working in a company like the San Francisco Ballet that went from strength to strength during my time there and so I'm just doing the dancer portion now. I had great teachers. I had obviously my parents, great mentors and supporters throughout and continuing throughout my career. I'm getting to dance in theaters all over the world. How many people can say and again, I feel so lucky. I danced at the Paris Opera, I danced at Lincoln Center, I danced at Kennedy Center, I danced at the Bolshoi Theater, I danced in theaters in St Petersburg, I've been on the stage of the main theater in Havana, cuba, this passport to the world through art.

And then in the other portions of my career beyond being a dancer, I think they're much, not smaller, but working with dancers, seeing the hard work they put in come to fruition, one of the main things I stress with dancers is be a student in the classroom and then be a wild animal on stage, so instilling those values.

We have to work super hard on all elements of technique, be really hard on ourselves. To a certain degree, classical ballet is crazy hard, almost impossible to do, and let's try really hard when we're in the studio, but then let's let it all loose on stage in front of an audience. I want every live performance to be a unique experience and for dancers to take risks and really respond to whatever is happening to them. As a person, an artist, in the moment and when I have worked with dancers and they've really adopted those values and I don't mean because I asked them to, but that they've adopted the values and seen them, and then I see them and they see in themselves that they had these huge leaps as artists. That is wildly satisfying to me. I feel so, so proud of them and so happy that I've had a positive influence on them.

What have been some harder career moments and how did you overcome them?

Let's see deciding to stop dancing and having my body begin to really tell me that I couldn't do this a whole lot longer. That was hard because it's an identity change. You're just completely connected. Your connection to the world is I am a ballet dancer, I am a performer, and that going away was hard. I was lucky that other opportunities came my way quickly, but the last few years of my dancing career I had to reckon with that this was going to be over and there were moments that were difficult. It's hard on your body. My body was telling me relatively early that I had done enough. So there was that.

And then, working in arts organizations, there's such highs and lows to know that we put on a great performance and then not that much later there are funding difficulties and financial stresses and you have to let go of some people that you know that have been major in positive influences on an organization.

I would say probably every leader, any leader of any, in any sector, would say when you have to make hard decisions that reflect individuals' lives, but you're doing it for the greater good of the organization, that's just something that you have dark nights of the soul around and you have to really take a deep breath and say this is what's necessary for what I have been hired to do. And then career ups and downs and having great roles, and then having some periods where I had to. I wanted to step away from a role, but it took a little while to regroup and understand what I wanted to do next. I have found that every time I do that, although it's been a challenging year or two, I've always emerged much more sensitive, broader perspective. I just always feel like I'm a better and more empathetic and prepared leader after a period of reflection.

What advice would you have for someone looking to become an artistic director of a ballet?

That's interesting. I'm actually mentoring a young dancer from Joffrey Ballet right now who is not specifically wanting to run a ballet company but wants to host his dancing career, be a leader in the dance world, and it's an interesting conversation for me as well, because the role has changed over time. It used to be more that you were, in quotes, the ballet master and that you were in charge of making the art, training and making the art. But now I feel like, for better or for worse, and mostly for better, we have to explain the relevance of the value, of the potential impact of our art form to our communities. Now, having to go through that process of being able to explain is incredibly valuable and I feel like I'm much more articulate and thoughtful because I've had to go through all of that. But it is a lot of pressure on a person, so the role has expanded.

So I would say educate oneself, educate yourself, not just in the dance side, but also the administrative side, certainly the fundraising side, but fundraising again is about building relationships. So don't put yourself in a bubble and say I'm an artist. That is not going to be helpful to the organization or to you. Really be open to, without putting pressure on yourself that you have to be an expert in anything, but really be open to learning from everyone and having conversations. Something that I know now that I didn't when I was 35, is that people love to be listened to and have a lot of interesting things to say, so sometimes leaders feel like their mouth has to be open all the time. It doesn't Actually listening and learning is really important.

I love the idea of the artistic director as a sort of cultural diplomat. I think that's fantastic. What do the people of Winnipeg have to look forward to for your upcoming season in 2026,? What do the people of Winnipeg have to look forward to for your upcoming season in 2026, 2027?

We only do four programs, including Nutcracker in Winnipeg. We do perform a lot because we're on the road, but the opportunities for me to show a variety of work and everything that I'm interested in is very difficult in one season, so I just disclaimer there. But ways in which I want to expand, how we connect with our communities are going to be a major feature. I want us to be out in the community. I want people to run into dance and RWB and for us to work in partnership with other organizations to just bring art to people where they are, rather than expecting people always to come to us. So that's a value and a feature of the company going forward under my leadership.

And I also want us to perform in a variety of spaces.

So run into us somewhere public but also perform not just in an opera house-sized venue but in smaller spaces and sometimes be doing things that are fully produced and sometimes be doing things that are more experimental and be offering opportunities for people to create and take risk and allowing our public, our community, to witness that risk-taking in that sort of workshop scenario and not always see dance in its final form, beautifully polished.

I have found over the years that one of the best ways to get people hooked on dance is to show it to them within six feet of what's happening, because they have no idea the physical effort, the athleticism that goes into it and the attention to detail and nuance that we talk about. We're completely crazy when we talk about what our pinky is doing and how our big toe should reflect the music, for instance, and I think allowing people to be part of that process is going to be an important feature in my leadership and us going forward, and I think it has a huge impact on people. I've seen people just walk away completely overwhelmed and flabbergasted at what actually goes into creating these performances.

Christopher, thank you so much for being on the Artilogue today. It's been so fun talking to you.

It's absolutely my pleasure and I want to say that it's really good for me to have these conversations with someone as interested and intelligent as you, because I like to be able to articulate my interests and values ever better. So it was really a pleasure for me and important for me.