Dance Magazine asked one anonymous dancer to record how she spent her money over the course of one week. Here’s what she sent us. About Me Work: Freelance dancer (currently with three small companies), ballet teacher, part-time executive assistant at a wellness center. Age: 25 Location: Brooklyn, NY 2018 Income: Roughly $25,000. Most of my […]

There are lots of gift guides floating around the internet this time of year. But the end of the decade has us thinking about more than presents. As much as the dance world has evolved over the past 10 years, there’s still a lot of work to do. So we started pondering: If we could […]

There’s an image that the Institute of Financial Wellness for the Arts likes to use during group presentations: a picture of someone with their head in the sand. The financial services company—launched by TheaterMania and OvationTix co-founder Darren Sussman and his brother Erik, a veteran of the financial services industry—finds that too many artists simply […]

When I read last month that Jessica Lang Dance had announced its farewell, I’m sure I wasn’t the only dancer surprised. In the same way that many of us, when reading an obituary, instinctively look for the cause of death, I searched for a reason for the company’s unexpected folding. It was buried in the […]

A couple weekends ago, a friend messaged me about an opportunity to be a part of a new holiday campaign for a major department store. They wanted to showcase various dancers dancing in their fall clothing collection. I asked if it was paid, and when I found that it was not, I immediately wanted to […]

Dance Magazine asked readers the question you’re never supposed to ask: How much money do you make? More than two hundred readers filled out our online survey about how much they earned through their work in the dance field in 2017. Here is a selection of the user-submitted entries, which have been edited for clarity, […]

Unrestricted grants—those not tied to a specific project or commission—are the holy grail of dance funding. But how do dance artists accustomed to living from project to project handle the sudden influx of capital? We asked three choreographers who’ve won these grants multiple times about their experiences. Kyle Abraham Kyle Abraham has used the money […]

Behind every virtuosic performance, there is a quiet group of champions. Private patrons are critical to the success of American dance companies. Most large troupes only generate about half of their operating budget from ticket sales, while smaller companies recoup only a fraction. In a country with minuscule government funds allocated to the arts, individual […]