When Shira Greenberg outgrew her space, she bought the former Duke City Studios to house not only her company and school, but an arts business incubator as well.

As a child in Minneapolis, Shira Greenberg liked to choreograph dances to perform in her garage. “Lots of kids do this,” she says, “but I also liked to sell tickets to the shows, and then I would sell concessions—lemonade and little caterpillar magnets I made. My whole family is entrepreneurial, and I’ve always had that business side to me.”

Greenberg went on to study dance and theater and become a choreographer, but her curiosity about and passion for business has never dulled. This may help explain how the Keshet Dance Company she founded 17 years ago has been able to extend its reach deep into the Albuquerque community where she settled, bringing the experience of dance not just to her small troupe of professional dancers and their audiences, but to homeless kids, incarcerated youth, people with disabilities. The company mission: “to open unlimited possibilities through the experience of dance,” and she’s made it happen not just with an unwavering vision but by building a financially sound and sustainable arts organization.

Now, Greenberg, 40, has purchased the 30,000-square-foot former Duke City Studios in Albuquerque to create Keshet Center for the Arts, where, with the help of a $1 million U.S. Department of Commerce economic development grant, a business incubator will nurture other arts organizations as well. “There are so many talented artists in New Mexico,” she says, “but without a marketing plan, only 25 people will see your amazing performance, instead of 250. Without the supporting business structure, your art won’t have sustainability.”

Greenberg started her contemporary dance company in 1996 in a 1,600-square-foot warehouse. “It was in a fascinating row of artist-occupied warehouses—my neighbors were a metalsmith, a printmaker, a woodworker,” she says. She put a sprung floor up front and set up a bed in the back, “behind a wooden wall, if you could call it that,” where she lived. Four years later, Keshet moved to the 8,700-square-foot space it’s occupied until now, with two studios and room for offices—space it outgrew “years ago,” says Greenberg. Keshet now has 1,000 students enrolled annually, including 24, ages 9 to 17, in a pre-professional program, which offers not just rigorous training in modern dance, ballet and other techniques, but also kinesiology, nutrition, resumé writing, auditioning, choreography and improv.

Keshet’s nonprofit status allows Greenberg to offer noncompetitive scholarships for anyone who needs them.

From the beginning, Greenberg imagined being more than just a professional repertoire company. “Yes, we love dance for dance’s sake, but I was looking at how we, as professional dancers, could use movement to engage with the community. How could it change people’s lives—especially in populations that didn’t have access to movement for various reasons—and make that community stronger?” That very first year, Keshet dancers began teaching youth at New Mexico’s juvenile detention facility (see sidebar); other outreach programs followed. And so did the awards, including recognition from the White House.

Greenberg created Keshet as a nonprofit because it allowed the company to supplement earned revenues with fundraising for its social service programs. Greenberg emphasizes that being a nonprofit doesn’t mean you don’t want to make a profit. “That’s a common misconception. There are times when you’ll do anything for your art, of course. But you don’t have to be a starving artist forever,” she says. “Let’s make it a profitable business so you can hire the strongest staff, grow more programs, expand your reach to have the biggest impact.” Keshet offers its six full-time dancers employment with salary and benefits. “Business is business, no matter what your tax structure,” she says.

That’s the mindset and know-how Greenberg wants to share now with other fledgling nonprofit and for-profit arts organizations through the Keshet Ideas and Innovation Center (KIIC)—“everything I wish someone had told me.” For a year before moving to Albuquerque, Greenberg took every single course she could find at a Minnesota business-for-the-arts program, as she prepared her business plan and filed as a nonprofit. She dug into financial projections and spreadsheets; she signed up as a board member for the Minnesota Shakespeare Company to learn how a board worked.

While she mostly “learned by doing, from my mistakes,” the incubator program will systematize the kind of training she had to seek out, offering seven businesses in the arts (or in health and wellness) ongoing mentoring and below-market-rate rent. The training—tailored for the arts—will be provided in partnership with organizations like the Center for Nonprofit Excellence, and experts in finance, law and PR. “We’ll cover the fundamentals for any arts business and set benchmarks they need to meet, but the program won’t be cookie-cutter. We’ll customize it with each participant.” Informal collaborations and learning happen in shared spaces, too. “You need a cellist, so you go next door,” says Greenberg. “My dancers need theater training; I trade some workshops.”

The first three tenants will be New Mexico Ballet Company, Mother Road Theatre Company and a TV production business. Each year another two will be added, so there will be staggered flow of businesses at different stages through the three- to five-year program. For businesses that don’t need space, KIIC will also have a membership track. “There’s a huge community of independent filmmakers here,” says Greenberg. “They have similar problems to an independent choreographer. If I’m new, how do I shoot on location, when that requires a $1 million liability policy?” Members would have access to Keshet’s umbrella liability insurance policy, as well as training sessions and other resources. Greenberg expects to take on 40 to 60 members, at annual fees of less than $100.

Keshet teaches a movement curriculum in math, literacy and conflict resolution for juvenile offenders.

The arts center/incubator will have ample performance, rehearsal and education space, including five studios, an 8,100-square-foot sound stage with green screen and a 400-seat black-box theater, plus enough space to tuck in offices and services for Keshet’s staff of 23 and the incubator tenants. “When you’re working with an existing space, you always seem to end up with pillars in the middle of rooms,” says Greenberg, whose husband, Richard Letscher, a carpenter and general contractor, is managing the renovation. “But we have high ceilings with no obstructions, just huge, open, beautiful space.” Keshet expects to move in by the end of the year.

Creating a dance center had been a dream of Greenberg’s forever, she says, but three years ago, Keshet began a $4 million capital campaign to make it happen. So far, with the $1 million federal Economic Development Administration grant, plus funding from city, county, state, private donors and foundations, it’s more than halfway there. The year or two spent navigating the federal grant application has been hugely educational, Greenberg says—figuring out how to track success, reaching out to local and county officials to convey the economic impact of the project. The center is projected to create 100 jobs over the next 10 years, with a multiplier effect, thanks to tourism dollars spent with other local businesses and taxable revenues. Keshet itself expects to extend its annual reach from 8,000 students and audience members to 100,000. The way Greenberg envisions it, you create a critical mass of successful artists in the district, who then bring in audiences. People come to see the arts, maybe get dinner nearby, go to a gallery, stay overnight, go to another show. When you have bigger audiences, then they support more artists, which supports more audience. As one local commissioner said to her, “It could be the SoHo of Albuquerque.”

Keshet’s overall budget will grow significantly, but what’s exciting, says Greenberg, is that instead of the 50/50 split between earned revenues and fund-raising Keshet has typically achieved, going forward, 75 percent of the budget will come from earned revenues—from more classes (with the expansion to five studios), studio and theater rentals and bigger ticket revenues from more productions—and just 25 percent from fundraising. Being less vulnerable to the changing winds of fundraising will put Keshet on an even stronger footing and help Greenberg keep the right creative balance between her CEO and artistic director roles. This fall, Keshet is preparing four productions for next season: Greenberg will create two new works and remount Ani Ma’amin (“I believe,” in Hebrew), a piece she choreographed about the impact of the Holocaust on American Jews. And then there’s Nutcracker on the Rocks, her rock-and-roll rendition of the classic that has become a hugely popular annual tradition. DT

Basia Hellwig is editorial consultant to Dance Teacher.

Top two photos by Paulo Tavares; by Pat Berrett, courtesy of Keshet Dance; Michelle Obama photo courtesy of Keshet Dance