BalletX looks ahead with new ballets, a new theater, and a stable future

The studio is bustling with dancers.

One of the first signs that BalletX, which received a transformational gift from one of its fans last spring, is on solid new ground.

Artistic and executive director Christine Cox has had several months to digest that Joan DeJean had left the troupe $7.4 million in her will. But Cox, 55, is moving forward in small steps.

For one thing, when the company opens its 19th season on Wednesday night, it will be in a new theater. BalletX has moved out of its longtime home, the Wilma Theater, for 60 extra seats and a more traditional layout at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre across Broad Street.

It will perform a world premiere by Irish choreographer Marguerite Donlon. It will also bring back BalletX cofounder Matthew Neenan’s Mapping Out a Sky and Takehiro Ueyama’s Heroes, which had its company premiere in April at the Mann.

“The gift was an extraordinary surprise,” Cox said. “I’m wearing [DeJean’s] earrings because I knew I would be thinking about her.

“But the beautiful thing is, the company was poised and primed to really honor her hopes and dreams for supporting this organization in the fact that we are in our second year of a strategic plan.”

Still, when the board encouraged her to grow the company, Cox hired three additional dancers.

» READ MORE: BalletX’s ‘Maslow’s Peak’ promises a spectacular ‘Lord of the Flies’ ballet next year

“Now we’re 16 dancers strong,” she said of the troupe that had 10 performers for a long time, a number that went up to 14 in 2023 and then back down when a dancer left. “That’s a little bit larger than we were intending to go.” But it means BalletX can perform works of various sizes, give its performers breaks, and allows for flexibility if a dancer is injured or leaves.

“Last year we started our season, and Alvin Ailey grabbed one of our dancers,” Cox said. This spoke to the quality of BalletX dancers but also put her in a bind.

So Cox is working on hiring and retaining top talent in a company that has grown from being a shoestring operation. When they started, she and Neenan paid themselves $500 and hired their colleagues from Philadelphia Ballet to perform in the summer.

Now, in the often unstable field of dance, where even major ballet companies lay off their dancers in the offseason, BalletX has a $5.2 million budget and Cox was able to move to a 52-week contract with a salary dancers can live on, four weeks of paid vacation, and benefits.

Dancer Ben Schwarz, 23, who has been with BalletX for three and a half years, says it’s important that he can focus on his craft and not worry about working a second job or standing in the unemployment line.

“It’s funny,” he said, “because BalletX was created on the layoff [from Philadelphia Ballet]. They really understand that dancers are professional athletes and they also are workers. Sometimes people forget that.”

As far as lofty goals with the gift go, Cox is starting with things audience members might not immediately see. BalletX’s main mission is to create new work, commissioning seven to nine new ballets each year. The windfall means she can consider hiring choreographers who were out of reach before.

» READ MORE: Stick a feather in your cap, BalletX’s summer series is a wild, wonderful ride

Cox wants to revitalize BalletX Beyond, the film platform that grew out of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a bid to widen the reach of the company, she and associate artistic director Tara Keating are compiling lists of dream tours.

In the next few months, BalletX is performing at the Harris Theater in Chicago, Washington’s Kennedy Center — where BalletX will be working with the Kennedy Center Symphony — and the Laguna Dance Festival in California.

“Christine and Tara are very good at checking those bucket list items off for us,” Schwarz said. “Those are places that they danced or wanted to dance. It’s been really nice to get to live out those dreams with them, because I think we all have very similar goals.” He has danced with BalletX at Colorado’s Vail Dance Festival and in Victoria, British Columbia.

Cox has her sights on more international tours, but the company’s home is most important, she said. She is always thinking, “what’s the impact that we have on Philadelphia?”

“How are we working with our community? How can we pop and intentionally go into our neighborhoods and inspire dance?”

Schwarz agrees.

“We want to reflect the city that we call home, because the art is for Philadelphians.”

BalletX fall series, Nov. 13-17, Suzanne Roberts Theatre. $25-$70. 215-225-5389 x250 or boxoffice@balletx.org