For the past two decades, Adam Sklute has helmed Ballet West’s artistic vision and direction. But the 2026-2027 season — which starts Friday with “Dracula” — will be his last.

“Ballet West has become my heart and soul and I say that without hesitation,” Sklute said. “I have given 1,000% of myself to it over these past 19 years.”

Sklute led the company through a “challenging chapter” when he first started in 2007, helping the program gain new recognition and establishing the largest ballet education program in the United States.

“I never saw a glass ceiling, and I still don’t see a glass ceiling for this organization,” Sklute said. “The sky’s the limit.”

Sklute’s history with Ballet West

When Sklute first flew to Utah to interview with Ballet West, he met the dancers and said he “realized right away that this was a place that I would love to be a part of.”

Ballet West was struggling financially, Sklute said. The company had truncated its season to just three programs a year, compared to the usual seven-production season.

“Because of all of the challenges, dancers, as well as staff, were leaving on a regular basis. The school was struggling. It had fewer than 150 students, and they were discussing closing it down,” Sklute said. “Subscriptions were down, audiences weren’t really excited, and so I realized that my biggest job was to sort of create an atmosphere and an air of excitement around everything that we did.”

Ballet West’s board gave Sklute three tasks: “strengthen the caliber and quality of the dancers and production, increase the national and international recognition of Ballet West, and build the Ballet West Academy in size, scope and prominence.”

For Sklute, one of the biggest areas of focus over the past two decades has been the academy.

When he arrived, only two of the dancers in the company had come out of the school. “When a company has a school, it is vital that the school becomes a feeder into the company,” Sklute said.

So, he began pulling second company dancers straight from the school to start building that pipeline.

There were around 150 students at the academy when Sklute started. Now, there are more than 900 students across four different campuses. The legacy art organization’s budget has grown nearly threefold during his tenure, from $7.8 million to around $22 million now.

Sklute also helped bring new works to the patrons of Ballet West while updating classics, like “Swan Lake” — one of the very first full-lengths that he produced himself. Fleshing out the company’s repertoire, Sklute said, has helped keep people going to the ballet while also attracting newcomers.

Sklute said he believes in producing “something for everyone.”

“I always look at what we’re producing as if I’m producing a menu from a restaurant,” he said. “You might have comfort food, like ‘The Nutcracker,’ and some people only want to order that. You might want to order something classic, like ‘Swan Lake’ or ‘The Sleeping Beauty.’”

Ballet West will explore five other works alongside “Dracula” this season: “Rolling with the Stones,” “The Nutcracker,” “Don Quixote,” “Carmina Burana,” and “Works from Within 2,” where dancers will become choreographers.

He’s also proud of his efforts to diversify the organization, from letting ballerinas wear tights and shoes that match their skin color to promoting dancers of color.

“I wanted people to feel represented on the stage. All of a sudden there were people that people could relate to,” Sklute said.

His favorite part of the job, the part he gets the least amount of time to do, is working firsthand with the dancers. Doing that helps take him back to when he first fell in love with the art form at a young age.

It all started when his girlfriend, a ballerina, suggested he take a ballet class. Sklute said he “fell in love” right away. Just before his 17th birthday, he knew he wanted to be involved in the art form for the rest of his life.

“All of a sudden, here it was, the art and the music and the athleticism that I loved all together at once,” he said.

Six months of study later, he told his parents he was going to become a classically trained ballet dancer. By 19, he’d accomplished that goal.

After this season wraps, Sklute will go on to start his own consulting company for artistic leadership in dance and ballet, to pay forward the things he has learned during his career.

As for his legacy in Utah, he hopes he’ll be remembered as someone who helped honor Ballet West’s history and helped rebuild it into the company it is now.

“I didn’t need to turn things on their head. I just needed to build on what was here,” Sklute said.