Ballet Tucson at 40: Margaret Mullin on Dance, Discovery, and Coming Home

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• 🎙️ Margaret Mullin discusses her path from training at the School of Ballet Tucson to leading Ballet Tucson as artistic director.
• 📝 The conversation recognizes Nancy Cosby and Joanne Calgill for their roles in supporting Ballet Tucson’s early development.
• 📍 Ballet Tucson presents fall, winter, and spring performances at the Temple of Music and Art, with The Nutcracker at Linda Ronstadt Music Hall.
• 🚋 Mullin describes a repertory that pairs beloved classical ballet with new choreography and original work for the company.
• 📝 For newcomers, Mullin suggests that audiences need not understand every movement to have a meaningful response to a performance.
• 🎙️ Mullin explains how she volunteered on Ballet Tucson’s digital outreach and fundraising during the pandemic before returning to Tucson.
• 📍 The 40th-anniversary season balances Ballet Tucson’s history with programming intended to move the company forward.

Ballet Tucson’s 40th anniversary is a moment to look back at the people who helped establish professional ballet in Tucson—and to consider what the company can become next. In this conversation, Artistic Director Margaret Mullin shares both perspectives with the uncommon familiarity of someone who trained at the School of Ballet Tucson before leading the organization.

Her path took her from intensive training in Tucson to Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle, then back home at a time when Ballet Tucson was finding ways to stay connected during the pandemic. The result is a story about opportunity, artistic curiosity, and the care that goes into making a night at the theater worth an audience’s time.

A Tucson Training Ground, Then a Return Home

Ballet Tucson grew from a push to formalize professional ballet performance and dance education in the city. Mullin points to the commitment of Nancy Cosby and Joanne Calgill in the company’s early history, especially the decision to support the group that remained in Tucson when an earlier organization split between Tucson and Phoenix. That local foundation still matters in the company’s anniversary year, as Ballet Tucson considers its history alongside its next chapter.

For Mullin, that history is personal. She began training at the School of Ballet Tucson after turning nine and spent much of her adolescence in the studio, often six or seven days a week. As a work-scholarship student, she also cleaned the facility: a practical exchange that made training possible and gave her an enduring connection to the place. Now, as artistic director, she describes feeling the weight of that shared history whenever she enters the building.

After graduating from high school, Mullin moved to Seattle, where she spent a year in Pacific Northwest Ballet’s professional division before joining the company. Even while building a dance career there, she kept Tucson in view, returning to teach, choreograph, and stage work. Her eventual return came after she volunteered from Seattle as Ballet Tucson’s Artistic Associate and Media Director during the pandemic, helping develop digital outreach, a YouTube channel, and online fundraising efforts that supported the company’s return to the stage.

Ballet Beyond a Single Expectation

For audiences who picture ballet only through The Nutcracker, Mullin offers a wider frame. Her approach is built around the expectation of surprise: preserving classical works while presenting new choreography and creating original work for Ballet Tucson. Experience at Pacific Northwest Ballet exposed her to both landmark repertory and artists taking the form in new directions, and she brings that sense of range to programming in Tucson.

The Nutcracker remains an important entry point, particularly as a holiday production presented with Tucson Symphony Orchestra. Mullin also notes the many Tucson hands behind the production, including sets designed by Joe McGrath at the Rogue Theater. Yet she encourages newcomers not to use one title as their only measure of ballet. A full-length story ballet may speak deeply to one person, while another audience member may discover a stronger connection through a mixed program.

That openness is central to her invitation. Mullin does not see unfamiliar choreography as something audiences must decode correctly. A viewer may not love every work on a program, but can still find a piece that resonates—or come away thinking differently about an art form. Mixed repertory performances offer multiple approaches in one evening, giving audiences room to notice the movement, style, and scale that draw them in.

Curating Performances and Building a Company Culture

Ballet Tucson performs its fall, winter, and spring programs at the Temple of Music and Art, while The Nutcracker is staged at Linda Ronstadt Music Hall. These downtown venues place the company within Tucson’s active performing-arts landscape, and Mullin speaks warmly of working at the Temple of Music and Art alongside Arizona Theatre Company. The venues are not simply locations; they help shape how audiences encounter the company’s work.

The dancers themselves include artists from Tucson and from elsewhere in the country. Mullin says the company’s repertoire and its workplace culture are frequent reasons dancers express interest in Ballet Tucson. Rather than treating auditions as a technical assessment alone, the organization also meets individually with auditioning dancers, seeking people who value teamwork and a supportive environment. That attention reflects Mullin’s belief that the work is sustained by how people treat one another behind the scenes.

Her programming decisions carry a related sense of responsibility. Mullin describes artistic direction as curating an evening, not merely filling a schedule. She considers how works sit together and what audiences receive in return for their time and money. For the 40th-anniversary season, that has meant resisting a purely retrospective approach: honoring the company’s past while continuing the momentum of new programming and asking where Ballet Tucson can go from here.

Conclusion

Ballet Tucson’s anniversary is less a finish line than a chance to see how a local institution continues to evolve. Listen to Margaret Mullin’s conversation with Tom Heath for a fuller look at the journey from student to artistic director, the thought behind Ballet Tucson’s programming, and the invitation to arrive ready for something unexpected.

Editorial note: This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity while preserving its substantive content and original sequence.

Welcome to Ballet Tucson’s 40th Anniversary

Tom Heath: Welcome back to another episode of Life Along the Streetcar. If you’re keeping track, this will be episode 399, which means the next one is 400. Who knows? Maybe we’ll do something even more special, but it’s hard to top what we’ve been doing here. We like to cover stories from the urban core, which we’ve defined as A Mountain to the University of Arizona, and discuss cultural, economic, social, and artistic things in Tucson that are shaping our urban core. We’ve been blessed to have a lot of guests, and you can see past episodes at lifealongthestreetcar.org. You can also listen as the show airs on Downtown Radio 99.1 FM every Sunday at 11 a.m.

Today, again, I think I’ve started 398 shows this way, I’m so excited for this next guest because I get to learn so much about Tucson in a way I don’t know. We have Margaret Mullin of Ballet Tucson with us today. Thank you for having me. I thought you were going to be our first guest with the dance perspective, but then I remembered we interviewed Autumn Eckman when she did her own performance at the U of A. You are the first from Ballet Tucson. You’re seasoned in the dance world. I know all kinds of nothing. I know absolutely nothing except that the amount of talent and physical strength it takes to do what these dancers do is amazing, and they make it look so effortless sometimes.

Ballet Tucson: Yeah, they’re pretty extraordinary people.

Tom Heath: Ballet Tucson, this is a special year for you, right? You’re in your anniversary year?

Ballet Tucson: Yeah, this is our 40th anniversary.

Tom Heath: Wow. How does ballet get started? What’s the foundation in the city to make it happen?

Ballet Tucson: Ballet Arizona is also celebrating its 40th anniversary, and there’s a reason for that. Once upon a time, there was one group based here in Tucson that was called something else, and I can’t even remember the name now. There was a group that wanted to move to Phoenix and a group that wanted to stay in Tucson, and thus Ballet Arizona was born in Phoenix and Ballet Tucson was born in Tucson.

Tom Heath: Of course Phoenix takes the whole state, and that’s all right. I like the specialization there. I’m curious about the naming. I actually don’t know why the ballet comes first.

Ballet Tucson: It varies from ballet company to ballet company. The company I danced for in Seattle was Pacific Northwest Ballet, so the ballet came last. It does vary, and it’s funny that both Ballet Arizona and Ballet Tucson went with ballet first. I don’t know if that was maybe just the thinking: of course, ballet is first.

Tom Heath: Key for theme. What launched it here in Tucson or in the state? Why was a professional company needed?

Ballet Tucson: I credit so much of Ballet Tucson’s history to Nancy Cosby.

Founding Support and Artistic Leadership

Ballet Tucson: She was our treasurer for a very long time and passed away a couple of years ago. We miss her dearly, but she had such a love for dance. She never danced herself, but just loved ballet, utterly in love with the art form. She primarily came together with a woman named Joanne Calgill to provide a lot of funding. They saw this dance company split between Phoenix and Tucson and wanted to get behind the group that was really pushing to keep it in Tucson. Nancy was living here with her husband and building her family, and she wanted to make sure there was great ballet in this community. I think Nancy doesn’t get enough credit as a key founder of Ballet Tucson.

Tom Heath: So it wasn’t like all of a sudden ballet showed up in Tucson. Dance was here. This was just a different way to formalize it and create some structure around it.

Ballet Tucson: Absolutely. It was really the first time there was a big push to professionalize performances and dance education in ballet in Tucson. That was the big moment that we decided we were taking up roots, I guess you would say.

Tom Heath: When did you take the helm as artistic director? That pretty much puts you in charge of the ballet, right? Your vision is what drives it. Is that a fair statement?

Ballet Tucson: That is a fair statement.

Ballet Tucson: I do share with my associate artistic director, Jake Omada, who’s been with our company for about 38 years. She was in Japan for the first two years, then came to Tucson and wasn’t sure if she wanted to live here. She fell in love with Tucson and decided to stay. She also was a contemporary dancer, so she did ballet and contemporary, kind of walking the two lines, and then fully committed to Ballet Tucson.

For me, I’m celebrating my fifth year as artistic director, so it’s a nice personal anniversary as well. I grew up in the school, so my history with Ballet Tucson specifically goes back to 1998. I technically became artistic director five years ago, but I’ve known it a lot longer than that.

Tom Heath: So you’re from Tucson. Did you get your training locally, and how did you end up in the Northwest?

Ballet Tucson: I trained at the School of Ballet Tucson, so I’m an alumna of our school, which I’m very proud of. When I went off to pursue a professional dance career, I was fortunate to go to Seattle several times as a student over the summer.

From Tucson Training to a Seattle Career

Ballet Tucson: When you’re a dance student who is really serious about ballet, you go to summer programs all over the country and do big auditions for ballet companies. I was fortunate that Pacific Northwest Ballet really liked me as a student, and they wanted to keep me once I graduated from high school. Within a month of graduating from high school here, I moved to Seattle. I was a professional division student in that program for one year, and then was hired into the company. I suddenly moved to Seattle, and the rest is history as far as my career there goes.

I always loved Tucson and came back to visit a lot, taught in the school, did some choreography and staging, and envisioned myself moving back here at some point.

Tom Heath: Did they come knocking on your door, or did you reach out when you saw an opening?

Ballet Tucson: I kind of went knocking on Ballet Tucson’s door. It’s an organization that means a lot to me because I got my education here. As a low-income kid, I realized how easily I could have not had a great education, and I was able to have opportunities here, so I wanted to pay that forward. When the pandemic hit, the timing weirdly ended up being right for what was such a crazy time in the world and the arts world.

Ballet Tucson: I was leaving Pacific Northwest Ballet to do freelance work between dancing, choreography, teaching, and a film I’d been working on, and then the world shut down. I realized Ballet Tucson, being the small company it was at the time, didn’t really have infrastructure around getting out into the world digitally. I became Artistic Associate and Media Director as a volunteer from Seattle to run their social media, create a YouTube channel, and create digital fundraisers. We were fortunately able to digitally raise enough money that year to get the company back on stage.

When that happened, I thought, I’ve always wanted to be an artistic director. After a year off from pandemic craziness, I think I’m okay. I’ve had a great career dancing. I’m good to now help other people do that instead. It felt like the stars aligned: they were ready to take a next step, the founding artistic director was ready to step down, and I loved Chico so much. She was my teacher. I thought I would like to come back to Tucson and do this alongside her, so I decided to listen to the universe in that way.

Tom Heath: So are you the second artistic director? Wow, fantastic. This idea struck me: you walked into this building as a young person, and then walked in as the leader. Same building, same format. There has to be quite a range of emotions between that. Is it common for someone to take over an organization where they trained?

Ballet Tucson: Not terribly common, actually. It’s definitely a very special opportunity. It’s funny that you mentioned the building, because I feel the full weight of the building when I’m in there. I was a work-scholarship kid. We don’t do that now; we do financial aid and scholarships. But at the time, for financial aid, you could clean the studio. For six or seven years of my young life, I cleaned that ballet studio, scrubbed the toilets, vacuumed, picked up old toe tape out of the dressing room, and did all the gross things. I literally scrubbed the toilets of the organization that I now run, which is a funny step to take.

Tom Heath: What age were you when you joined the school?

Ballet Tucson: I think I had just turned nine.

Tom Heath: From nine through high school graduation, you were there pretty regularly. To get to the professional level, I would assume.

Ballet Tucson: Yeah, I lived there. I was usually there six to seven days a week. It was very intensive training.

Tom Heath: Is that type of training common, or is it for people on a professional career path?

A Lifelong Drive for Dance and Film

Ballet Tucson: Usually it’s for people on the professional career path, but I had friends growing up who knew they didn’t want to become professional dancers and just wanted to see their time as dancers through to the fullest. I had a friend, Jennifer, who did the exact same training program as I did, with no intention of becoming a professional dancer. It just meant that much to her, and she knew she had this window of time that she really wanted to go for it. We followed the same path right until graduation.

Tom Heath: You also mentioned a film you were working on, a documentary. I do just enough research to be wrong about things, but it seemed that at 13, you saw a performance of, was it Laura’s Women? That stuck with you and became the base of this documentary. What was it about that performance?

Ballet Tucson: Not a lot of works do you see that are so cinematic. I’ve been trying to figure out when it is right to bring it back to our stage. I’m a big lover of film, and in looking at that piece and remembering my love of it, I could see all the opportunities within the story that would be beautiful on camera. It started there and then grew. We are technically still in process. It’s been a very long labor of love.

Tom Heath: At 13, was there a point when you realized you were going to follow a professional path? Was it at nine? At 13? At what point did you think, I’m good enough to do this?

Ballet Tucson: I’ll rephrase it: not when was I good enough to do it, but when was I obsessed enough to want to do it? I think that’s a common dancer answer. We all have a laundry list a mile long of things we can improve about ourselves, so it was never a place of ultimate confidence, but of very deep love. I was a very driven child. I knew I wanted to be a professional dancer from the time I was about five. It was my greatest love, the thing that never faltered. There were some rough times here and there.

Tom Heath: You were cleaning toilets and picking up towels, so definitely some rough times. Now here you are. Let’s talk about Ballet Tucson. Where do you perform, and what can people expect if they’re not familiar with the ballet or your company?

Ballet Tucson: I like that question because what I set out to do with Ballet Tucson is make people expect the unexpected. A lot of people have preconceived notions about what ballet is and the types of people who do it. We’re trying to expand Tucson’s worldview of this art form. What I was able to see in Seattle, where I was fortunate to be with one of the five biggest American ballet companies, was that the world was really our oyster.

Ballet Tucson: We experienced great choreographers, amazing new premieres, people preserving the classics, and people going in completely different directions with the art form. It makes you curious about what’s possible, and cognizant that this art form held in such a historical manner has a beautiful history worth preserving, but also a huge range people often aren’t aware of.

My mission with our repertoire is to do the classics and make sure they survive, including things like The Nutcracker, which we do with Tucson Symphony Orchestra, so it’s really Tucson’s holiday tradition. But we also bring in pieces from choreographers I know all over the world who are doing exciting, revolutionary things, and we create original works for the company ourselves. It’s quite a mix.

Broadening the Ballet Experience

Ballet Tucson: One of my favorite things is hearing how pleasantly surprised people are when they come to our shows: “I had no idea ballet was like that, and I can’t wait to see what’s next. Every time I come to one of the shows, there’s so much variety.” That’s gratifying, because I don’t feel people get stuck in what ballet is when they come to our performances. Our season subscriber base has grown tremendously since I took over, and I think that’s a testament to creating an entire season of interesting works, not just pockets of interesting works. The people who spend the whole year with us always have something to look forward to.

Tom Heath: If you’re new to ballet, whatever expectations you have going in, know that you’re probably not going to experience that.

Ballet Tucson: Exactly. You’ll get a glimmer of it, and then we’ll show you something entirely different.

Tom Heath: For someone very novice with ballet, are there entry-level works? Are some pieces too sophisticated for someone without a good understanding?

Ballet Tucson: I don’t think there is a piece in our repertoire that is too sophisticated. One thing I’ve noticed changing in our audience base is openness to new works. You might not love every piece on the program, but you’ll love something, if not multiple things. Even pieces you didn’t care for may make you think differently. When I first took over, I saw some resistance: “Well, I didn’t understand it.” In conversations, I’d say, “You don’t have to. What does it mean to you?” People realized they could have their own way of seeing the work. I don’t think there’s really a stopping point for people when they come to our theater.

Ballet Tucson: The gateway is usually perceived to be The Nutcracker, for sure, and that’s true of every ballet company in the world. The Nutcracker is king. It’s a beautiful production, and we’re really proud of it. It’s very local. Please support local: there are touring pickup companies that come in that are not your local ballet and local symphony. In addition, we have sets designed by Joe McGrath at the Rogue Theatre. There are all these Tucson touches that we’re proud of and want to keep going for multiple generations.

Nutcracker is a big one, but I caution people not to get stuck on Nutcracker if they haven’t had many ballet experiences. Sometimes the big, full-length story ballets are not as interesting to people, and that’s okay. They might enjoy one of our mixed programs better. It’s good to dabble a little here and there, because you might be bored by The Nutcracker, and we understand, but we have plenty of other things to offer.

Tom Heath: So, good or bad, don’t judge ballet by The Nutcracker only. Where do you perform?

Ballet Tucson: We’re a bit mixed, but we have primarily been performing at the Temple of Music and Art, which we absolutely love. Our friends at Arizona Theatre Company are wonderful, and it’s such a nice atmosphere. Our fall, winter, and spring performances are at the Temple of Music and Art, and The Nutcracker is at the Linda Ronstadt Music Hall.

Tom Heath: You mentioned local. Where do your dancers come from? Are they pulled from locally, or are you attracting them from across the country?

Ballet Tucson: It’s a mix. We have some who are local and some from across the country. I’m proud that our talent base is tremendous. People are absolutely blown away when they come to the shows and say, “I had no idea the dancers would be like this.” Tucson arts organizations get called regional, and that word can carry a certain air that maybe isn’t ideal, but our dancers are world-class. Choreographers who work with the top ballet companies come in and say, “These dancers are phenomenal. I want to come back. Please have me come back. We’ll do more of my work.” We’re culture-driven in our organization, and through word of mouth from our own dancers, we’ve been able to attract extraordinary talent locally and nationally.

Company Culture, Community, and the Season Ahead

Tom Heath: Even internally in Tucson, we think of Tucson as a small, regional ballet. If you’re pulling in this talent, are dancers aware of how good Tucson is, or do they just not want to be in the snow anymore? What is driving them here?

Ballet Tucson: I always interview dancers. When you’re auditioning for a ballet company, typically you’re not interviewed. You’re a good dancer or a bad dancer; you do the class well or you don’t. For us, because we’re so culture-driven, we want to work with nice humans. We feel teamwork is important, so we sit down one-on-one with every person auditioning for the company to get to know the team a bit. I ask them, “Why Ballet Tucson? Why are you interested in us?” The top two responses are the repertoire, because the programming we’re bringing here is swinging above our weight as far as ballet company scale goes. We’re doing things major American ballet companies are doing, by choreographers whose works dancers dream of performing. The other response is the culture.

Ballet Tucson: I’ve heard, “It’s such a nice place to work. It’s a supportive environment, and I’ve heard good things.” Especially since the pandemic, a lot of dancers have been craving more supportive environments. Everyone went through a lot in the arts world, especially generations emerging into the professional world as the pandemic hit. They had a rough time getting their footing in the field. I think we’ve attracted people seeking not only a company but an environment they can be proud of. That’s a reputation of Ballet Tucson I’m really proud of. Then they fall in love with Tucson, too.

Tom Heath: Do performers see longevity in Tucson, or are they looking at the variety you’re performing as a way to move into a larger market?

Ballet Tucson: It’s mixed. I’m proud that the dancers who are here really want to be here. We always tell them that if it ever doesn’t feel like the right fit, all they need to do is communicate with us. We’re all about transparency and honesty on that front. We have some dancers who have been with the company upwards of 12 or 13 years.

Ballet Tucson: We also have dancers who move in different directions. My marketing assistant, Kira, is currently in Germany. She danced for the company for three years, decided she wanted to pursue contemporary dance, moved to Germany, and still works with me remotely on Ballet Tucson marketing. She loves Ballet Tucson but wanted to go a different direction. It’s varied.

Tom Heath: That’s culture. You feel tied to an organization. I imagine that culture starts with a nine-year-old picking up tape and scrubbing toilets who has a love for the ballet that’s different than a director coming in who is good and enjoys the work. There’s something about Tucson that really has a love for this venue, too.

Ballet Tucson: Thank you. It’s in my DNA.

Tom Heath: We’re lucky to have you. How do people find out more about the ballet and the performances? I’m assuming you have a schedule and people can buy tickets.

Ballet Tucson: We are still selling season subscriptions, which I highly recommend. I promise you won’t be disappointed with the entire season.

Ballet Tucson: All of our information is on our website, ballettucson.org. We also have Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, where people can learn more about the works and the behind-the-scenes with the artists. It’s such a fantastic group, and the season is looking really strong.

We toyed with the programming a lot. A 40th anniversary can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. We wanted to strike a balance of who are we, who have we been, and who are we becoming? We’ve had so much growth, momentum, and excitement about new programming that we didn’t want to suddenly stop for one year and do only retrospective work. We actually started pushing even further forward, and I think it’s a great way to go for the anniversary.

Tom Heath: That’s fantastic. You’ve said a couple of times that there’s something for everyone, and probably nothing for everyone.

Tom Heath: No one is going to get everything they want out of it. I use this a lot when I’m promoting Downtown Radio: there are so many shows that I find it almost my responsibility to find something I don’t necessarily understand or like, because then I get educated about it and spend time with it. All of a sudden, I have a newfound understanding for something that a year ago I would have said I don’t like. It still might not be my favorite, but it changes my level of appreciation. Any art form—a film festival, ballet—has the same types of things. The ability to see a lot of things in a little time frame, rather than one piece over an entire two-hour performance, would be interesting to me. I could say, okay, I like this style better and maybe want to find more of that.

Ballet Tucson: Absolutely. My favorite performances, and what I grew to discover, were mixed repertory performances. My friends in Seattle and my husband ended up favoring them when I was dancing there, too. They’re not the ones people as readily buy tickets for because there is an unknown factor, but once they’re there, they say, “Oh my gosh, I like that so much better than the three hours I sat in The Sleeping Beauty, actually.”

Tom Heath: I imagine that even if they’re not longer performances, there is continuity and a theme, not just hodgepodge—throwing things together. There is a thought process to the variety.

Ballet Tucson: Overall, yes. I wouldn’t call it a theme; I would call it a scientific balance.

Tom Heath: But there’s a curation involved. It’s not just that these two pieces fit the time; it’s how they fit together in the performance.

Ballet Tucson: Exactly. What are we bringing to the audience at that time? I love that you used a word that is the one I use most in describing my role: curator. Besides working with dancers, that’s the thing I love most about my role. You get to be a curator. I take it seriously. Having time and income to go out can be challenging for people, so when people invest their time and money in Ballet Tucson, I take that to heart. I want to give them something rewarding and interesting the whole evening. When you come, we are having a mutual commitment to each other.

Tom Heath: The website is ballettucson.org, and social media handles are Ballet Tucson.

Tom Heath: Can we find your documentary out there?

Ballet Tucson: Not yet. Stay tuned. We’re working.

Tom Heath: All right, that will be the next episode. I appreciate your time. I’m glad you’re back in Tucson. Having met you, it feels like such a natural fit for what you do. I’m excited to see where Ballet Tucson goes with you at the helm, now that you’ve got five years under your belt and have this all figured out.

Ballet Tucson: Working on it. Thank you so much for your time.

Tom Heath: Thanks again for your time watching Life Along the Streetcar as we talk about the people, places, events, and things happening in our urban core that are shaping Tucson and the region. As you can see from our conversation today, the ballet is not just pulling from people in the downtown area. It’s a regional ballet, bringing professionals in and bringing a lot of patrons and dollars into the downtown and urban core. There is a lot of reach here.

We appreciate the use of music by Ryanhood, who allow us to use their song “Dillinger Days” each week for our intro and outro. None of this happens without our executive producer, James Portis, who is behind the scenes making sure all of this comes to life. My name is Tom Heath. I’m your host. I hope you tune in every Sunday for another episode of Life Along the Streetcar.

Tom Heath: Until next time, stay curious, Tucson.