This report, our overview for the 2023/2024 season encompasses the latest findings analyzing the gender distribution of works presented among the Largest 150 U.S. ballet and classically influenced companies. For the first time, this report incorporates tracked performance data, providing valuable insights into the frequency at which works by women and men are performed. In the 2023/2024 season, women choreographed 30.6% of works presented by the Largest 150 companies. This represents a slight overall drop compared to the 2022/2023 season, where women accounted for 32.1% of all works presented by the Largest 150.
A key finding: within the Largest 10 companies, only 14.6% of works commissioned were choreographed by women, a decline from the 2021/2022 season where 14.9% of works were choreographed by women. Despite their considerable financial capacity(combined expenditures of $380,115,421 in FY 2022, representing 52.9% of the Largest 150’s aggregate budget by expenditure, the Largest 10 continue to severely limit opportunities for female choreographers. Within the Largest 50, 23.1% of works were choreographed by women, highlighting how smaller, less resourced companies are providing greater opportunities to female choreographers.
However the percentage of world premieres (of any length) choreographed by women among the Largest 150 rose to 48.8% in the 2023/2024 season, compared to 46.7% in the previous season. DDP also highlights a positive trend in full-length world premieres. In the 2023/2024 season, 32.2% of the 80 full-length works were choreographed by women, reflecting an increase from 31.3% in the 2022/2023 season and 22% in the 2021/2022 season. This is a notable development, as full-length world premieres necessitate a significant commitment of company resources and more companies are investing in female choreographers.
In a crucial addition to season programming research, for the first time DDP has tracked data on number of performances per work, determining that during the 2023-2024 season, works choreographed by women were performed an average of 3.9 times, compared to works choreographed by men, which were performed an average of 4.8 times. This discrepancy underscores the disparity in visibility and likely compensation between male and female choreographers.
