Unfortunately, this turnover isn't altogether surprising. Octavio Martin, a former principal with Cuban National Ballet and Sarasota Ballet, was originally named artistic director last spring. In August, however, ANB's website suddenly announced that Rasta Thomas would be artistic director, with Martin leading the second company. Both names were removed a few weeks later. Bogush says the new artistic director will come from the company that ANB is merging with, and Alexandre Proia will lead the second company.

Part of the reason that so many changes have happened so quickly is because there was a transition in management this summer, which Bogush says was due to personal issues. "The new management represents a new vision," she explains.

"The company was founded by a group of people with an idea in mind to highlight diversity, so we—close to 50 dancers—signed on for that," says former ANB dancer Christopher Charles McDaniel, who resigned earlier this month. "But between being hired in June and arriving in September, that group shifted. That left us dancers with new management that had never seen us, and were confused about what to do with us."

He adds that for the first pay period, the dancers were paid in cash. Their second check came from a company in New York City.

When we reached out to founding executive director Ashley Benefield, she told us that she has been out of state on maternity leave for the past few months and had limited contact with anyone at ANB—and only found out about the firings second-hand. "They have destroyed everything we worked to build, and I no longer want anything to do with the company," she says. "It makes me sick. My heart goes out to all these dancers."

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Enterprising Men