Company Secrets: Ballet Unfiltered

Company Secrets with Ja'Malik: Directing Madison Ballet

• Jared Redick • Season 1 • Episode 2

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Ja'Malik stepped into the role of Artistic Director at Madison Ballet in 2022, never anticipating the whirlwind ahead. Just six months in, he also took on Executive Director responsibilities, balancing artistic vision with the demanding realities of organizational leadership.

“I put in 90+ hours a week,” he reveals, navigating company classes, rehearsals, choreography, and countless fundraising meetings — the often unseen but vital work behind sustaining a ballet company.

Driven by his commitment to representation and artistic evolution, Ja'Malik draws on his experience growing up as a Black male dancer in classical ballet. He curates seasons that honor ballet’s rigorous technique while amplifying diverse voices, reflecting the communities they serve. Under his leadership, Madison Ballet expanded dancer employment from 13 to 31 weeks annually, enhancing both artistic growth and dancer wellbeing.

For aspiring dancers, Ja'Malik emphasizes time management, openness to varied choreographic styles, and the importance of mental balance. “Perfection does not exist,” he says, encouraging dancers to lighten up and enjoy the journey. His vision extends beyond performance to mentoring the next generation through initiatives like Ballet Boy Productions and dream projects bringing works by Ulysses Dove and Salvatore Aiello to Madison.

This episode pulls back the curtain on the realities of running a ballet company and offers invaluable insights into leadership, resilience, and the future of ballet.

www.madisonballet.com

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Jared Redick:

Welcome to Company Secrets, the podcast where we pull back the curtain on the professional dance world. Each week, I sit down with artistic directors and industry leaders to have candid conversations about how dance companies really work, what they're looking for, how decisions get made and what it takes to thrive. I'm your host, jared Reddick. My guest today is Ja'Malik, artistic Director of Madison Ballet. Before stepping into leadership, he had a rich and dynamic performing career with companies including Cleveland Ballet, ballet Hispanico and Ballet X. He's also an accomplished choreographer whose work has been commissioned across the country, including for Ballet X. He's also an accomplished choreographer whose work has been commissioned across the country, including for Ballet Rhode Island, american Repertory Ballet and Charlotte Ballet. Ja'Malik is the founder of Ballet Boy Productions, an organization dedicated to creating visibility, mentorship and opportunity for young Black men in ballet, reflecting his passion for pushing the field forward and making ballet more inclusive. Welcome, Ja'Malik. Hello, thank you so much for being here.

Ja'Malik:

Of course. Thank you for having me.

Jared Redick:

Let's just dive right into our questions. Can you tell me what a typical day looks like for you as an artistic director?

Ja'Malik:

I started in 2022 as the artistic director of Madison Ballet and within six months I became the executive artistic director, so I'm taking on an executive director position. So I say that to say my day is a little all over the place. So some days I start the day with teaching company class and some days I start with having meetings for development marketing. All of which I do. So it's with meeting with local partners and local sponsors, and you know people like that that want to donate money to the organization. I also choreograph, so part of my day is sometimes spent choreographing. Sometimes it's spent coaching, Sometimes it's spent just watching rehearsals and run throughs and making sure everything is great. In between that, I'm usually dodging in and out to go to meetings, either in studio or out of the studio, with potential donors and new board members and things like that. It varies day to day, but it's definitely a hectic day.

Jared Redick:

I put in 90 plus hours a week at least I don't think dancers or people who are not in the profession can really appreciate how much work goes into being an artistic director.

Ja'Malik:

I had an idea. You know, growing up, you see artistic director walk into the studio and sometimes they watch rehearsals and sometimes they teach class, but they're not there all the time and I used to wonder like well, where are they today and where I haven't seen them in like four days, where have they been? But now, being on the other side, I fully understand. It is so much more than just being in the studio.

Jared Redick:

It's a lot to be an artistic director, given the financial constraints that we have in the nonprofit sector.

Ja'Malik:

Absolutely.

Jared Redick:

So kind of going off of that. What's one of the parts of the job that really surprised you when you stepped into the role.

Ja'Malik:

Probably the administrative side. I mean, I knew there would be some administrative work. I didn't quite understand how many meetings and how many people you have to meet with to get them excited and involved and engaged with the organization. You know it's constantly cultivating and trying to bring in new people who are interested in donating, interested in volunteering, interested in joining the board, while you're also managing your staff if you have one, your rehearsal directors, your operations managers and so forth and so on. That was the biggest surprise for me was just so much admin work which was associated with it.

Jared Redick:

Yeah, it's a 24-7 job, it sounds like, and the fundraising just never stops.

Ja'Malik:

No, it doesn't, Like I said, especially like when I had to switch. I mean, when I first started, like I said, for the first six months I was just in the artistic director position, which consisted, you know, like I said, of teaching class, coaching dancers, and then artistic meetings, speaking with new choreographers, speaking with new stagers, speaking with estates about acquiring ballets from Balanchine or Ulysses Dove, so forth, and so on. But, as I said, when I switched and also became executive director, all of the other things came into play. So it's a lot.

Jared Redick:

Yeah, it sounds like a lot. Is there any one specific thing you find really helps you with fundraising with your donors and your base of support?

Ja'Malik:

there. I mean I'm lucky that the city of Madison and Dane County has really appreciated the level I've raised of the company artistically and technically, and they also have become very ecstatic and wanting my choreography, so that's great. So I say that to say having a great product to pitch to them has been, I think, extremely helpful in garnering new donors and getting new people involved in the organization. I think without that it would be much, much harder.

Jared Redick:

Congratulations on that. It's great to hear that the city actually appreciates the work that you're doing and elevating the level of the company there.

Ja'Malik:

Yeah, it's really great. We have an awesome community here.

Jared Redick:

With all the challenges that you have running the company as artistic director and executive director, how do you approach curating a season of works?

Ja'Malik:

The best part I love curating seasons. I love actually giving platforms to new emerging choreographers. You know, being a choreographer myself, that was one of the main things that I was insistent upon with taking the position was that I didn't want it to be a company completely full of my works, so I wanted to make sure that I could have a space for emerging choreographers, especially those from the marginalized community, such as women, women of color, men of color. So to give those people opportunities to have their voices shown, because I think the only way you can become great as a choreographer is by actually practicing and doing the work.

Ja'Malik:

So I love each season coming up with ideas of the overall arc of the season, trying to curate different programs that will educate our audience here, because this company was primarily known for its Nutcracker. So it's about educating the audience that we do so much more than just the Nutcracker. We have four to five other productions outside of that, so exposing them to new voices, new choreography, new ideas of what the word ballet actually means to me, which for a lot of people can come up as a non-inclusive kind of art form. When I don't do it that way, I think ballet is for everyone, and so I make sure that the programs have a representation for everyone, for men, women, from different ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. I always have loved, since I was a kid, putting together puzzles, like spreading the 1000 piece puzzle and just going to town. Everything I think about within the company I view as a puzzle, and it's how do you put those puzzle pieces together to make a beautiful picture?

Jared Redick:

That's fantastic and it sounds great having a director who is really thinking about a season that has so much diversity of representation within it. I love to hear about different voices, because that is what is I feel is lacking in the ballet world. We have these, obviously, we have the canon of Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty and Giselle, but where are the new stories? Where are the new voices? Where are the stories that people are gonna connect to today, versus it being a museum piece? Oh, we should go see it because it's supposed to be important, right? What's gonna resonate with me today in the world around us? So I love to hear how you're approaching your programming. It's wonderful.

Ja'Malik:

Yeah, absolutely, because, like I said, as being a choreographer that you know, I've always tried to pitch myself as a person who is interested in telling new stories. You know I love I mean, I grew up as a classical bunhead ballerino and I love Swan Lake and I love Giselle and Sleeping Beauty and all of those beautiful story ballets that are in our history. As you said, what is next? What can also speak to an audience today? Because everybody is always looking for themselves on stage. You know, at some point I think that's what resonates most with people today.

Jared Redick:

Absolutely Not to disparage our canon, our classics, because I love Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty and Giselle, all those ballets. They are so vital for the art form and to build dancers and audiences really respond to them as well. But, as you said, new stories. We want to see ourselves reflected up there on the stage today.

Ja'Malik:

Yeah, and I mean for me, I'm even interested in how do we take some of those stories, tell them in new ways. I think the biggest thing with me and I always try to get this across is that I don't veer outside of the classical vocabulary. I think the biggest thing with me and I always try to get this across is that I don't veer outside of the classical vocabulary. I don't completely go completely modern. We still use the classical ballet technique in its fullest and hardest form. So we're not veering away from the technical side of it, we're just adding new dimensions to it to show a reflection of the communities that we serve.

Jared Redick:

And that's what we need to do in ballet. We got to move it forward. We have to keep evolving, just like everything in life. Let's pivot and go on to kind of the nuts and bolts of what our listeners are really here to hear about. So tell us, how many dancers do you have in your company currently?

Ja'Malik:

Okay, so currently we have 20 dancers and we have five trainees that are a part of the main performing unit of the company. The company started off with, I think when they first incorporated, as a company with six to eight dancers and it was actually all female. So now we have about eight to nine men or male identifying dancers and we have 13 plus female identifying dancers and an array of different backgrounds. Now.

Jared Redick:

That's great. And how many weeks of work does a company have right now?

Ja'Malik:

We have 31 weeks of work, which has gone up. That's great to have that. Yeah, when they started they had 13. Oh my gosh, 13 weeks of work.

Ja'Malik:

When I was interviewing for the job, I was very adamant with the board.

Ja'Malik:

We have to find a way to fundraise, to get more money to expand their weeks, because that's the only way for me that I felt we could really solidify a company.

Ja'Malik:

Because, you know, I tell everyone here in Madison, unlike our other arts organizations such as the symphony, the chamber orchestra and the theater companies we have here, they bring in their artists a week or two or a couple of days before their performances and then they put on a show. And I was like dancers can't do that. We have to get in the studio together and spend time and gel and merge so we can look like a solidified unit. We go out there to perform. So 13 weeks was just not. It wasn't feasible. And also, you know, for the health and vitality of the dancers, to have such long layoff periods was not conducive to the health of the dancers and that was the other biggest thing for me is to try to keep them working as long as they can, with giving them sustainable breaks, you know, but making sure that they had enough weeks of work that they could really feel healthy and good about what they're doing.

Jared Redick:

You know, for those who are not well versed in the ballet world or dance in general, the weeks of work represent their opportunity to invest in the process. It's not just about learning a ballet and throwing it up on stage right and creating that artistic product, which we love to do. But how do you nurture and nourish these young artists? They need the time to delve into the material and to sit with it for a minute. That process is always so important, so it's kudos to you for getting.

Ja'Malik:

Yeah, I always try to explain this to people who, especially who don't understand ballet as much, but maybe understand sports a little bit more, and I would say it's no different than, like a sports team they have their baseball, has their season, basketball, football, so forth and so on, but they're not off for the entire year. They actually spend time working together and training together so they can go out there and have a plan and a process, as you said, to go through so they can win games and be the best that they can be. And it's the same for Dan. They have to go through, as you said, a process and go through the learning stages and have challenges and learn from those challenges and learn from their mistakes as well.

Jared Redick:

Yeah, and you have to build chemistry within the company, just like pro sports teams need to right. That's what preseason is all about.

Ja'Malik:

Yeah, we can't. I think I tried once in my whole career to bounce back into a straight performance after being off for six weeks and it was not fun. I remember vividly. I was in a lot of pain.

Jared Redick:

At least it was probably just muscle soreness and not injuring yourself, because do not try this at home For your dancers? What, in 2025, is still? I mean we're cutting it.

Ja'Malik:

That's at the bare minimum of at least giving them sustainable wages. But we do start off at $500 a week.

Jared Redick:

Yeah, and I would imagine that some of the dancers actually take second jobs or outside jobs. Maybe they're teaching in the school or doing things outside of the ballet as well.

Ja'Malik:

Yeah, we have a school here and a lot of our dancers teach here, but there's also a lot of dance studios in Madison, so they have teaching gigs outside of the studio. Some of them are gyrotonic teachers, some of them are yoga instructors. Some of them work at restaurants and bars. Some of them work at. Some of them actually have their own outside companies that they do their you know their entrepreneurial businesses from, so I love to see that. That's pretty awesome Things that I never thought about when I was dancing. I was like that's pretty cool. But yeah, it's still hard. Dancing for eight hours a day and then going to your second job is not easy.

Jared Redick:

Yeah, we are definitely an under-resourced sector, to put it mildly. Yeah, and then, in terms of the number of performances that you have, how many do you have per season approximately?

Ja'Malik:

We have over 40. Currently. We have five programs including the Nutcracker, so we average about 40 to 45 performances for a season.

Jared Redick:

That's good to hear that the dancers have so many performing opportunities while they're there in the company. That's great.

Ja'Malik:

Actually, when I joined we had a lot more because we used to do two weekends of shows for every rep show. As I said to somebody the other day, the cost to put on productions is extremely high. These days it's almost impossible to put on two weeks of shows um other than the Nutcracker, for you know repertory shows. But I think they still get a good amount of performances in a year.

Jared Redick:

But we want to increase it still a little bit more, of course, of course and find more support, always trying to find more support for our dancers, but also that they can bring this wonderful art to your community. Exactly, the money is not just going and disappearing. It's there to enrich the community through the work that the ballet is doing Pivoting to dancers auditioning for your company. When dancers send the audition materials to you, what is the process? Who sees the materials and when do you see it? Because ultimately, you're the decision maker.

Ja'Malik:

It goes to an email. It goes to an email at auditions, at madisonballetorg email, and it's usually a mix between myself and my rehearsal director, between the two of us. One of us will review. It's usually my rehearsal director that reviews and then kind of sifts through and figures out who's exactly possibilities for the company, and then he'll send those to me and then I'll review them further and go from there. So it's usually like a two to three step process.

Jared Redick:

All right. And then, in terms of that, whether it's a reel or a link that they send you of them dancing, or it's an audition, an in-person audition, what qualities immediately catch your eye?

Ja'Malik:

In the audition when the actual physical audition which I prefer. I like that the best, because you get to actually feel the energy and you know, really get to know a person in a physical audition awareness that they understand what they're there for, they've trained for this, they're ready to show me, the rehearsal director, whoever else is sitting in front of the room, the best that they've got. It doesn't need to be perfection, but it needs to be, for me, a level of confidence in yourself. You know that you exude, that. You show that here I am, this is what I do and this is what I can give you. You know where I am right now. That's the biggest thing for me in person.

Ja'Malik:

And then the audition videos.

Ja'Malik:

Those are hard for me and I take a lot of grace when I watch those because I understand dancers are sometimes in very small studios.

Ja'Malik:

They're trying to record themselves from a particular angle and sometimes it's not the best angle, and I'm really trying to distinguish between seeing the possibility of what it really is and what it looks like on the video, whereas in person you can see visually in front of you what it is. So the video ones are a little bit harder and a lot of dancers have become very savvy with their recording process. I kind of like the mistakes. I can tell when a dancer has cut, cut, cut and they've done it like 14 times. So that kind of gets like eh, sometimes it's hard because I don't think they understand this. When they're recording themselves in a studio and the surround sound, all you hear is the loud bang they're jumping or just a bunch of other myrias that don't really represent them well. So I try to ignore all of that and take all of that out and realize you're watching a video. It's not perfection, it's very challenging, so the videos are the hardest.

Jared Redick:

So if I'm hearing you correctly, that maybe the dancers who are sending you their reels should maybe not do so many cuts and just live their truth in terms of what they did in the studio?

Ja'Malik:

Yeah, yeah, I mean I told one of my dancers in the school here because I saw her in the studio making an audition video for a summer intensive, and I was telling her, like, for me, what I would have done is I would kind of do a practice run of the class that I'm presenting so I can make sure I'm comfortable and I know what I'm doing, choosing the best exercises that I know will show me off the best, and then just go for it, as opposed to because what I see a lot of times is dancers will.

Ja'Malik:

I mean, we're perfectionists, that's the name of the game. We strive for this, this perfection that is non-existent, but we still go for it. And so what I see a lot of times is multiple, multiple takes, and I know that they chose this as the best one because they found one thing that they thought, oh, that looks good, totally ignoring everything else about it, but following that one thing as opposed to just letting it naturally be what it is. Because, like I said, I can really see that in the video and it kind of makes my eyebrow go up and I'm like, well, what's happening here? I'd rather just see the reality of what we possibly could get and, especially like my first year here, I completely hired off the video because I hadn't moved to Madison yet, I was just starting as the artistic director. So all of the new hires that I got were from videos and what I saw when they came I was like oh well, that's completely. That first year taught me a lot about video auditions, I bet.

Jared Redick:

Yeah, absolutely. Now thinking about these young aspiring dancers, what could you tell them about? What do you wish that more of them knew about company life? Right, when we're thinking about these young dancers, what do you wish they knew about company life? Because that can be a very hard transition for young people coming out of out of school and joining a company.

Ja'Malik:

I tell the dancers, I think the biggest thing that they have to learn, especially if you're a younger dancer and you're not going the college route first but you're going straight to being in a company, from being in a school, time management is the biggest thing, and I mean that in the aspect of not just the physical time of it, of making sure that you're at your company class or you're at your rehearsal, your PTs and all those things, but also about, like, the time management of your life. Are you getting enough rest? Are you planning out your meals? Are you planning out breaks for yourself? Are you truly taking rest periods, all of those things?

Ja'Malik:

Because what I see is a lot of dancers start right away and they go, go, go and they bang, bang, bang and they burn out quickly, as opposed to like pacing yourself, checking in to make sure that you're really taking care of yourself, both mentally and physically, without just charging through the season because it's difficult.

Ja'Malik:

Like I said, you go from taking one to two ballet classes a day, with long breaks in between, or you know so forth and so on, to then being in a room for eight hours a day learning ballets mentally, picking up different choreography left and right. You know it's a lot. I always say I think it's more mental than it is physical, because you've done the work physically, if you've trained long and hard enough, it's really the mental side of it, and so that's what I mean, also within time management, like, how are you managing your mental, how are you managing your day, how are you managing all the information that you're taking in? I tell a lot of dancers, when they're first starting out, to keep a journal, write down choreography. If you, if you're not as quick as picking up choreography as you hope to become, yeah, that's, that's the biggest thing that I've witnessed so far being a director and watching dancers improve and grow.

Jared Redick:

That's great perspective for those young dancers. Thank you for sharing that Kind of on that topic. We know that mental health is so important for the well-being of dancers, especially in a profession that is just so physically demanding. For you, what's one habit or mindset that has served you throughout your career For the mental part, yeah for preserving mental health.

Ja'Malik:

Oh to laugh. I think when I first started, when I started Cleveland Ballet, I was 16 years old and I was an apprentice and I was so stressed out because it was, like I said, it was a lot I was learning at least three ballets a day, from Balanchine to Dennis Nahad to Ulysses Dove. I was learning so much even though I wasn't I was an apprentice, so I knew I wasn't performing those things, but I still had to learn them. And I was learning so many ballets that I was just stressing myself out by trying to be so perfect and so better than everyone else and all that kind of stuff. And then I remember once I got past that and got a little older and had a mentor and got a little wiser, and they were like you need to laugh, like it's just ballet, you're going to be OK, we're in front of the room, we'll guide you, we'll give you corrections.

Ja'Malik:

But I remember one choreographer told me chill out. I mean literally told me to chill out, because I was going and going and going, and then he, and then he said, ok, I want to do it again, but this time I just want to mark. I didn't know how to mark, I didn't know, I didn't even know what the word meant. And so he pressed play on the on the recorder and we started going and he stopped the music and he yelled at me and he's like that's not marking, what are you doing? I was like I don to know, like it's just not that deep, it's much, it's much harder. We put more pressure on ourselves than need be. Of course we want to be, you know, we want to be great and we want to strive for perfection. You got to keep in mind that perfection does not exist and I think the biggest thing you can do is effort. You know, put in the effort, put in the work, that's all you can do.

Jared Redick:

Yeah, and I think now, being away from the career myself and being at the front of the room and you see it, it's like that's all you want to see from these young dancers. It's like I don't care about perfection, I want to see that you're actually trying to improve yourself and you're trying to be engaged with the work, and that's different for everybody in the studio at any given time. You know what that looks like. I completely agree with you there.

Ja'Malik:

The other thing is like when you look around the room and you're, and once you start judging yourself, comparing yourself to other people oh gosh, then you're really setting yourself up for failure, because no two people are the same. Some people pick up extremely fast, some people it takes them much longer, but it's like, like we said, it's all about the effort of how are you getting to your end goal, you know, and not putting all that Cause. Think about like you can't. You can only pull a rubber band so far before it snaps. You know you don't want to be a tight rubber in a environment where you're trying to be supple and learning and having your body take in information. It's two contradicting emotions that don't work well together.

Jared Redick:

Yeah, and again we think about today's ballet dancers and the repertory that's out there. The repertory is huge and the versatility that is required of them to go from Sleeping Beauty to something more extreme in terms of the contemporary work that is substantial. Do you have any advice for dancers about how they could prepare themselves for that kind of the contrast of the repertory?

Ja'Malik:

You have to be open, just be open to learning new things, to being open to being a vessel, to whatever the choreographer or the choreography is placed in front of you. I found, especially coming here or actually as a choreographer, also going to other companies I'd never noticed because I didn't have this issue when I was growing up, because I was just as happy learning, or excited and happy learning swan lake as I was learning in the middle, or even delving into something completely different, which was like martha graham when we did acts of light is to be open, like what I was saying was when I got here, a lot of the dancers had this preconceived notion of I am a classical dancer and this is all that I do. So they would get in front of the room with a contemporary choreographer or a modern choreographer and completely just be closed off to the situation that they're in. That doesn't create a well-rounded dancer. It doesn't help you grow as an artist. And so when I had my talkbacks with some of the dancers, I had to explain to them like, yes, if you learn a Martha Graham piece or you learn a Ulysses Dove piece or a Dwight Roden piece, you're not going to lose your classical technique just because you're venturing into something new. You've been training classical ballet since you were four or five, six, seven, eight, nine years old. You've been doing it for 10 plus years. It's not all of a sudden going to evaporate and disappear. So don't worry about that, but open yourself up to learning new things, learning new techniques, because they all inform each other. My modern dance education informed so much of my classical ballet and my classical ballet helped me so greatly in my modern dance training.

Ja'Malik:

When I switched finally, I think I was around 13 or 14, I started going to the Ailey School, also in conjunction with the Joffrey Ballet, and I was taking Horton and Graham things I had never done before and I was placed in very high levels because my ballet technique was so strong. But I still had to learn the different languages of those techniques. But if I had closed myself off to thinking, oh, I'm just one kind of dancer, it would have been lights out for me and I wanted to be as well-rounded of a dancer as I could. Because also, I knew I had limitations I'm 5'7". Limitations I'm 5'7". I'm African-American, I'm a male, I'm queer.

Ja'Malik:

So I knew I had to be so much better than so many people. You know I had to be the best that I could be and I knew that the only way that I could succeed in this career was by being as versatile as possible. So, and as you said, today's ballet companies, I mean if you look at American Ballet Theater, they've done Martha Graham. You look at PNB, they're doing Crystal Pipe. You look at SFB, they're doing Azure Barton, and so there's not a company I don't think in the world right now that's not venturing into all the different aspects of dance to also expand their audiences and get new people engaged and involved. So we have to be able to stand in front of those rooms and be open, open to possibilities, open to new ideas.

Jared Redick:

I love that. For our young dancers, it's the hardest thing. You're new in the profession, you're in the field, you just want to dance so badly and you want to try, as you were saying. You just like go, go, go, try as hard as you can and all it really requires is for you to do your best and to be open to the possibilities that are before you, and I think that's really great advice that you're sharing with us.

Ja'Malik:

And it also helps you get calves. You know this. I mean any choreographer, especially if you're working with a living choreographer that walks into a room, they are immediately drawn to those who are open. They can smell it, like a shark smells blood in the water. They can smell it. If you're open, they're going to gravitate towards you, but if you're closed, off, they don't want to deal with it.

Jared Redick:

Yep, that's absolutely true. They will move on to the next because they have to be able to create and they have to have really good energy in the room while they're trying to create.

Ja'Malik:

Especially because we have such limited time to work in the studio. You know, absolutely, absolutely.

Jared Redick:

I would love to know if you ever imagined yourself becoming an artistic director when you were a dancer. Absolutely not.

Ja'Malik:

Okay, it's a bit of a journey. I actually never wanted to be a dancer, I wanted to be a choreographer. I saw Ulysses Dove's Urban Folk Dance on the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater when I was a kid and I was in complete tears. I was in tears At the end of that performance. I was like I don't know what that was, but whatever, I didn't even know who it was. I didn't know if Ulysses was a man or a woman. I said, whoever they were, that created that and did that. That's what I want to do. So I wanted to be a choreographer and so then I started to research. I went to a local library and I got a book and it read all about danced Cunningham and Alien, things like that, and I said, oh well, he was a dancer, I'll become a dancer. So that's actually how I was like, okay, I'll become a professional dancer.

Ja'Malik:

So I always wanted to be a choreographer. So I always thought, once I danced, I would just kind of, you know, open the door and just start choreographing everywhere. And that didn't happen. I retired from dance and you know it was a struggle to get going as a choreographer. So I started my own project-based companies and that's how Ballet Boy Productions came about. Because I was like, how can I give back in ways that I didn't get, like I said, being a black male dancer in the classical ballet world, what were all the things that I needed when I was growing up Mentorship and guidance and opportunities. So I kind of started my own company, just pickup based company. We did about three to four performances a year, did a lot of outreach and things like that. So that was my first little foray into becoming an artistic director.

Ja'Malik:

And still, at that time I wasn't thinking I'm an artistic director, I was just thinking I'm a person who's just giving back. And then what happened was that one of the dancers that was in Ballet Boy Productions, also guest with Madison Ballet. So they were here and they called me and said, hey, they're looking for an artistic director and I think you would be great for it. And I was like, oh, I never even thought. Never even thought about becoming an artistic director. So I'll give it a try, you know. So I submitted my resume and, I think, a few excerpts of works that I had created and we started a dialogue and a conversation with myself and the executive director at the time and with the board.

Ja'Malik:

And then the pandemic happened and I didn't talk to anybody for about a year and a half while we were on lockdown. And then they called me back and they were like, do you remember us? And I was like kind of, but not really. And we just kind of restarted the conversation and it really wasn't until I got deep into it where I was almost at the final stage of it, like, am I actually able to be an artistic director? Do I have the skill set? Because I just didn't know. I didn't really ever think about what does an artistic director mean? What does an artistic director actually do? And so, like I said, once I got deep into the process of acquiring the job, that's when I really started to take inventory and started to think about, like, could I really do this? And then I started to think about all of the things that I did as a dancer To get a job.

Ja'Malik:

I had to send out my resume and my reel and go to auditions. That's marketing. In order to survive as a dancer, I had to actually solicit people to help me in my career. Would you mind funding my shoes for the season? Would you mind funding this, that and the other? That's development. So once I did all this analytical thinking about an artistic director, I was like I have all the skills, I just have never used them all in one setting. I always tell dancers that you have way more skills than you think you have just by being a dancer. And then I had the fortune that I went to college and I got a college degree and that great stuff. So that gave me a little bit of the knowledge of using excel and kind of computer skills and things like that. So that set me up for that.

Ja'Malik:

But then also the greatest thing that I did was after I retired from dancing. I took a break from the arts and I actually became an executive director for a fashion company where I had to raise money $1.5 million every year for our annual gala. Through that I was like, okay, now I know how to fundraise and do everything else. So, like I said, when I stepped in to be an artistic director I was like I have a lot of skills that I didn't even think about utilizing or was necessary to become an artistic director. I was like I have a lot of skills that I didn't even think about utilizing or was necessary to become an artistic director and going back to your first question, and walking in here and having everything thrown at me, I quickly found out I was more than capable of doing those things, which was surprisingly beautiful to me because I didn't, like I said, never thought about it that way.

Ja'Malik:

It's been quite an amazing journey and the thing that's the biggest for me is what I told the board of directors when I interviewed and I said I'm very much a person like if I don't know something, I will tell you.

Ja'Malik:

But the thing with me is I will tell you I don't know, but I will figure it out, and I do that and I try to stay honest and humble about that. And so I say that, entering my fourth year as artistic director and executive director here, that I'm still learning, I'm still growing. Every day I get new challenges and I have to figure out how to accomplish those things, because now I am what I call the parent of 25 plus people, plus my staff and my schools. It's a lot on my shoulders, but it's a privilege and an honor for me to step into this position because, like we about earlier, as far as bringing in choreographers, it's so much more than that. It's literally my opportunity to give back because dance gave me so much. So I feel honored to have this opportunity, but I had never thought about it as a career before.

Jared Redick:

They are so lucky to have you and your experience. It's an amazing journey that brought you to this point, and it's really a beautiful story too, because I'm still struck by the first thing that you were talking about, with going to the theater, going to see Ailey do a Ulysses Dove work and being like that one piece changed the course of your life, just seeing that piece of art. Going back to what we were talking at the beginning about bringing this work to the community that you're doing and raising, elevating the company, it's just fantastic. So I hope they understand how lucky they are to have you in that position there.

Jared Redick:

I hope so, absolutely Right. With that in mind, thinking about dreams, what dream project or collaboration would you love to be able to bring to Madison?

Ja'Malik:

I know, I know, or collaboration would you love to be able to bring to Madison. I know, I know, of course it's a Ulysses Dove that is like number one on my list. It's definitely one of my two people actually Ulysses Dove and Salvatore Aiello, who was the founder of North Carolina Dance Theater, where I used to dance, which was my dream company. Actually, once I decided to become a dancer, that was my dream company, because I once I decided to become a dancer, that was my dream company because I love the repertory that they did. I thought he was fantastic. Mel Tomlinson may he rest in peace was such an amazing person in my life and he danced there and spoke so highly about Sal that I was like I have to get there and I was fortunate enough to dance there and his work isn't really done that much anymore. So Ulysses Dove and Sal, those are the two main people that I would love to bring to Madison so the audiences here can see and feel the things that I felt when I first saw their works. I don't judge my own work, but I hope my work gives a glimpse of what their work did for me. But for sure that's like my main two things that I would love to accomplish in my fifth season here.

Ja'Malik:

The fourth season is already planned, but that's my plan for the fifth season is to try to get those two particular choreographers works into our repertoire and to our community here, because I just I think they're outstanding, they still stand the test of time and I think they still need to be seen. So that's like the biggest, biggest dream of mine. And then the second biggest dream is, like I said earlier, is just to increase the livable wages of our dancers, to increase their weeks of work, all that stuff. We're trying to get a permanent home here in Madison and just keep building this organization times that we have about 150 to 200 students here and I've gotten so close to all of them. I see their little faces light up now when they see the dancers come into the studio and some of them are their teachers and some of them are the nutcracker.

Ja'Malik:

And just to see that like, and they write me letters and say I can't wait to join Madison Ballet one day and I'm like, oh gosh, you're going to tear me up here, but you know, to create a place for them and to create a place for future generations, that's like, that's like my biggest thing and I know we're in hard times. It's so many factors that are going against us, but I believe in the power of the performing arts as a changemaker. I'm a living testament to that. My history and my background growing up wasn't the greatest, and ballet completely took me out of that and brought me to places like to travel all over the world and meet new friends and people that I would never have met, and perform and dance in places I never even dreamed of, you know. So I want to make sure that I can create that for the next generation of people.

Jared Redick:

That's fantastic and wonderful and so inspiring to hear you talk about it. Learning more about your journey, I really hope. I hope that you can create that there, that legacy that can be there for that community. I want to finish up our interview here with just the last question for you what's one piece of advice you'd give your younger self at the start of your professional career?

Ja'Malik:

Chill out. Having learned that chill out definitely chill out and patient. I was a bit impatient at certain times with certain companies and certain choreographers. I would have definitely have told my younger self, like you're more than capable, you're more than able, you have the passion, drive and willingness to put yourself through all of this training, through all of this learning to become the best version that you can be of a dancer. Now you need to just go out into the world and show that and let go of all of the negative things that you've had to endure in your life just to make it. But like, let that go, be a little more trusting, be a little more patient with yourself and with others around you, because it'll take you a lot further. I didn't learn that until later in life, but I wish I had told my younger self that. I would definitely tell my younger self that now, and that's what I tell young people today.

Jared Redick:

That's great advice and I hope our young dancers who are listening will take that to heart, because I agree with everything you just said. That's just great advice. Thank you so much, Ja'Malik, for being here. I really appreciate you making the time to come and talk to our listeners and spend a little time with me as we talk about what's going on at Madison Ballet. We'll link to Madison Ballet's site where you can learn more about the company and follow their upcoming season. If you liked our conversation here today, you can follow Company Secrets Podcast on all platforms and on our website, companysecretspodcastcom. Thank you for listening, because the stage is only part of the story. Thanks so much for being here, Ja'Malik.

Ja'Malik:

Thank you also.