Interim Executive Director
Leadership, Staff
Jason Palmquist has worked as a Consultant with Management Consultants for the Arts since August of 2015. From 2007 to 2017, Jason served as Executive Director of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. His time at Hubbard Street was marked by incredible growth for the company, both artistically and programmatically. Under his leadership, Hubbard Street went from performing one annual Chicago engagement to four, allowing Chicago residents more opportunities to see the company as they continued to tour to some of the most prestigious venues around the world. In 2015, Hubbard Street was one of only 18 dance companies in the country to receive significant multi-year funding through the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation’s Leadership Grants Program for Dance. In addition to the internal growth of the company, Jason helped to forge new partnerships with some of Chicago’s most notable institutions including the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and the Art Institute of Chicago. In addition, a collaboration with The Second City resulted in the company’s most successful engagement to date, drawing more than 15,000 patrons over its two Chicago runs. Jason began his career at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, completing his tenure there as vice president of dance administration. There he oversaw multiple world premiere engagements of commissioned works in dance, the formation and growth of the Suzanne Farrell Ballet and the inception in 1997 of the Millennium Stage. Jason also managed the Kennedy Center’s television initiatives, including the creation of the Mark Twain Prize for MCA Proposal to The Washington Ballet Page | 7 American Humor and a prime-time special on NBC memorializing the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks. In 2004, he accepted the position of executive director at the Washington Ballet. Under his leadership, the company presented full performance seasons annually at the Kennedy Center and the Warner Theater and nurtured its world-renowned school and extensive education and outreach programs. A graduate of the University of Northern Iowa, Jason currently serves on the board of the Arts Alliance of Illinois.
