About

Cal Performances brings the best of music, dance, and theater from around the globe directly to Bay Area audiences, fostering life-affirming encounters with the performing arts, as well as countless opportunities to ignite discovery. Cal Performances is known for the unmatched quality and variety of our programming—every season, we present approximately 80 world-class performances ranging from classical music to jazz to musical traditions from around the world, from ballet to contemporary dance, from large-scale multidisciplinary works to intimate theater, to spoken word, and everything in between.

Located on the UC Berkeley campus, we engage as deeply with our campus community as we do with the broader Bay Area, including by welcoming UC Berkeley students into our halls, offering special access programs for students and others associated with the University, and creating links between our programming and the rich intellectual life of the campus. Additionally, our Cal Performances Classroom initiatives plant the seeds for future generations of performing arts lovers by offering a variety of avenues for local K-12 youth to engage with our programming.

We also operate a robust venue rental program in multiple spaces as a service to the University and other clients.

Mission

Cal Performances at the University of California, Berkeley unites exceptional artists, ideas, and audiences through live performance to enlighten and enrich lives.

Vision

A world where the performing arts inspire a life filled with wonder, empathy, curiosity, and enjoyment for all.

We will partner with outstanding artists and the peerless public university we call home to amplify a rich global tapestry of stories, experiences, and perspectives and provide unparalleled opportunities to encounter the world through someone else’s eyes. We will make bold investments in innovation and artistic risk-taking to enable groundbreaking work, elevate new artists, and advance the future of the live performing arts. We will activate the performing arts lovers and supporters of tomorrow through direct connections to students, both on the UC Berkeley campus and off.

Guiding Principles

Forging an Expansive Community

Cal Performances’ mission is only made possible when artists, audiences, staff, trustees, and other stakeholders from diverse perspectives work together so that each person can equitably participate in our mission. We feel responsibility and joy in using our platform, our resources, and the direct emotional power of the performing arts to create an inclusive place for everyone.

Igniting Discovery

Whether engaging with the new or the familiar, we encourage artists’ creative exploration and support audience members to be active, curious participants.

Catalyzing Change Through Education

Interactions with the performing arts inspire today’s students and tomorrow’s leaders to imagine and create a better world.

Opening Our Doors Wide

The power and joy of the performing arts should be made available without barriers so that everyone can participate.

Fostering Belonging

The performing arts are most compelling when, both on- and off-stage, we welcome and celebrate shared humanity as well as differences.

Excelling in All That We Do

The high level of artistry on our stages sets the standard for everything we do, including how we deliver our presentations, the experience for our audiences, and the manner in which our organization operates.

Building to Last

To ensure the success of the performing arts for generations to come, we work to grow our resources and steward them through continuous improvement and innovation.

Our Goals, 2024-2029

In June 2024, Cal Performances adopted a plan to ground our work for the next five years. This plan is designed to embrace growth, expand our impact, and build on our existing strengths while enhancing our organizational sustainability. High-level goals are outlined below.

ARTISTIC LEADERSHIP

Cal Performances is an acknowledged global leader in the presentation of the performing arts. Each season, we seek to reflect the breadth of human experience while emphasizing the universality inherent in the performing arts across a variety of disciplines including music, dance, theater, and multidisciplinary performance works. We balance the need for abstract and direct expression with message-driven works of brilliance that offer opportunities for self-reflection and serve as a catalyst for change. The courage and ability to take artistic risks are essential to who we are as an organization.

In the coming five years, we will advance our leadership in the field by making bold investments in the future of the live performing arts through the cultivation of new works and artists new to our audiences while also deepening long-standing artistic partnerships. As a vibrant center of globally recognized artistic curation, including commissioning, we will expand opportunities for our community to experience life-affirming encounters with the performing arts. We will maintain our reputation as a creative home where artists feel empowered and welcome to do their best work and connect with our uniquely inquisitive audiences on our stages and off-stage through initiatives like Illuminations.

AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT

We believe that everyone should be able to have an enduring relationship with the performing arts, no matter when this relationship begins. At Cal Performances, we have a unique opportunity to advance this vision by reaching out to both the UC Berkeley community and Bay Area arts audiences who do not regularly attend Cal Performances events. Through our engagement with students at UC Berkeley, we contribute to building the audiences of the future for the performing arts. For Bay Area arts audiences, we provide a unique array of performing arts experiences unmatched in the region. We intend to grow the latter audience by 15% (12,000 tickets per year) over the five years of the plan.

Over the coming five years, we will focus our audience growth efforts on these constituencies, while continuing to serve our current patrons. As we expand our audience, we will also work to understand and remove barriers to attending our performances and ensure our audiences feel a sense of belonging.

A world-class arts presenter is a powerful asset that UC Berkeley can deploy toward its mission of public education and research. Through our artistic and educational programs, Cal Performances provides the campus community—students, faculty, staff, alumni, parents, and friends—with inspiration, intellectual engagement, community building, opportunities for dialogue, space for reflection, and emotional well-being.

In the next five years, we aim to demonstrate and advocate for our integral role, which provides benefit to everyone in the campus community and makes us an intellectual partner in the education of the leaders of tomorrow. We will promote understanding of and affinity for our offerings, broadening our network of collaborators and champions across campus and creating additional pathways to especially reach UCB students, one of the target audiences we intend to develop.

UNIVERSITY INTEGRATION

The future of the live performing arts is not limited to the cultivation of new works, artists, and audiences. Cal Performances must grow and diversify our financial resources to ensure we can continue to advance our mission and vision for years to come. Over the next five years, we will pursue a plan for measured growth and inspire transformational investments to enhance the value we are able to deliver. We will work toward balanced operating budgets every year of this plan and, by the end of the plan, we will be building annual operating surpluses in order to increase reserves. We recognize that achieving balanced budgets every year of the plan is an ambitious target. We seek to set a consistently high standard for financial management efforts and will maximize the potential of all possible revenue sources—earned, contributed, investment income, and program support from campus—to more fully leverage our funding streams and continue to efficiently manage our expenses. We will implement strategies that build sustained and predictable long-term support for our programs, including significantly growing our endowment and the resulting annual funding it provides.

FINANCIAL STRENGTH

As an acknowledged global leader in the presentation of performing arts, Cal Performances will strengthen our human and physical resources to match our strategic aspirations. Over the next five years, we will retain, develop, and recruit an excellent staff and board of trustees who will realize our vision together. We will dedicate time and resources to enhance our internal systems and processes to equip our team with the operational resources to succeed. We will improve our facilities so they are befitting of the quality of artistic presentations and university events that they host. Though this strategic plan operates within our current portfolio of venues, we would benefit significantly from an additional purpose-built venue with different-sized spaces and capabilities to reach our full potential.

PEOPLE, SYSTEMS, AND VENUES

Member Organizations

Cal Performances is a member of the following arts organizations:

WAAA — Western Alliance of Arts Administrators
APAP — Association of Performing Arts Professionals
USITT — United States Institute for Theatre Technology