Joffrey Seeks Home as Merger Plan Stalls

For nine months, the Joffrey Ballet, now legally under the umbrella title of Arpino Ballet Illinois Inc., has been seeking shelter from a financial storm. On Friday, Gerald Arpino, the company’s artistic director, announced that an expected merger with Ballet Chicago had been abandoned; and on Monday, the group’s newly appointed executive director, Arnold N. Breman, explained why: “Artistic differences” between the two companies. Ballet Chicago, he said, is essentially a Balanchine company; the Joffrey maintains a more eclectic identity.

Which means that for the time being, the Joffrey remains in transition and inactive as a performing organization. Its operations in New York City are in the process of closing down; it is seeking to settle financial obligations against it; and it is still looking for a new home base.

The company last danced in January in Chicago, having canceled a planned April tour, including a six-day engagement at the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

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Its ‘95-96 season is scheduled to begin with “Nutcracker” performances in Washington and Los Angeles (Dec. 12-27 at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion), which Breman says the ballet will honor. There are also plans for a weeklong engagement at the Kennedy Center in May, and negotiations are under way for Chicago engagements in the winter and spring, as well as a European tour in March and an Asian tour in June.

In order to fulfill its scheduled commitments, the company must come to a settlement with the American Guild of Musical Artists, the dancers’ union, over $600,000-$900,000 in back pay and other obligations to the dancers. The union’s action against the Joffrey management has been pending since last October.

An undisclosed settlement offer has now been made and faces a ratification vote within the next two weeks. Major loans from board members and other debts are also in the process of settlement, Breman said.

The negotiation process not only absorbed much of the company’s attention this year, Breman explained, but it also required the Joffrey to establish a new legal entity in Illinois--in his words, “a temporary lawyer’s creation” called the Arpino Ballet Illinois.

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“We’re not dancing under [the name] Arpino Ballet,” Breman said. “The Arpino Ballet is the legal, nonprofit corporation developed to merge with Ballet Chicago and since there was no merger, the company is keeping the legal name until a new name is put into place.” Had the merger taken place, the company would have been renamed the Joffrey Ballet Chicago, Breman said. “Wherever we end up, we could be called the so-and-so city’s Joffrey Ballet.” Uncertainty about a new name and a home, should be resolved in a month or so, Breman said, and Chicago remains on the list of possibilities. Reducing a debt load that he estimates between $1.2 million and $1.5 million will undoubtedly take longer, but Breman said that “wherever the Joffrey lands, it’s going to go in without major debt.”

“We’re working to make this company financially workable,” he said, “to operate very much like a business and I think that’s achievable. We’ll have to do some significant fund-raising but we’re committed to that.”