Epicenter
Celia Fushille celebrates 10 years as artistic director, one of just nine women worldwide helming a major company
Smuin Ballet’s Celia Fushille breaks the glass-slipper ceiling.
Watch a ballet most anywhere and you’ll see female dancers in the spotlight. When it comes to ballet management, however, it’s largely a man’s world, all over the world.
But as Smuin Contemporary American Ballet readies for its annual fundraising gala on March 19 — this year marking a decade since the death of its namesake, Michael Smuin — it will also celebrate the 10th anniversary of former principal dancer Celia Fushille as artistic director. That’s an achievement, but so, too, is this: She’s one of nine women around the globe, from Toronto to Paris and Memphis to Miami, who head dance companies with annual budgets of $2.5 million or more, a group that’s breaking the glass-slipper ceiling.
“Michael always felt if you wanted anything done, get a woman,” said ballet trustee Patti Hume, who co-founded Smuin ballet in 1993. “He had great faith in women getting the job done.”
Fushille, 54, who lives in Pacifica, trained in El Paso, Texas, as a child. She studied briefly with San Francisco Ballet in her teens and was Smuin’s first hire in 1993. By then married and with two children, she became his muse, and while dancing she added ballet master and associate director duties to her workload. She was named artistic director in 2007 after Smuin suffered a fatal heart attack.
It wasn’t the board’s intention to hire Fushille because she was a woman, said Bruce Braden, president of the Smuin board of trustees. He and his colleagues sought someone, anyone, with a vision for a new direction. Smuin, a charismatic former dancer, choreographed 90 percent of the company’s works himself, infusing them with the rhythm, speed and syncopation of American pop culture.
The board found that person in Fushille. She commanded a quiet respect while curating Smuin’s works and looking for new pieces that would keep his spirit of inventiveness alive.
“Celia is probably the most under-theradar, gifted, smart, hard-working person I have met,” Braden said. “She was far above any of the other folks we talked to.”
Fushille’s early mentor was a woman, Ingeborg Heuser, a German State Opera ballet dancer who ran her own El Paso ballet school on a shoestring budget; she sewed the costumes, dyed the shoes and twisted dancers’ hair into top knots herself.
“She worked so hard, and she knew every single aspect of the production, plus choreographing everything,” Fushille recalled. “She was an incredible example. It never occurred to me a woman couldn’t be a director.”
It has occurred to others. In 2010, Fushille was among five female artistic directors on a panel at a seminar called “The Glass Slipper Ceiling,” part of a women in the arts event in Richmond, Va., that sought to examine why so few females lead major dance companies.
In a recent interview, Fushille suggested that few women consider the job because their confidence takes a hit at an early age. Girls are more scrutinized for perceived physical flaws than are boys, who are allowed wider latitude for imperfection or bad behavior in an effort to keep them in ballet school. The fearlessness evident in boys is often snuffed out early in girls, Fushille said.
To support her 16 dancers, Fushille keeps a door open for chatting about work-related or personal matters, even giving a shoulder to cry on when loved ones die. (She herself divorced and remarried.) She doesn’t yell in rehearsals, believing that when people are afraid, they don’t do their best work, and takes dancers aside for critiques instead of embarrassing them in front of others.
Terez Dean, who came to Smuin in 2008 from the State Street Ballet in Santa Barbara, used to round her shoulders to make her chest concave and minimize her C-cup breasts. Dean recalled the day Fushille took her aside and said, “Terez, if it’s your chest that’s holding you back, don’t let it be. Chest up, collarbone forward,” Dean recalled. “She just was like, ‘Embrace your body. You’re beautiful. I’m putting you in this role for a reason.’ ”
Fushille also created a showcase to give her dancers the opportunity to choreograph their own pieces for the stage. Of the 30 productions that Smuin has commissioned or licensed during the past decade, 11 have featured works by professional female choreographers. (During the past five years, the San Francisco Ballet has performed one.)
“She is really careful about who she hires in terms of personality,” said Erin YarbroughPowell, who came to Smuin in 2003 from the Oakland Ballet. “We’re such a small company that it’s crucial — more important than what kind of a dancer they are — that they can get along with the group and contribute to a positive environment.”
In promoting Fushille 10 years ago, Braden recalled some strong pushback from a few trustees, which he found perplexing, and still does.
“They viewed Celia as a dancer and a dancer only,” Braden said. “I like how she didn’t shirk from anything that had to be done.”
“Celia is probably the most under-the-radar, gifted, smart, hard-working person I have met. She was far above any of the other folks we talked to.” Bruce Braden, president, Smuin board of trustees