Balancing A Big Picture Pointe Of View
The Age
Wednesday September 24, 2008
Valerie Wilder, Australian Ballet chief, acts on her global vision with Michael Shmith.
VALERIE Wilder, the new executive director of the Australian Ballet, began work at the end of June and, a month later, took four weeks off for a family get-together and holiday in Japan - the country in which she spent her childhood and where she has a rural summer cottage her parents bought many years ago.This Zen-like approach - a month's intense work followed by a month of reflection - is rare for one in such a key cultural job. Not that there's much breathing space: Wilder, who returned to her desk at the beginning of August, has seen the ballet through its Melbourne seasons of a new triple bill and Manon, and this week heads off with the company on its tour to Paris, London and Manchester.Wilder is definitely not a traditional arts executive. As the fourth administrative head in the AB's history (her predecessors were Noel Pelly, Ian McRae and Richard Evans), she is not only the first woman in the job, but the first from a dance background - in other words, having been on as well as behind the stage."When I first made the switch to the dark side, in Canada, I was one of the very few women: it was Valerie and the boys," Wilder says. "Since then, quite a number have emerged. This is probably to do with dancers becoming more aware earlier about transition. It's a limited, short career and you have to be thinking about a second career."Wilder comes to the AB after administrative spells at the National Ballet of Canada and, more recently, the Boston Ballet. She speaks fluent Japanese, and is immersed in that country's traditions of quiet, philosophic achievement. "Things that felt strange feel normal now," she says about her new job and what she has learned so far. She describes her latest company as "a thoughtfully configured enterprise that's been quite successfully managed and has flourished over many years".For her, the key word is sustainability. "We've done a grand job; let's pat each other on the back. Now, how do we translate this into the future? How do we continue to bring artistic excitement to an art form that's really struggling worldwide? What are some of the things we need to pay attention to? What are our real priorities? We might find ourselves questioning what we value most."As the company approaches its 50th anniversary in 2012, it also faces the proposed temporary closure of its two main performing venues, the State Theatre at the Arts Centre and the Opera Theatre of the Sydney Opera House. "This can be a life-threatening exercise," Wilder says. "That is something one needs to be aware of. But I think the company internationally is valued and loved and respected."Wilder wants to begin to expand the AB by planning more in advance. "The further out we are able to plan, the bigger picture emerges of what we are likely to do," she says. "It's a matter of getting the right resources together, making our budgeting processes further ahead, and finding more lead time to achieve some of our near-term objectives." These include the opportunity to use the 50th-anniversary to encourage funding to fill what Wilder calls "that perpetual gap arts companies struggle with".The problem, of course, is increased competition for funds in an ever-expanding cultural market. "Governments are not able to meet all the needs, and non-profit organisations are growing at rates beyond everyone's imagination, and in all forms of life, not just culture," Wilder says. "One thing you can't do is wait for less competition: there's always another campaign, another arts body. One needs to be aware of the economic realities of the day."Wilder's practical dance experience and administrative record will be of great help in her new job - as will her association with the AB's artistic director, David McAllister, whom she met 20 years ago when she was co-artistic director (with the late Erik Bruhn) of the National Ballet of Canada and McAllister was with the company on a dancer exchange with the AB.The shared responsibility of executive director and artistic director is, Wilder says, a good one. "But it can work only when there's tremendous collaboration between the two parties. It's very helpful when the artistic director has given some thought to management, and very helpful when the executive director has a sensitivity about the art form. Then it becomes a real partnership. It's obvious to say, but there are few artistic decisions that don't have a pretty significant financial impact, and similarly there are very few financial decisions you would make that don't affect the art. David might say he wants to use this choreographer, and I can picture it, understand what he's driving at, and we can put it into some financial framework."Coming from the Boston Ballet and the American system of almost entirely philanthropic funding, brings Valerie Wilder back into the public-funding domain she experienced for many years in Canada. "It's important," she says. "When culture is completely missing from public dialogue, it changes the tone of how people regard and arts and culture. When it is there, it elevates the importance of it. The fact that dialogue is going on is beneficial."Having spent so much of her early life in Japan, Wilder feels at home in the region, and its more immediate Asian connections. Her family is certainly international: her grown son and daughter live in Toronto and Amsterdam; her brother still lives in Japan; and her parents retired to Phoenix, Arizona. For Wilder and her business-consultant husband, reunions mean travel."You lose something of the home town with all the relatives in the one place, but you gain a global perspective," she says."The world in the future is going to be more global, and that is a good thing."
© 2008 The Age