The United States is during the most severe period of the economic crisis after the Great Depression. Let’s check how the American Ballet Groups survive since Obama took the post of president. Take the Boston Ballet Group for example, let’s see how it pass this period of the economic depression.
One of it’s magic weapon is it’s subsidiary school, the Boston Ballet School. 17% of it’s 25 million annual fund is from the Ballet School. As we all know: ballet dance is only for young players, basically less than 30. After their retirement, the players don’t have other skills to make a life, the money they earned when they were young is not sufficient. So the only way for them is to teach the ballet dance. That’s perhaps why people founded the Boston Ballet School. The school is now on it’s good way, it will open it’s fourth filiale very soon and each filiale has hundreds of students. My daughter studied in the Newton Filiale (more than seven hundred students in all)since she was seven or eight years?old. The tuition for the junior class is more than 2000 USD per year. After one year of study, she took part in the selection for the little figurants for the play ”The Nutcracker?which will be performed during the Christmas Festival. All the little girls of eight years competed for the occasion as if they were crazy. Fortunately my daughter was selected and played for more than ten scenes. Not only she didn’t got any pay, but we parents had to buy the tickets to the price in market. Consequence, we had to take her to the theatre every day and we spent much money for the 5 tickets. Some parents even invited all their parents and their friends and bought more than ten tickets.
If America had the Ministry of Culture which dominate the money of the taxpayers, the Boston Ballet Group wouldn’t have earned so much money. The players will earn retirement pension after retirement and they won’t have to work as teachers. Unfortunately, a player can act for only about ten years, and after the retirement, there are still fifty years when they can’t act. How much money we need to feed them? When the government don’t feed them, they have to find a way out. At last, the result is the formation incomparable American ballet culture.
Take my daughter for example once more. “The Nutcracker?is the only beneficial program for the Boston Ballet Group. It’s already a Christmas tradition that the families who have little daughters go to watch the “The Nutcrackers?during the festival. The little players are always the compulsory players for their ballet school. In the end of that year, I sent her to the theatre every day. In the metro, the passengers knew what she did as soon as they saw her headdress. Each time there were ladies who talked to her and told her what she played when she was young. Once there was even an old lady more than sixty talked about her experience of playing in the “The Nutcracker?when she was seven.. After that, I knew that “The Nutcracker?is not only a ballet dance, but a real art in the historical and realistic life of the whole city.
Therefore, the ballet groups won’t decline during this economic crisis, but they will win more living space and flourish with the time. During this crisis period when most industries are concerned, we have to admit that it’s a real miracle.
