Over wonder how arts administrators earn their keep? Or what exactly the “suits” do while the dancers/musicians/actors are in the studio? Quite a lot, actually. There’s plenty to learn from the dance company Pilobolus, onstage at the Joyce Theater until August 6.

Pilobolus was founded in 1971, but not until January 2004 did the company hire an executive director. When it did, the group chose a veteran of the theater world, Itamar Kubovy, to fill the post.

Born in Israel and raised in America, Mr. Kubovy got his start writing and directing plays at Yale in the 1980s. His career took him from theater to Hollywood and back to theater again. His most similar experience to Pilobolus, however, was managing a repertory theater in Germany.

This was structured similarly to the dance company he now heads: small, formed collectively, and in possession of a large body of work. Though the “products” are different, the challenges are similar. As the incoming director, he asked himself: “How do you maintain the collaborative nature, and how do you eliminate it on the day-to-day questions? Such as, ‘what color should the walls be?’ Or ‘what kind of copier should we have?'”

With someone in a position to make such decisions, and to guide the ship, artists have more time to focus on their work. “It’s hard to invest in a rainy day when it’s your own work you’re putting onstage,” he said. “You want to take whatever resources you have and spend them on the most artistically exciting goals.”

But if some resources are directed in other ways, the payoff can be greater artistic freedom. “All of the stuff we do to ensure our robustness will allow us to take greater artistic risks,” Mr. Kubovy said.

Some of the changes he’s made may not be visible to the audience. Until he arrived, the company – made up of just six dancers – had never employed understudies. “It had never been done before,” he said. “Whenever there was an injury, the company would scramble and find a way to fill in from town or out of town.”

That didn’t put the company’s best foot forward, and essentially, it failed to keep a promise: “The agreement with our audience and the theater is that we will present the program we intended to present.” In his view, making sure understudies were available was an investment in the infrastructure of the company – and an emotional relief. “It gave the dancers a great deal of confidence to know that they’re not letting the world down,” Mr. Kubovy said.

Other new initiatives are immediately visible. In the past, Pilobolus programs featured both new works – typically, three pieces are made each year – and old works without an overarching theme. For this year’s four week engagement at the Joyce, Mr. Kubovy organized the offerings into three programs – “Aquatic,” “Megawatt,” and “Suspended.” Each contains works (new and old) related to an overall theme and to each other: “Suspended,” for example, is a collection of the works in which dancers are held aloft by things like ropes, silks, hoops, and more.

The three thematic menus were an effort to present the season in a more engaging way. The repertory now has about 100 works, and Mr. Kubovy decided to approach them much as a museum curator would approach a large collection of paintings. By grouping them in specific ways, he hoped to give the audience more ways to think about the works and to see their influence on one another.

“The thinking was: Let’s start looking at it in a curatorial way,” he said. “How can we start putting the amazing works from the past together with the works of today – in a way that will shed light on them?”

As for the order in which those programs are scheduled, the guiding factors are more logistical than artistic: “The biggest determining factors have to do with the production end of things: switching from one show to the other; what the load of certain pieces is to the dancers; giving people who can only see matinees a chance to see what they want to see.”

Pilobolus has undertaken several projects recently to reach a wider audience. HBO included the company in its series for infants called “Classical Baby.” The shows featured dance, music, and painting (all with bits of animation) to attract very young children. The company will also be featured this fall in a children’s book, published by Roaring Brook Press. In “The Human Alphabet,” the dancers put themselves into the shapes of the letters, animals, characters, and objects beginning with each letter of the alphabet.

The company is also marketing one of its greatest strengths – collaboration – as a leadership tool. Last year, the group conducted a workshop at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania on how to collaborate and get things done as a group. “We’re working with them on how to extend what we’ve learned into other worlds,” Mr. Kubovy said.

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There are many reasons to see the Bolshoi this week, but the costumes are dazzling. Last week’s “Don Quixote” was a reminder of just how impressive Russian tutus can be. This week’s performances of “The Pharaoh’s Daughter” will be even more evidence of that grand tradition.

The Bolshoi’s tutus tend to be extremely wide, but also very thin. Tutus used by American companies, by contrast, have a smaller circumference and more ruffles or material underneath. Though New York City Ballet is known for Balanchine’s ballets danced in simple leotards, the company is also associated with tutus of a very small width and a full, bushy bell shape.

But the Russians go for a stiff, wide shape with heavy decoration. In “Don Q,” Kitri’s wedding costume is a giant red disc with a bold black design sewn on top. If you’re sitting in the balconies, you can see this especially well. (In addition to the tutus, the gowns worn by the flamenco dancers, with their cascades of ruffles and fabric, were spectacularly glamorous.)

The costumes in “The Pharaoh’s Daughter” are even better. The blue tutu for the ballerina is dyed a deep, magnetic color. The tutu for her run through the jungle is a marvel of decoration with leopard sashes and little tassels sewn on the skirt, or plate. When the ballerina is lifted overhead, her body is parallel to the floor, but these tutus are so stiff they create a straight line perfectly perpendicular to her body and the floor.

The dancing is wonderful. But the Bolshoi’s costumes are a show in and of themselves.