Neighborhood Nonprofit Spotlight: Nashville Ballet

Patch talks to the Nashville Ballet about its mission to create, perform, teach and promote dance in the Nashville community.

Patch: Tell Patch a little bit about your organization!

Nashville Ballet: Since our founding in 1986, Nashville Ballet has grown to become the largest professional ballet company in Tennessee. We’ve transformed from a troupe of 12 professional dancers into a company of 24 with a second company (NB2) of more than 35. Nashville Ballet and NB2 provide more than 75,000 arts experiences to adults and children annually through season performances and Community Engagement programming in 16 counties across Tennessee and Kentucky.

Additionally, School of Nashville Ballet enrolls 2,000 students age 2-70 annually who take a wide variety of dance classes at two locations in both Nashville and Brentwood. Our mission is to create, perform, teach and promote dance as an essential and inspiring element of the community, because we believe in the transformative power of art. Because of ballet, we can help people escape from everyday worries, inspire solutions to problems, initiate the creation of other art forms and provide the confidence to tackle any challenge.

Patch: How does your organization help to strengthen the local community?

Nashville Ballet: Engaging with the local community is at the heart of our mission. Our Community Engagement Program provides wide-reaching and innovative educational dance programming throughout Middle Tennessee. Last year, these programs reached more than 40,000 individuals through performances at schools, libraries, community centers and anywhere else we can perform.

In August 2016, we launched a new Young Men's Scholarship Program to provide tuition-free ballet training to males age 6-18. The program is a part of our mission to break down barriers associated with men and ballet and to create an accessible way for males to become introduced to the art and athleticism of ballet. We’re also just one of 12 ballet companies nationwide that partners with American Ballet Theatre’s Project Plié. Nashville Ballet dancers and instructors visit local Boys & Girls Clubs to teach ballet classes to children who may not otherwise have the opportunity to receive organized dance instruction or be exposed to the art of dance.

Patch: What are the biggest struggles your organization faces?

Nashville Ballet: One of our biggest challenges is letting the community know that we’re more than just a professional ballet company. Many people don’t realize that while that’s a massive part of our organization, we have two other main branches: our Community Engagement Programming and the School of Nashville Ballet.

1. Community Engagement Programming: Last year, we performed more than 350 free Community Engagement Programs in 16 counties in Tennessee and Kentucky, reaching 40,000 people. It’s an intrinsic part of our mission to make dance accessible to everyone because art has the opportunity to change lives, and that shouldn’t be restricted based on socioeconomic status.This program makes that possible.

2. School of Nashville Ballet: We recently completed a massive renovation and expansion to our facility in Sylvan Heights in May 2015, which was initiated to allow School of Nashville Ballet to meet the growing demand in the community. School of Nashville Ballet had been operating at capacity since 2011, but we’re now able to meet the community’s demand with the addition of 13,000 square feet and more studio space. We’ve increased our offerings to offer a wide variety of dance styles, not just ballet, for ages 2-70 of all experience levels. While we certainly love bringing dance to audience members at our professional performances during the season, we also encourage the community to get to know a different side of us by attending one of our free performances in the community or taking a class at School of Nashville Ballet.

Patch: What do you hope for the future of your nonprofit?

Nashville Ballet: We create and present works of art that affect, challenge, transform and lift the human spirit, providing an opportunity for audiences to escape their hectic lives and to have a shared experience together. Each performance season, we take steps to broaden our repertory—allowing us to both attract new audiences and diversify our offerings for our loyal patrons. We want to continue to push the boundaries of our offerings while presenting classical pieces that show the breadth of our professional company. We not only want to become an intrinsic part of Nashville's fabric, but also expand our reach to a national level. This April, our company will go on tour to The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. to perform The Ben Folds Project as a part of the Ballet Across America series.

We were hand selected by Misty Copeland to join the program, which celebrates some of the most innovative dance happenings across America today, so it says a lot about our growing reputation in the dance world. We also envision the School of Nashville Ballet to become known regionally and nationally as a top tier provider in ballet education. One of our overarching goals is to provide superior training for both the female and male dancers of tomorrow. We're taking big strides toward this with the launch of our new Young Men's Scholarship Program. An extremely rare find in America, the program was created in hopes of breaking down some of the stereotypes and barriers surrounding males in ballet today.

Image via Karyn Kipley Photography, Nashville Ballet