Spearheading the charge for quantitative data collection on female leadership in dance, Dance Data Project® (DDP) is a virtual research hub that provides metrics, programming, and resources to “showcase and uplift women throughout the dance industry.” What began in 2015 as founder Elizabeth “Liza” Yntema’s independent efforts to examine the lack of new commissions by female choreographers relative to their male counterparts in major classical companies has since expanded into arguably the most comprehensive digital resource for gender-based leadership statistics in the dance sector. Over the past seven years, DDP has released over 70 reports on the state of artistic directors, resident choreographers, dance festivals, endowments, and more with information sourced from over 800 dance companies.
This spring, I corresponded with Yntema over a shared Google Doc, with administrative support provided by DDP’s External Communications Lead, Nancy Owen. We discussed DDP’s mission to advocate for women in the dance sector, views on leadership pathways in dance, and the upcoming launch of their new online platform, DDP Pro. An abbreviated version of our exchange, edited for clarity and continuity, follows:
Jennifer Passios: DDP has placed a substantial focus on researching leaders and leadership in dance. For the purposes of your research, how do you define leadership in the dance sector?
Liza Yntema: We identify those who are making decisions. Those decisions can be artistic (casting, programming, curriculum, costuming, lights) or financial (salaries, venues, programming) Does a person have authority over other people? Do they have a voice in the direction the organization is heading?
JP: According to your website, your research also “highlights companies and initiatives that are making concrete gains in promoting female choreographers and women in leadership positions.” Are there any leaders or companies in particular who have captured your attention? Who are they and what do you find curious about them?
LY: There are so many leaders who are doing amazing work to elevate women, to diversify funding, to increase interest in and viability of the sector. For example, we note how Nick Mullikin of Nashville Ballet champions women in artistic and technical roles. Tamara Rojo and Kerry Nicholls have initiated a leadership program, Stepping into Leadership, at San Francisco Ballet. The way that Alonzo King is elevating Adji Cissoko at Lines Ballet is interesting. The community collaboration at Charlottesville Ballet illuminates a strong path for arts organizations. Peter Boal has dancers work in the office when they are injured to retain a sense of belonging and increase their understanding of how a ballet company operates, educating future leaders. At Pacific Northwest Ballet, Eva Stone leads a 38-week choreography program for 14-16 year old girls called New Voices that aims to increase the number of young female choreographers.
JP: It seems like all of these examples center on ballet. What is DDP’s relationship to other sectors of the dance industry? Do you have any leaders or work that inspire you in the context of commercial dance forms, social dance forms, freelance work, or other areas outside of the ballet company structure?
LY: Our work has expanded to include contemporary and modern dance companies, percussive dance companies, and, most recently, conductors and composers. We are inspired by the numerous creative residencies, across dance disciplines, that support female artists. Other forms of support more broadly come in the form of grants for childcare and resources that allow women with families to create work. Anyone who thinks outside the box grabs our attention.
JP: Your new platform reflects this expansion into research and advocacy for the multiple artistic voices, like conductors and composers, involved in creating dance productions. Could you talk a little more about DDP Pro?
LY: DDP Pro is a revolutionary interactive digital engagement platform designed to expand access and opportunity for women-identifying creatives in dance and related fields. With the generous support of the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation, the platform addresses an entrenched, word-of-mouth hiring system that concentrates opportunity among a small circle of “star” industry professionals, predominantly male and clustered in New York, London, and other major hubs. We are building an equitable, community-driven, locally searchable database of female-identifying creatives, including directors, choreographers, répétiteurs, intimacy directors, composers/conductors, costume designers, scenic, sound, and lighting designers, and cinematographers.
JP: How is DDP Pro different from sites like Hire Culture (Massachusetts), Fiverr, Upwork, or LinkedIn?
LY: Our site is for female identifying creatives. Period. We are transparent in our intention to increase the hiring of women and address gender imbalances in dance, theatre, and music. Additionally, DDP Pro is not a job site. While hiring is a primary goal, networking and exposure are also extremely important. There aren’t any job listings, only creative profiles with no communication happening between parties on the platform. People can put as much or as little contact information as they would like and the site is searchable whether or not you are a hiring entity.
JP: Circling back to the artist categories included in the database, I notice that “dancer” isn’t among the titles eligible for profiles on the new platform. It seems to me that if DDP aims to expand access and opportunity for women-identifying creatives in dance, dancers would be part of the equation. Why aren’t they there?
LY: Since our work focuses on leadership, the decision making parties in companies, we do not include dancers in our data samples (with the exception of numbers of dancers). The process for hiring dancers is quite different from that of commissioning choreographers or hiring stage technical positions or conductors. There are auditions, company advancement, and school/academy pathways to jobs.
JP: Would you elaborate on how dancers come into leadership positions and how those pathways are understood in the DDP research? In a past email to me, you mentioned that DDP research focuses on “women moving past their dancing careers into leadership roles” which seems to indicate that dance comes first and leadership comes second.
LY: Dance as a stepping stone to leadership could fill an entire article. We have a number of studies and resources pertaining to dancers and leadership pathways on our site including our Data Bytes which cover leadership transition and who moves into these positions and when, and DDP Talks To, a program that focuses on women in leadership positions. We also have an upcoming study in collaboration with Smith College looking at the disparities in choreography career paths between men and women where we will look at resumé data from LinkedIn, company websites, etc. to determine whether dance is an actual pathway to leadership and if gender is a factor on that leadership road.
JP: For you, what does a more gender-equitable dance sector look like? What do you see as DDP’s main role in moving toward that vision?
LY: Gender equity comes from opportunity. What we, as a sector, need to identify, is where and when those opportunities are not available. DDP gives that data: are commissions for choreography going to women? Are companies being led, on the artistic or executive side, by women? Who’s leading the schools? Where does a woman’s career trajectory diverge from her male counterparts? Our responsibility is to provide accurate, metrics-based analyses that are transparent and methodologically sound. When the sector has that quantitative data, decisions can be made separate from emotion. We do not characterize the data. What is exciting and reassuring is the appetite for the studies.
Jennifer Passios in conversation with Dance Data Project® founder Elizabeth “Liza” Yntema with administrative support from Nancy Owen, conducted asynchronously over Google Docs in May and June, 2026.
