San Jose Dance Theatre

In 2022-23 sjdt continued our professional ballet company with the hiring of 7 professional dancers, comprised of 2 men and 5 women. We also ontinued our scheduled sjdt academy program and open division program, for beginning through advanced students. Following our 3-year strategic plan, in 2022-23 we hired a full-time executive director on staff in addition to our full-time accountant, transferring those roles from a volunteer-based model to a paid rofessional staff model. Sjdt has mounted and performed the full-length the nutcracker ballet in San Jose for 58 consecutive years. We were able to go back to live performances in december 2021, but our seating capacity was limited to 1000 patrons per performance, due to covid restrictions. In december 2022, we were able to return to regular performances for 2 weekends, but in december of 2023, we were unable to secure the 2nd weekend of performances, due to the lack of theater availability. The nutcracker, aside from academy tuition, is sjdts biggest revenue source. The nutcracker is performed at the 2,600-seat San Jose center for the performing arts with a full orchestra. Our audiences for the 2022 nutcracker performances exceeded 7,000 patrons in total. We generally do 8 performances for the public over 2 weekends. However, in 2023, we were only able to secure 1 weekend in the theater. We have huge volunteer support from the families at our school whose children perform, or who just love the tradition of volunteering at the nutcracker every year. For nutcracker in 2022 and 2023, we also held our annual school show on the friday morning of opening night. This show is for under-served school children in the area and is part of our sjdt nutcracker tradition for the community. We have offered it for decades. We coordinate with area schools who arrange buses to bring the children to the theater. School show tickets are at a greatly reduced price. In large productions such as the nutcracker and cinderella, our student dancers perform with our professional company dancers and trainees. These are great opportunities for all involved. Auditions are open to all dancers in the San Jose and sf bay area for the nutcracker, making it a true community event. Our professional dancers performed 3 productions in addition to our annual nutcracker. In february of 2023, we performed first light at the hammer theater. In may of 2023, we performed cinderella at the California Theatre, and in october of 2023, we performed dracula at the hammer theater. Our studios were open for classes with distancing and masks for 2022-23. We followed the county guidelines accordingly. Our goals for outreach programs to area schools in the 2022-2023 fiscal year were sidelined by the pandemic. We look forward to reporting about our outreach programs success and accomplishments in the next letter in 2023 and 2024. We established a diversity scholarship program with funds earmarked for children and students of under-served communities and under-served ethnic backgrounds. Now that our studios are open for in-person classes again, we look forward to fulfilling our ambitions to fully utilize the diversity funds for students who may not otherwise have the opportunity for the ballet and Dance training offered at sjdt. We continued our partnership program with the girl scouts of america to introduce the art of ballet. The workshops were held at our two largest productions, cinderella and the nutcracker. They have been very successful and well-received. We provide several free or discounted tickets to our performances to the public each year. We look forward to providing reporting on 2023-2024 free performances in the next reporting letter. In january of 2023 we brought in a new artistic director, mariana zschoerper and assistant director, augusto silva. Our students, their families, our teachers, staff and management create the structure for sjdt to grow. I am a former dancer with sjdt and studied and performed under the founders. We care about creating a strong artistic base in the San Jose area and doing it through the art of ballet.

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