Thank you in advance for reading through this... I tend to be a detailed writer!!
I am currently dealing with MANY issues with my troupe. Here is the story:

I moved here (small, remote, ski town in Colorado) 10 years ago, and there was NO belly dance at all here. So, for a few years, I danced with the local African troupe, did a few performances, and got involved in the 'dance scene'. It is actually a pretty impressive scene for how small the town is!! Anyway, one thing led to another, and I started teaching belly dance about 7 years ago. I had a lot of experience when I moved here, I had been in a troupe in California for a bit and have danced since I was about 5. As I have been teaching for 7 or so years, I now have a very good performance troupe. There are 12 of us (including myself), and we have always been a pretty cohesive group of great ladies. They are some of my closest and best friends!! WE do both local performances as well as travel to festivals and such.

Here is the issue: I am moving away with my husband (in August), and we are trying to figure out who is going to 'take over' for me. This is a tricky one, because up until now, there has always been one very clear cut leader, me. Everyone else is, more or less, on equal ground. Some of my dancers have more experience than others, (and some are more dedicated than others), but everyone is pretty equal. Three of my students have taught, two are teaching right now (beginning classes), and one taught for a few years, a few years ago, while I was in school. She was great, she 'took over' for me, lead the dancers, got new people interested, and did a wonderful job. That was also before we became a troupe. It was more just a collection of dancers doing pretty informal stuff, not too aggressive. (she doesn't want to take over for me now, she is focusing on other things and just wants to dance)

One of the dancers who is currently a beginning teacher, would very much like to take over for me and be the troupe director. She is a very good dancer, and is verrry motivated. She LOVES belly dance, and doesn't have much else going on besides work and dance. I think she would do well.... except not everyone agrees. We have had one troupe meeting, and it was informally decided that she would take over (because she was the only one who wanted to and had time, also because she is an advanced dancer of course!). At first I was relieved that at least someone wanted to do it. It is a big job!! But then I started getting all of these concerns from the other dancers, all sorts, like they would be uncomfortable paying her as they pay me (for both rehearsal and class time), they don't feel she is 'qualified' to teach them, some of them see her as a bit of a controlling/power tripper, the list goes on... but basically the problem is that no one seems to feel comfortable taking direction from her because they are all equals.. and why should one person get paid, and think they are better, and so on.

Let me clarify what my position is as troupe director:
I started the troupe from scratch. I choreograph all of our group pieces ( I have encouraged others to choreograph both smaller numbers as well as troupe numbers, and a few have done trios, duets, solos, one of these being the woman that wants to take over, but no one has done a full troupe number). I teach advanced class (with all troupe members taking this class, even some non troupe members). I decide our costumes. I organize performances and shows. I decide the style and direction of our troupe (we are Tribal Fusion). I totally take suggestions from members as far as what they want to learn and practice, all of the time in fact. I wrangle cats, so to speak. A large part of my job as director is managing people and personalities (and I am good at it, I can be very objective)

A few of the members have suggested turning the troupe into a co-op situation, where there would be a rotating schedule of teachers (they would all take turns), there would be a rotating group of 'troupe choreographers' , they would collectively decide on costumes.. and so on. In theory, this is great, but in actuality, I have seen way too many groups fail with this arrangement. It is because of constant disagreements, (last summer I was gone for one of our shows and stupidly hadn't set the costumes, and they argued and argued about what to wear!! I found out - before the show- and set my foot down and set the costumes!)
The problem is that:
1) usually the majority of the work falls on one person
2) if that one person does all the work, there will definitely be resentment that will only get worse
3) if they couldn't agree on costumes that one time, how will they ever!!??
4) too many cooks in the kitchen ruins the meal
... see where I'm headed with this?? All I want to do, and feel it is my responsibility to do, is leave them all with the best possible tools with which to move forward and be successful as we have been. But already I feel the dynamic has changed within the group.

We are currently organizing a meeting. I sent out an email asking everyone to truthfully and uncensored tell me their concerns about the future of the troupe. My plan is that I will bring all of their concerns to the meeting, and present them completely anonymously. This is just to get everyone's thoughts and concerns out in the open, so that there is no resentment, and everyone has communicated what they have to, completely honestly. I will be the moderator of the meeting (as I already am)

Any suggestions or ideas for us????? Your thoughts are GREATLY appreciated! Thank you for reading through all of this, it is like a novel (sorry!!) but I wanted to let everyone know the whole story and history so y'all know where this is coming from.

Shimmy on!
Molly