Life In Dance Crowned With Ballet's Top Job
Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday April 10, 2008
WHEN Valerie Wilder was a child she turned to her parents during a ballet performance to tell them "that's what I'm going to do for the rest of my life".
She did. Wilder has capped a lifetime in dance with her appointment as executive director of the Australia Ballet, succeeding Richard Evans, now chief executive of the Sydney Opera House.Wilder, whose appointment was announced yesterday, will start her new job in June. Speaking from Boston, where she has spent five years as executive director of Boston Ballet, Wilder said she was headhunted for the Australian job. She was chosen from a short list of seven by a six-person panel including the Australian Ballet's artistic director, David McAllister, its chairman, David Crawford, and board member Li Cunxin, the author of Mao's Last Dancer.Born in the United States, she was raised in Japan, and trained as a dancer in London, the US and Canada. She is best known in the dance world for her long career at the National Ballet of Canada, a company similar to the Australian Ballet in its history and sources of funding.Wilder's history as a dancer, an artistic director and an administrator meant that "she has broken the mould" for a ballet boss, "or maybe created a new mould", McAllister said yesterday. She spent almost 20 years at the Canadian company as a dancer, then artistic administrator, co-artistic director, associate director and ultimately executive director. "I needed to interact with government funding sources and participate in the national life of Canada," Wilder said. "I haven't done that too much in Boston." Much of her time there was spent fundraising. "I like the idea of living in a country where you work with government. It's an acknowledgement of the importance of the arts, instead of it not being on the radar screen at all." Boston Ballet's government funding represents "one-third of 1 per cent" of the budget, and the ballet company's accumulated deficit is reported to be $US7 million ($7.5 million).She resigned from that company last month and planned to return to Canada before being offered the Australian position.Her priorities at the Australian Ballet are to increase endowments so "there are more diversified income streams, and more security in the face of whatever happens, and to be thoughtful of taking the company into its 50th anniversary" in 2012. As for artistic input, "I see myself as a sounding board. The ultimate decisions about artistic policy are those of the artistic director."
© 2008 Sydney Morning Herald