Byrd Dance Company Says Huge Debt Did It In

Nearly a quarter-century after founding Donald Byrd/The Group in Los Angeles, choreographer/company leader Byrd is shutting it down due to what he characterized as overwhelming financial burdens. The last performances of the 10-member company took place Sunday in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Located in New York City since 1983, the company was best known for daring psycho-sexual themes, sardonic social consciousness and a complex modern dance-movement vocabulary heavily influenced by contemporary ballet.

Byrd’s most recent company creations included two full-evening showpieces, “Jazz Train” and “In a Different Light: Duke Ellington,” seen at El Camino College in Torrance in recent years.

However it was his 1996 “Harlem Nutcracker,” a two-act African American retelling of the Christmas classic, that saddled his company with insurmountable debt, Byrd said. “We had all these payments that we had to make monthly,” Byrd, 53, told The Times on Tuesday, “and that’s made it almost impossible to meet the day-to-day operational costs of the company.”

“I don’t have exact figures, but we paid off about $400,000, so [the total debt] was about $800,000 for the four years that ‘The Harlem Nutcracker’ was performed.”

The key issue was a funding shortfall, Byrd said. “We got no ‘Nutcracker’ funding from any major contributors. I don’t know why but they just backed away from it. And if I had been smart, I would have said, ‘Just forget it.’ But my thinking was that a production like this would serve the society at large, that we had a role to play in the idea of art as a way of building community. So I did it out of that kind of desire. And I was left holding the bag.”

“For the company, ‘The Harlem Nutcracker’ was supposed be like capital campaigns for some organizations. It was supposed to push us to the next level of institutionalization. And when you fail at that, you’re like a presidential candidate who doesn’t win the election. You are tossed out and forgotten.”

Byrd recently choreographed “The Seven Deadly Sins” for Pacific Northwest Ballets. Some of his other 80 choreographic credits include works for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in New York City, Italy’s Aterballetto, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company in Ohio and Oregon Ballet Theatre. But he said he has no major upcoming freelance commissions on his plate and isn’t really seeking them.

“I believe in dance companies,” he said, “and I believe the only way that artists grow is through consistent and ongoing contact with each other in an environment that encourages creativity. And it’s very hard to do that when you’re freelancing. So I’m looking at the possibility of directorships of other companies that have openings for artistic directors.”

Even though Donald Byrd/The Group has gone under, its debt remains and he’s stuck with it. “The truth is,” Byrd said, “that to pay it off I probably will be an indentured servant for the rest of my life.”