Artistic Director Mentoring & Coaching
Our mentoring and coaching services for Affiliates, offer experienced, individual support for Artistic Directors who want to develop their skills, navigate change and reach their full potential. Mentoring offers a confidential space to draw on experience, explore challenges and consider new perspectives. Coaching provides focused support to help identify goals, overcome obstacles and turn ambition into practical action. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. Every mentoring or coaching programme begins by understanding where you are now, where you want to be and what you need to get there and all of our mentors/coaches offer a free 20 minute introductory session. Positioning Ballet will cover the cost of your first formal session.
Positioning Ballet Mentors & Coaches
Ted Brandsen
" I have been working in the ballet world for the past 45 years. While being a dancer and later on free-lance choreographer, I saw many examples of leadership in dance which I thought was inconsiderate of the dancers and sometimes downright adequate, which led me to think I might want to try this myself. Careful what you wish for! In 28 years at the helm of ballet companies, I learned a lot about the complexities of the job, the never-ending demands and growing amount of tasks on those in charge of ballet companies, the dilemmas one faces and the loneliness of the position. I am grateful for the support I received from a few brilliant people throughout these years and in turn would like to offer my support and whatever insights I gained to those who are currently in leadership positions in dance – or perhaps aspiring to step into those- on a one to one basis."
Ted Brandsen (Kortenhoef, 1959) served as Director of Dutch National Ballet from 2003 to 2026. Under his leadership, the company entered a period of significant artistic growth, establishing itself among the world’s leading ballet companies. He revitalised its full-length repertoire, introduced leading international choreographers, expanded the company’s presence across the Netherlands, and increased its performances on major international stages.
In 2013, Ted co-founded Dutch National Ballet’s Junior Company with the National Ballet Academy, creating an important bridge between professional training and a career in dance. He handed over the directorship to Ernst Meisner on 1 August 2026.
Ted joined Dutch National Ballet as a dancer in 1981 after training at the Scapino Dance Academy. He began choreographing in the 1980s and became a freelance choreographer in 1991. In 1998, he was appointed Artistic Director of West Australian Ballet, where he created works including Carmen and Pulcinella. He returned to Dutch National Ballet in 2002 as Deputy Artistic Director and became Artistic Director the following year.
His choreography includes Body, Stealing Time, Raï, Replay, Classical Symphony, and the full-length ballets Coppélia and Mata Hari. His work is performed internationally, and he has served on the juries of major competitions and awards including the Prix de Lausanne, the Fedora Prize and Benois de la Danse.
Ted has received numerous honours, including the Prize of Merit from the Dansersfonds ’79 (2014), the Amsterdam Prize for the Arts (2019), the title of Knight of the Order of the Dutch Lion (2022), and the French title of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (2026). Upon his retirement, the Mayor of Amsterdam awarded him the Silver Medal of the City of Amsterdam for his exceptional contribution to the city’s cultural life.
Lourdes Lopez
"As dancers, we spend our entire careers learning with someone in the room, whether it’s a teacher, a coach, or another pair of experienced eyes helping us see what we cannot always see ourselves.
And yet, when we move into artistic leadership, we are often expected to navigate an entirely new set of challenges completely on our own. What Positioning Ballet is creating with this mentorship program feels like a natural extension of the way dancers have always learned: through trust,
conversation, shared experience, and the willingness to keep growing."
David McAllister
"Being an Artistic Director is one of the great privileges of my ballet career. But it can also be one of the loneliest jobs especially as a young Director. Positioning Ballet is providing an opportunity for emerging and newly appointed Directors to engage with a group of current and former AD’s who can share their experience and skills and hopefully provide a network of support. It is a great pleasure and honour to be part of this ‘brains trust’."
Adam Sklute
"I am not here to tell you what your artistic vision should be - anyone who wants to be an artistic director has a vision. But let me help you stay true to your vision while working with your company’s need to earn revenue and honoring its historical legacy. Let me help you explore ways to build your school and outreach programs. Let me help you navigate educating and inspiring your Board, collaborating with your Executive Director, and managing the psychological and emotional challenges of your Artists, and your Staff. Being a ballet Artistic Director is becoming harder every day. I am grateful for the people I had to talk to throughout my career. Now let me be there for you".
Adrian van Winkelhof
"Coaching and mentoring are one-to-one relationships designed to help develop people towards their goals, and in practice they overlap. The difference lies mainly in where the expertise comes from and who sets the direction.
A mentor has held the role. They share what they did, what it cost and what they would do differently, and they can open doors: introductions, context on how boards and the wider field behave, the shortcuts and traps of a particular path. The value is experience you could not otherwise get.
A coach works mainly from your situation rather than their own history. Through structured conversation, supporting and challenging, a coach helps you clarify what you want, see your options and blind spots, and commit to action. The agenda is yours, and a coach can stand independent of your company, board and professional network.
A useful test is where the difficulty sits. If what you lack is knowledge, such as the path to a directorship, what the role involves, or how others have handled a similar decision, a mentor is likely to serve you best. If the difficulty lies in the situation itself, such as a strained board relationship, a culture that resists change, competing expectations or the weight of a decision that is yours alone to make, a coach's structure and independence may help more.
Many leaders benefit from both at different moments, and the two work well side by side: one to draw on industry experience and expertise, the other to help you make sense of the situationyou are in and lead well within it."
Lourdes is a transformative leader in the performing arts whose distinguished career
spans dance, television, arts education, arts advocacy, and executive leadership. Born in
Havana, Cuba, and raised in Miami, she was personally selected by George Balanchine to join New York City Ballet at age 16, where she danced under his direct tutelage alongside Jerome Robbins and Peter Martins. Her experience as a dancer became the foundation for a career devoted to expanding the reach and relevance of the arts—as an artist, educator, cultural journalist, advocate, and arts executive. She co-founded Morphoses with choreographer Christopher Wheeldon, pioneering a new model for the creation and presentation of contemporary ballet, and led Miami City Ballet as Artistic Director from 2012 to 2025. She also serves as a trustee of the Ford Foundation—the first artist ever appointed to its board and participated in national arts policy through the National Endowment for the Arts. Her leadership has consistently bridged artistic excellence, innovation, education, community engagement, and financial sustainability.
Throughout her career, Lourdes has championed new choreography and new models for
presenting and supporting the arts while honouring the traditions from which they emerged. She has commissioned and developed work by leading and emerging choreographers, guided arts organisations through periods of profound change, and advocated nationally for the value of the arts.
Her contributions have been recognised with numerous honours, including the Dance Magazine Award for Outstanding Achievements in Dance Leadership, Jerome Robbins Award, José Limón Director’s Award for Excellence, Ballet Hispánico’s Toda Una Vida Lifetime Achievement Award, Casita Maria’s Gold Medal of Honour and the American Immigration Law Foundation Award. In 2016, she was invited to join President Obama’s historic cultural delegation to Cuba and was recently elected to the Class of 2026 to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for her contributions to the Performing Arts.
With an unparalleled ability to blend artistic excellence, strategic innovation, and financial
leadership, Lourdes continues to shape the future of ballet and the performing arts.
Born in Perth, David joined The Australian Ballet in 1983 and was promoted to principal artist in 1989. During his time with the company, he danced many principal roles, including those in The Sleeping Beauty, Don Quixote, Coppélia, Manon, La Sylphide, John Cranko’s Onegin and Romeo and Juliet; in 1985 he won Bronze at the Fifth International Ballet Competition in Moscow. Throughout his career, David made numerous guest appearances worldwide, dancing with Bolshoi Ballet, the Kirov Ballet, the Georgian State Ballet, The National Ballet of Canada, Birmingham Royal Ballet, Singapore Dance Theatre and, in 1992, as part of a Royal Gala performance in London in the presence of the Princess of Wales. In 2000, he completed a Graduate Diploma in Arts and Entertainment Management and in 2001, took his final bow as a dancer. In July of that year, David became Artistic Director of The Australian Ballet. He was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia in the 2004 Australia Day Honours List and was invited to become a Vice President of the Royal Academy of Dance. In 2015, David premiered a new production of The Sleeping Beauty for The Australian Ballet. After two decades at the head of The Australian Ballet, at the end of 2020 David embarked on a new freelance career, co-authoring a Memoir with Amanda Dunn titled SOAR and creating a new production of Swan Lake for the Finnish National Ballet. In 2021 he became a Companion of the Order of Australia in the Queen’s Birthday’s Honours list, received the Queen’s Coronation Medal from the Royal Academy of Dance and the J.C. Williamson Award from Live Performance Australia. In 2023 David wrote Ballet Confidential and worked with the Royal New Zealand Ballet as Acting Artistic Director and was Guest Artistic Director with West Australian Ballet 2024/25.
For over thirty years, Adam has been in ballet leadership. He began dancing professionally with The Joffrey Ballet in New York City where he was one of the last two dancers personally picked by Robert Joffrey. After eleven seasons as a performer Sklute spent twelve years with the Joffrey moving from Ballet Master up to Associate Artistic Director. He became Artistic Director of Ballet West in Salt Lake City, Utah in 2007. During Adam’s tenure, Ballet West’s annual operating budget has nearly tripled in size, the company’s program offerings have expanded from three annual presentations to seven, touring nationally and internationally more than ever before in its history. Ballet West built and moved into new state of the art studios connected to its home theater, and the Ballet West Academy has grown to nearly one thousand students with four campuses across Utah becoming the primary feeder school to Ballet West with other graduating students now in major ballet companies across the globe. In 2012, thanks to Adam’s efforts, Ballet West became the subject of The CW Network’s docudrama, Breaking Pointe, which aired for two seasons and in 2020, they were the subject of a nine part on-line series In the Balance, Ballet for a Lost Year. From September 2016 to October 2017, Sklute took on the dual position of CEO and Artistic Director overseeing both administrative and artistic operations of Ballet West. An internationally sought-after teacher and adjudicator, Adam has received numerous awards, including Utah’s Enlightened 50 (2014), The Bronze Minuteman Award for Outstanding Service to Utah and The Nation (2015), Utah Diversity Connection’s Business Award for outstanding commitment to diversity initiatives (2017), and Westminster College’s Unsung Hero Award for his efforts to build community, unity, and diversity across Salt Lake City and Utah (2020). Most recently, Adam was included in Deseret Magazine’s 25 Change-makers of the West for his efforts to build greater equity and inclusion in classical ballet. In July of 2027, Adam will be named Artistic Director Emeritus of Ballet West when he steps down from the full-time duties of Artistic Director.
Adrian is a performance coach who works with artistic directors and arts leaders on the structural and personal pressures of the role.
He danced professionally for eleven years before moving into coaching, later becoming Head of Performance Coaching at English National Ballet. He holds an MSc in Coaching Psychology from the University of Sydney, a Master's in Dispute Resolution and a postgraduate qualification in counselling, and has spent more than fifteen years coaching, mentoring and lecturing people to achieve their best outcomes.
His work sits where governance, institutional culture and individual leadership meet. He focuses on the conditions in which arts leaders have to operate: relationships with senior stakeholders, organisational conflict, competing expectations, artists management, and the personal pressure of making consequential decisions.
At senior levels, arts leadership can be isolating. Adrian provides a confidential and independent relationship outside the immediate organisation and professional network, where leaders can speak candidly without having to manage the interests of their board, their colleagues or theirown standing.
Adrian's approach, including the four-stage process and Artistic IQ framework he uses with leaders, is set out in full at artsleaders.co