Snappy Dance dissolves, citing lack of funding

Snappy Dance Theater is no more. After 10 years, the company, which developed a growing following in Boston, has dissolved because of funding challenges, artistic director Martha Mason said in an e-mailed statement yesterday.

Just last year, Snappy Dance staged a heralded 13-day run of its piece "String Beings" at the Calderwood Pavilion. But a lack of funding made the company too hard to sustain, according to Mason, who wrote that "there is currently no future in the state of Massachusetts for a touring modern dance company" with full-time professional dancers. She noted that while the Museum of Fine Arts "successfully raised $500 million, we find that it was impossible to excite funders to nurture a cluster of contemporary dance companies and invest say, two million dollars, which would fund the salaries for dancers of several world class contemporary dance companies in Boston."

Mason praised several organizations for caring about contemporary dance, including the Massachusetts Cultural Council, LEF Foundation, and New England Foundation for the Arts. But she said they do not have enough money to make a difference, while other local foundations proved unhelpful.

"I think the funders do care," said Ann McQueen, a senior program officer at the Boston Foundation whose work centers on arts and culture.

"But to invest $2 million a year is simply not possible. There are not enough of us, we don't have as deep pockets as we wish we had and certainly the arts community wishes we had."

GEOFF EDGERS