Company Profile
Houston Ballet
Company Overview
Picture yourself at an amazing organization committed to inspiring a lasting love and appreciation for dance through artistic excellence, exhilarating performances, innovative choreography, and superb educational programs. At Houston Ballet, you’ll be surrounded by creative teams who challenge you, support you, inspire you, and celebrate artistic achievement.
Beyond our stage presence, Houston Ballet maintains a strong foothold in continuing to foster a love for dance in future generations. Our Education and Community Engagement program reaches more than 70,000 individuals in the Houston area annually. Houston Ballet Academy trains more than 1,500 students (from age 2 - 80) every year, producing more than 50 percent of the elite athletes that comprise Houston Ballet’s current Company.
If you love to shop, you might also recognize the Houston Ballet Nutcracker Market, the signature holiday fundraising shopping event in Texas. It is a one-stop shop featuring over 270 merchants, offering unique items for everyone. Proceeds from each admission plus 11% of all purchases support Houston Ballet.
We invite you to learn more and apply online: https://www.houstonballet.org/about/employment-opportunities/
Company History
Houston Ballet has evolved into a company of 59 dancers with a budget of $33.2 million (making it the United States’ fifth largest ballet company by number of dancers), a state-of-the-art performance space built especially for the company, Wortham Theater Center, the largest professional dance facility in America, Houston Ballet’s $46.6 million Margaret Alkek Williams Center for Dance which opened in April 2011, and an endowment of just over $70 million (as of January 2017).
Australian choreographer Stanton Welch has served as artistic director of Houston Ballet since 2003, raising the level of the company’s classical technique and commissioning many new works from dance makers such as Christopher Bruce, Jorma Elo, James Kudelka, Trey McIntyre, Julia Adam, Natalie Weir, Nicolo Fonte, and Edwaard Liang. Executive Director James Nelson serves as the administrative leader of the company, a position he assumed in February 2012 after serving as the company’s General Manager for over a decade.
Houston Ballet has toured extensively both nationally and internationally. Over the past fifteen years, the company has appeared in London at Sadler’s Wells, at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, Russia, in six cities in Spain, in Montréal and Ottawa, at The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., in New York at City Center and The Joyce Theater, at the Théâtre des Champs Elysées in Paris, at The Arts Center Melbourne State Theatre in Melbourne, Australia, in Los Angeles at The Music Center's Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, and in cities large and small across the United States. Houston Ballet has emerged as a leader in the expensive, labor-intensive task of nurturing the creation and development of new full-length narrative ballets.
Writing in Dancing Times in June 2012, dance critic Margaret Willis praised Houston Ballet and highlighted the fact that “During his own tenure, (Stanton) Welch has upped the standard and Houston Ballet now shows off a group of 55 dancers in splendid shape. With fast and tidy footwork, they are technically skillful and have strong, broad jumps and expansive, fluid movements. The dancers’ musicality shines through their work, dancing as one with elegance and refinement – and they are a handsome bunch too!...if ballet were an Olympic sport, see Houston Ballet well on the way to achieving gold.”
Houston Ballet Orchestra was established in the late 1970s and currently consists of 61 professional musicians who play all ballet performances at Wortham Theater Center under music director Ermanno Florio.
Notable Accomplishments / Recognition
To learn more about our accomplishments, please visit www.houstonballet.org
Benefits
Houston Ballet full-time staff enjoy competitive salaries with a generous benefits package.
New, full-time staff hires receive 3 weeks paid vacation, 10 paid holidays, and 10 days paid sick leave. We offer company benefits, including medical, dental, vision and a 403(b) retirement plan with a 5% employer contribution. Our employees also have access to an employee assistance plan, an on-site gym, discounts and corporate perks and complimentary tickets to many Houston Ballet and other theatre district performances.