It was a surprise when Hubbard Street Dance Chicago executive director Gail Kalver announced this fall that she’d be leaving the organization. She’d been with HSDC for 23 of its 29 years and, at least in Chicago, was as much the face of the company as founder Lou Conte or artistic director Jim Vincent. But Kalver said she was itching to try something new–and who wouldn’t be after all that time?–and she promised Vincent she’d be around until a replacement could be installed. It all sounded reasonable and orderly. A recent announcement that Hubbard Street 2 artistic director Julie Nakagawa Bottcher and managing director Andreas Bottcher are also leaving, rather abruptly, is harder to understand.
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The wife-and-husband team essentially created HS2, the parent troupe’s junior company, and ran it for the last decade. In an internal statement dated December 1, they said they decided to resign after “thoughtful consideration, careful listening, and passionate discussion.” They’re making their exit January 1, they wrote, adding the curious remark that they didn’t want to “detract from the Executive Director search.” Reached by phone, Bottcher said he couldn’t elaborate. In an equally mysterious companion statement Kalver and Vincent waxed philosophical, saying “‘There is a time for every purpose.’… And, this is indeed, a time of transition for Hubbard Street. With admiration and respect for difficult decisions, we announce the impending departure.” In a follow-up interview, Kalver said the couple is leaving for “personal reasons.”
HSDC is just completing a multiyear capital campaign that paid for a $1.25 million renovation of its 55,000-square-foot headquarters on West Jackson. Originally the home of Ruby Chevrolet, the 60-year-old building got its cracks filled and a semisleek new facade designed by Krueck & Sexton Architects. Kalver says they’re looking to raise another $250,000 for maintenance on the building, which has been the company’s home since ’98. It houses production, scene, and costume shops, a sound-mixing studio, offices, and five dance studios, used for rehearsals by the main company and HS2 as well as by the school’s classes. Two tenants rent 15,000 square feet, and there’s an active rental schedule for the studios; in the spring they’ll be used for three weeks of rehearsal for The Color Purple. The rentals subsidize HSDC’s $5.7 million annual budget. The company has a relatively modest endowment of $3 million, most of it established with a matching grant from the Ford Foundation six years ago.
