After a tumultuous period of labor disputes, board changes, and funding challenges, Dallas Black Dance Theatre has hired Kristie Patton Foster to usher the nationally-recognized company into a new era as it prepares to celebrate its 50th season.
“We're going to wrap our arms around our dancers, wrap our arms around the community, making sure that the community is aware of all that we're doing at the Dallas Black Dance Theatre,” Patton Foster said. “We're in a place where we are going to renew relationships, restore positive culture, and rebuild in the community, that includes inside the organization as well as externally.”
Patton Foster brings two decades of nonprofit leadership to her new role as executive director. Most recently, she served as an executive consultant for The Black Women’s Agenda, Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based organization that assesses challenges facing Black women and recommends public policy changes.
Patton Foster fills the vacancy left by longtime leader Zenetta Drew.
Drew retired in 2025 after nearly 40 years at DBDT. She raised millions for the company and grew its school. However, at the end of her tenure, an independent taskforce recommended her departure following a high-profile labor dispute with company dancers that led to a loss in public funding.
Company dancers unanimously voted to unionize and joined the American Guild of Musical Artists in May 2024. In mid-July, DBDT fired Sean Smith, a dancer and the company’s rehearsal director. By mid-August the entirety of the main company was also fired.
Dallas Black Dance Theatre, said the decision was prompted by an Instagram video that they say violated company policy and was not related to unionizing efforts.
The dispute prompted the Dallas City Council to pause, and later cut, roughly $248,000 in public funding to DBDT.
That funding was restored in 2025, months after the company reached a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board and agreed to pay its dancers $560,000.
The DBDT board accepted recommendations from an independent task force to ramp up the board’s engagement, increase its oversight and set term limits for its members.
Board chair Jack Skinner described the company’s previous chapter as a learning experience, and said that at this point “DBDT is stable, focused and moving forward with purpose.”
He praised Patton Foster as the clear choice to lead DBDT after a national search and said that she will work closely with the artistic director, Richard A. Freeman Jr., as a partner.
“We intentionally looked for a harmonious relationship between these two positions to ensure that even though Kristie doesn't have a dance background, she has that collaborative business and leadership expertise that can collaborate with the artistic side to create a full cohesive leadership of the organization, ” Skinner said.
Both Skinner and Patton Foster are looking forward to the 50th anniversary season.
“So very few arts organizations reached this milestone, and we are very excited and very happy to be at this point,” Patton Foster said. “My role is to make sure that we are successful here and into the future. I just wanna make sure that our Dallas community is aware of that and knows that we're here to stay.”
Founded by Ann M. Williams in 1976, Dallas Black Dance Theatre is the oldest continually running professional dance company based in the city. The company has performed at three Olympic arts festivals, the Kennedy Center and numerous international festivals in Japan, Belize and Zimbabwe, among others.
Details: DBDT will perform during Flora St. Live at 5 p.m. June 26 at Sammons Park, 2403 Flora St. Free with RSVP.
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