With the trajectory of COVID-19 uncertain, TITAS Presents/Dance Unbound has announced a truncated, all-American season to start in mid-October with the popular troupe MOMIX.
In recent years, TITAS has booked 10 dance companies, with international groups always in the mix. The 2020-21 season will include only seven U.S.-based companies as visas have become even more difficult to secure during the pandemic.
“We are taking a leap of faith,” says TITAS director Charles Santos. “It’s a gamble. We’re not past all of this yet. But we have to start the creative engine, the creative economy. People want to get back to live performances.”
To create social distancing, only 30% to 50% of seats to shows at Winspear Opera House and Moody Performance Hall will be sold, Santos says. Audience members will be required to wear masks, and sanitizing practices will be escalated. The possibility of taking temperatures at the door is under discussion.
State guidelines suggest staggering the audience in every other row, with two to four seats between parties, Santos says, but the exact layout of the rooms and the number of tickets to be sold is still being decided.
To accommodate more patrons, all of the shows this fall and winter will take place at the larger Winspear, which normally holds about 2,200 people. Moody’s capacity is 750.
Backstage rules have been established in a wellness addendum to contracts with the dance groups, Santos says. The companies are taking responsibility for the health of their artists and agreeing to reasonable efforts to try to keep the environment safe. For instance, no family or other guests will be allowed backstage, only essential personnel, and artists won’t be permitted to mingle with audience members in the front of the house.
Still, Santos acknowledges, “There’s no way anyone can create a 100% safe environment.”
He also notes that unknowns about the future spread of the coronavirus could alter the season. “All we can do is make our plans and be ready to change. It’s an exercise in flexibility. We don’t have the answer. Everything is being guided by this pandemic.”
All of the companies have agreed to smaller guarantees amid the unpredictability of ticket sales and the smaller audiences dictated by social distancing, Santos says.
TITAS’ annual budget will fall from $2 million to between $1.5 and $1.6 million. Dallas’ premier presenter of national and international dance suffered hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses when the last five shows of its 2019-20 season had to be canceled, Santos says. With sponsorships, he hopes to break even in 2020-21.
Subscriptions go on sale today, Monday, June 15, starting at $116, at attpac.org/titas. Santos originally planned to unveil the lineup on May 20. At the last minute, Los Angeles daredevils Diavolo, who were supposed to open the season Oct. 1-3, canceled their tour.
Now the 2020-21 season is scheduled to begin Oct. 15-17 with Washington, Conn.-based MOMIX’s spectacle Alice, based on Alice in Wonderland, a U.S. premiere.
The rest of the roster reads like a list of bedrock American dance companies, all familiar to TITAS audiences: Alonzo King/LINES Ballet (Nov. 6-7), Parsons Dance (Nov. 20), Ballet Hispánico (Jan. 15), Doug Varone and Dancers (Feb. 12), Kyle Abraham’s A.I.M (March 26-27) and Aspen/Santa Fe Ballet (April 2-3). The annual TITAS fundraising gala Command Performance is scheduled for June 12 of next year.
Varone will perform Somewhere, choreographed to Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story score while Abraham is bringing An Untitled Love, set to music by R&B icon D’Angelo.
