James Sewell Ballet will cease operations in March 2025

James Sewell Ballet plans to close at the end of its 35th season in March 2025, the company announced Tuesday, citing a changing arts funding landscape as a major reason for the decision.

It’s the latest blow to the Twin Cities dance community, less than a year after another dance company, Minnesota Dance Theatre, announced in February it would pause its performing company, and the Cowles Center for Dance and Performing Arts went dark.

“We’ve been in a strategic planning process for the last year and a half, and we’re realizing that the playing field in which we’ve operated our business model for 34 years really was not sustainable anymore,” said artistic director James Sewell. “That business model, the way we were fundraising, how we could earn money, all of those things were under threat.”

“It’s kind of like a Jenga tower,” said Eve Schulte, executive director, who formerly danced with the company. While revenue from selling tickets has been a problem for dance companies for decades, a more recent problem is that corporate and foundation givers “are getting out of the arts entirely, or gifts are more individualized,” she said. “There are fellowship programs that are wonderful, but they’re going to the individual artist, rather than supporting an ensemble and a company.”

“The biggest thing is we’ve lost probably $140,000 in corporate foundations support that just aren’t supporting the arts at all anymore,” Sewell said.

Costs have risen. too. When the company first moved to Minneapolis in 1993, after being founded in New York City in 1990, the dancers, co-founders Sewell and Sally Rousse, and staff all made $500 a week.

“Over time, we’ve not been able to keep pace with the cost of living — it’s been really difficult to do that,” Sewell said. “One of the saddest things is, it’s jobs for dancers. It’s really sad that those are being lost.”

Jarod Boltjes, who began dancing with JSB in 2019, said he was sad but not shocked by the announcement.

“They are really transparent with their dancers and their artists,” Boltjes said. “A sunset season has been in conversation with all of the dancers, probably for the past three seasons now.”

Boltjes was formerly a company member, but this season, when he learned they’d be able to offer salaries for only 15 weeks, he moved to a contract position. Boltjes also dances at Collide Theatrical and other places, and teaches at Circus Juventas. He’s also taking classes, hoping to eventually train as a physical therapist.

“All I can do is shake my head and just wonder what is going to become of the dance scene here in the next couple years,” Boltjes said. “I keep telling people, the Phoenix needs to rise from the ashes. So I’m just like, when is that going to happen? Because all I keep getting is more ashes.”

JSB is unique in that it’s one of the few nonprofit ballet companies with a budget over $500,000 that doesn’t operate a school and doesn’t do a yearly “Nutcracker” performance, Sewell said. JSB has taken a different approach, filling its seasons with original works, both by Sewell and by guest choreographers. They’ve also brought in live musicians and musical groups and other artists and have toured extensively. “The touring market has basically since COVID gone substantially away, which is another hit,” Sewell said.

In the early days, when the company was being formed, Sewell’s aim was to create a company made up of a small group of dancers who could tour.

“I modeled my original company after a modern dance company structure to be mobile, small, able to perform in any kind of space,” Sewell said. “I’m so proud of the fact that we performed in over 50 communities here in Minnesota, and we performed in 30-some states. We brought ballet to places where ballet isn’t normally seen.”

For Sewell, being able to change people’s view of the art form has been satisfying.

“I’m really proud that we’ve tried to encourage the growth of the art form and encourage artists that are endeavoring to do that,” he said.

Sewell plans to focus on movement therapy he’s developed called Coordi that focuses on brain and body health.

“I’m excited about exploring that more and helping people in other ways, and hopefully my choreographer voice will still find channels or outlets when that’s needed or appropriate,” he said. “I have no bitterness about this. Things are shifting — we’ll shift with it. I’ll find ways to make it work.”

JSB plans to issue holiday bonuses for its dancers to help support them in the upcoming audition season and is fundraising to help support that effort. On Friday, they are performing with the vocal group MPLS (imPulse) at Westminster Performing Arts Series at 7 p.m., before traveling to Tucson, Ariz., for a three-performance run with True Concord Voices and Orchestra. After the new year, the company prepares for its 35th Anniversary Retrospective at the Warren Miller Performing Arts Center in Big Sky, Mont., on March 8, and the O’Shaughnessy in St. Paul on March 14 &15.