The performing arts are a three-legged stool. One leg is a world-class opera; another is a renowned symphony. But without dance to make up the final leg, the stool will fall.

At least that’s how Todd Elverson, board president of Ballet Des Moines, describes the need for a professional dance company in Des Moines.

The non-profit organization’s artistic director would agree.

“A couple of days ago, I went to see Hubbard Street [Dance Chicago],” Serkan Usta said, “and I was watching the performance, but I was watching the audience as well. There were so many people and it seems like they’re hungry and ready to have a ballet company.”

Since forming in 2002, Ballet Des Moines has built its professional ballet offerings to the point that it now has two productions a year, a three-bill spring production with about eight professional dancers working for four weeks and the winter production of “The Nutcracker,” all with a roughly $300,000 annual budget.

But these accomplishments are small steps compared with the giant leap the company would like to make over the next decade.

Its ultimate goal is to create a permanent professional company with 14 to 24 resident dancers and four to five productions a year. The company also would like to hire a paid staff, including Usta, who would leave his job at the School of Classical Ballet and Dance, which he started with his wife, Lori Grooters, to become a full-time artistic director for the professional company.

The wish list also may include a permanent home for the company. Ballet Des Moines is located at 502 E. Locust St. now, but board member Sally Cooper Smith believes a performance space with a smaller seating area than the Civic Center of Greater Des Moines, but a larger stage than that at Hoyt Sherman Place auditorium, would be a worthwhile investment.

Usta, a native of Istanbul who was a dancer with the Tulsa Ballet for nine years, believes Des Moines, with similar demographics to Tulsa, could support a professional company. Tulsa has one of the top 10 ballet companies in the nation, with contracts for 36 dancers that put on five productions a year and a yearly budget of about $3.3 million.

But Ballet Des Moines’ metamorphosis likely will occur more slowly than Usta would hope.

“I tell the board of directors that they need to move faster – three to five years, before my connections get old and forget about me,” he said. This year, Usta’s friendship with Sascha Radetsky, an actor in the movie “Center Stage” and a dancer at the American Ballet Theatre, will bring the star to Iowa to appear in “The Nutcracker.”

Realistically, Elverson, expects to build the company one performance at a time.

One reason for caution is that the new board doesn’t want to repeat Ballet Iowa’s mistakes. After running into financial troubles, the long-standing dance company folded in 1997. Elverson, an attorney who has never danced but appreciates the art form, said that one of the Ballet Des Moines’ pillars is to be fiscally responsible.

“The problem is that it takes huge amounts of money,” he said. “You can’t take giant leaps because that would probably be the death of us.”

Although the new company has new leaders and a different vision, the board believes people are hesitant to support it after Ballet Iowa failed.

“I think people are a little gun-shy to get involved now,” said board member Smith, a dance minor who will play the nurse in one of the upcoming performances of “The Nutcracker.”

“But as this company begins to grow and show its responsibility, I think those community members will become involved again.”

Already Ballet Des Moines has received some generous donations from larger businesses, but Elverson believes the company will need more support from small to mid-sized businesses to survive.

Ballet Des Moines also received $8,000 from the Iowa Arts Council for its spring performance. Only 25 percent to 30 percent of the grant applicants receive funding, said Mary Sundet Jones, deputy director of the Iowa Arts Council, but being an underserved art form in Iowa probably helped Ballet Des Moines secure the money.

Elverson says, however, that half of the company’s funding should come from ticket sales. Although the spring performance didn’t sell out, Elverson believes the audience will grow as the company presents more performances.

Supporters of Ballet Des Moines cite many reasons it’s important to have professional ballet in Iowa. They say a professional ballet company is a quality-of-life amenity that’s missing in Iowa and a good economic investment for businesses.

Smith also believes it’s important for the next generation as she looks to her 9-year-old daughter who dances.

“I want to have her not only see professional dance,” she said, “but live in a community that professional dancers live in as well, so that she can see that they are real people with real jobs and their job is to dance.”

Yet Ballet Des Moines’ leaders are patient.

“We know a time will come,” Usta said, “when we will show the community great things.”