Photo of Emily Hansel by Tricia Cronin for Post:Ballet.
Relearning Agency: A Dancer’s Call for Collective Action
By Emily Hansel
I’m a professional freelance dancer and a lot of the conditions I work under sound ridiculous when I say them out loud to people who work in other professions.
I work in the field of ballet and contemporary concert dance in San Francisco. Similarly, my formative training and college degree were primarily in the disciplines of ballet and contemporary.
A few years ago, my friend who works nine to five at an office job laughed out loud when I mentioned I don’t know how much or when I’ll be paid for a four-month part-time dance project. He was shocked, but I assured him this was normal in my field. In fact, it would be unwise for me to ask explicit questions about payment to the choreographer who hired me. I would probably come across as ungrateful for the job. It might make me seem difficult, and I didn’t want to do anything that might jeopardize my casting in this or future projects. Sure, I suppose it does sound a little risky, but dance opportunities are scarce. The dance community is close-knit and I didn’t want to tarnish my reputation in any way that would make me appear unhirable. Plus, everyone else dancing in the project was in the same boat: no one felt like they could ask about the details of our payment. I just have to put up with having an unpredictable income because that’s what everyone’s doing and that’s the way it is.
My friend’s response was that I shouldn’t have to make such a sacrifice and that I deserved to know about the terms of my own payment. I supposed he was right, but that wasn’t enough to motivate me to speak to the choreographer about payment. I felt like one powerless cog in the grand scheme of things and I was happy to be dancing, so I figured my situation didn’t warrant complaining.
Our society, the government, and many of my employers send me the message that I should simply be grateful for an opportunity to dance and that should be plenty. I put up with frustrating labor conditions because I, like many others, was convinced that getting to do what I love was reward enough. Studies confirm my perspective. Passionate workers, including artists, creatives, and others who enjoy what they do, are more likely to be taken advantage of at work.
My friend's reaction, like many others, reminded me that the way I’m treated in my field is very different from how I’d be treated if I worked in a different occupation, or even if I worked in a different position within this field. In fact, I do work in many different positions in the realm of concert dance. I’m a dancer, a dance teacher, a choreographer, and an arts administrator. As a dancer, I consistently find myself on the bottom of the pay scale and with the most unsustainable working conditions compared to when I work in those other positions.
When I graduated college and entered the dancing workforce four and half years ago, I wasn’t remotely wary or concerned about how I was being treated by those who hired me. I was just thrilled to be hired. I’d been taught for many years that it’s difficult to get dance jobs because dancers are replaceable, and I should feel honored to be chosen for even one part time gig. Throughout my dance (ballet) training, I was taught that I literally should not talk, and that I should do whatever the person in charge of the room suggests. This is one reason why I entered the professional realm as a recent college graduate without the tools or agency to stand up for myself and assert my needs. In retrospect, I recognize how dangerous that mindset was. Now, I understand that harmful, inequitable, unsafe, and unsustainable working conditions permeate the industry, so much so that they are considered the norm and can therefore be difficult to detect.
It’s been quite a journey of waking up to the reality that dancers–that I, Emily–deserve to be treated better. At no point in my formal education was I explicitly taught that dancers deserve basic rights, like pay for our work and contracts that clearly state the terms of hire, or that we shouldn’t be in a perpetual state of fear that we’ll be replaced. In fact, I was actually taught the opposite of this.
Fortunately, I have plenty of friends who work in different industries who kindly point out how ridiculous some of my working conditions are. A couple years out of college, I began encountering some colleagues who knew how to ask for what they wanted. I danced in a project-based ballet company with one of these dancers. During one particular season, we began company rehearsals despite the fact that contracts had not been distributed to any of the dancers. My more seasoned colleague simply asked the director for a contract. I thought that was a very gutsy move and I admired her for it. A couple months after that season had ended, the director was chatting with me and mentioned that my friend had been difficult to work with and she wouldn’t be hired back in the future. My friend had not been difficult to work with in the studio, and the director was only referring to her multiple requests for clarity around contracts and other administrative matters. Unfortunately, my response to hearing this from the director was not one of surprise; I silently nodded and let our conversation drift to another topic. My friend, now lacking future employment opportunities with this particular company, was frustrated but ultimately not surprised. She hadn’t planned to continue working with this company, given the lack of clarity around payment, scheduling, and a number of other issues. She knew that working for this company ultimately led to frustration rather than happiness, and I was in awe that she could identify that so clearly for herself. This experience, among many others, led me to question the ways I was being treated (read: mistreated) when I worked as a dancer.
At this point in my career, I had a couple years of professional experience under my belt, I had danced for a considerable roster of choreographers, I had three to eight part time dance jobs at any given time, I worked evenings and weekends doing administrative work, teaching dance to kids, and working front of house at a local theater. I made rent and covered all my expenses each month plus I was saving money. Though I was perhaps overworked, on paper it generally looked like I was thriving in my career as a dancer. In reality, I was hardly surviving. It’s hard to believe I didn't realize it earlier, but conversations about labor conditions are not common practice in this field. A clear next step for me was to instigate conversation with my fellow dancers about our gripes, in an effort to begin to solve the problems.
The first step toward solving a problem is naming the problem. So I’m going to name a few problems that I’ve faced as a dancer in the professional workforce. These are things that I’ve experienced either firsthand or secondhand, but they are not unique to me. They are patterns. They are common practice in the field. And they tend to sound ridiculous when I name them out loud to people who work in other fields.
- Hiring entities require that dancers pay a fee to audition for jobs. (By the way, I use the term “hiring entity” to refer to employers, companies, choreographers, venues, directors, or anyone who’s in the position of hiring dancers.)
- Dancers are paid zero dollars or an amount lower than minimum wage (not to mention a livable wage). It’s worth mentioning here that the work that dancers do is not unskilled labor. As a colleague of mine recently reminded me, “Dance is highly skilled work that is the culmination of years and sometimes decades of costly, physically demanding, high-level training that has already required sacrifice, dedication, and considerable investment of time, money, and effort.”
- Dancers work without a contract or without any version of a work agreement.
- Dancers are misclassified as independent contractors when they should be hired as employees. Therefore, they don’t receive the protections and benefits afforded to employees. One of these protections worth highlighting is workers compensation, which is important given the very real possibility of dancers getting injured while doing physical work under the order of their employers.
- Many dancers feel replaceable. If one dancer says no to working under what they consider to be poor working conditions, there are a number of other dancers who can and will be hired in their stead.
- Many dancers believe that they have a limited window of time to be dancers. For example, some believe their career will end when they get to age 35, so they have to “maximize” any and all dance opportunities while they’re young.
- Dancers are manipulated by hiring entities to do more for less. Hiring entities coerce dancers into volunteering to do extra work not initially indicated in their contracts. For example, a choreographer claims that if a dancer doesn't do this additional fundraising work without additional pay, it indicates that they aren't passionate enough about their art form. Or a choreographer claims their company is like a family, and everyone owes it to the family to participate in extra rehearsals for no additional pay.
- Hiring entities refer to the tradition of the harmful system in order to uphold the harmful system. For example, a choreographer insists, “Back in my day, I did way more for way less.”
- Dance institutions and organizations exist with the main goal of survival often at the expense of dancers. When a financial crisis hits (say, one prompted by a global pandemic), dancers are let go before other members of the staff.
- Hiring entities run unpaid apprenticeships or internships which don’t provide pathways to paid opportunities. The hiring entity gets free labor while stringing along a young artist who is performing labor which will have no pay off now or in the future.
- Hiring entities tokenize and fetishize BIPOC artists and work, especially for donor dollars. Organizations use BIPOC artists to leverage their own work rather than actually supporting the BIPOC artists.
- Hiring entities have no protocols in place regarding harassment and discrimination. There is no pathway in place for dancers to raise concerns and there is no policy in place for when a concern is raised. Dancer reports of harassment aren’t taken seriously and aren’t properly investigated.
- Hiring entities make dancers participate in 6- or 7-day rehearsal weeks, and/or overly long rehearsal days.
- Hiring entities pay videographers, photographers, lighting designers, costume designers, set designers, and musicians at a significantly higher rate than dancers for dance performances. Hiring entities don’t disclose this fact to their dancers in order to prevent dancers from realizing the pay disparity. This allows them to continue paying dancers as little as possible.
- When dancers agree to exploitative working conditions, hiring entities find reason to justify and continue these harmful practices.
This list is in no particular order and is not comprehensive–it could go on for many more pages.
These widely accepted practices are steeped in capitalism and white supremacy culture. It’s no coincidence that predominantly white hiring entities are leading the charge when it comes to perpetuating these harmful patterns. And it’s no secret that white supremacy culture is rampant in the field of ballet and contemporary concert dance. While the repercussions of these harmful patterns are felt by all dancers, my queer, trans, BIPOC, and disabled colleagues often bear the brunt more than I, a cis, straight, nondisabled, white woman.
One reason these problematic patterns endure is because they have been perpetuated for generations. These patterns were ingrained in my teachers, pervaded my formal training, and had unrecognized power over me since I walked into my first ballet class at age 11.
But there are plenty of other reasons why these issues persist. I spend a lot of time pondering this question of “why,” often in conversation with colleagues. My thoughts on the matter shift and evolve frequently, but right now, from my perspective, it seems that a lot of these harmful practices stem from misuse of power as well as an apparent scarcity of opportunity within the field.
While I believe that people in power are responsible for educating themselves and changing practices when it comes to these misuses of power, it’s my experience that this rarely happens. Some people are making good faith efforts to hire dancers ethically, and I am fortunate that I currently dance for many people who use their power responsibly and treat dancers with due respect. But it’s been proven to us time and time again that many leaders in our field are not really listening to dancers and prioritizing dancers’ needs. It’s clear that substantial systemic change isn’t coming from the top down. Which means it’s going to have to come from the bottom up.
There is power in collective action.
If we want to instigate change from the bottom up, we need to be each other’s allies. We can work toward realizing our worth as artists and as people. We can practice saying no to things we don’t want to do and asking for things that we do want. We can talk to each other more and speak honestly about our experiences–among ourselves as dancers, and also with the people hiring us.
Dancers tend to be isolated from each other when we’re being hired. But let’s talk to each other, compare notes, ask how everyone feels, and stop pretending that we’re all on our own. We can stop lying about why we turn down gigs. I’ve lied so many times to choreographers about why I turn down job offers in order to protect their feelings and leave the door open for future opportunities. But it doesn’t serve anyone for me to lie and say that I can’t take on a project because I’m too busy when in reality it’s because it doesn’t pay enough.
We can request contracts and negotiate contracts. We can ask for contracts or work agreements before the work itself begins. I’ve never been represented by a union, so usually the contracts that I receive function primarily to protect the hiring entity. But realistically, a contract should be the result of a conversation about both the dancer’s needs and the hiring entity’s needs. And negotiating can simply be a conversation acknowledging both party's needs. If a hiring entity isn’t willing to listen to a dancer’s needs, that’s an indicator for the dancer to seriously reconsider taking the job.
Finally, when we’re in the role of choreographer or employer, we can remember our responsibility to the dancers we’re hiring. Before hiring dancers, we can consider if we have the necessary resources to give out dance jobs. If we're asking people to work for free or for less than a livable wage, not only are we perpetuating the cycle of abuse, but we’re also limiting participation to people who already have access to other wealth. We can be transparent and share our budgets to indicate where our values lie and keep us accountable. We can implement policies, practices, and check-ins to hold us accountable on all fronts. We can ask our dancers what they need and listen empathetically to their responses. When we’re in positions of power, we have a profound effect on the lives of those we hire.
Whether we’re hiring dancers or being hired as a dancer, it’s up to all of us to interrupt harmful patterns. Even when we see leaders and people in positions of power neglecting the wellbeing of dancers, remember there are actual, feasible solutions that lie in our hands. Collectively, dancers have the power to interrupt the cycle from the bottom up.
Special thanks to Sarah Cecilia Bukowski (freelance writer and Writer in Residence at Amy Sewiert’s Imagery) and Rebecca Fitton for their guidance and editing of this piece. Also thanks to my friends Nick Brentley, Clarissa Dyas, Dalton Valerio, Miche Wong, Erin Yen and all our colleagues at Dance Artists’ National Collective for the inspiring conversation, action, and solidarity. Thank you to Post:Ballet for photo permission and for striving to employ dancers ethically.
Influences and recommended resources:
We See You White American Theater: Our Demands
The Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture
Valuing Your Time
DANC Real Dancer Wages
Dancer Worker Classification Costs-Benefits
Why Do Employers Lowball Creatives? A New Study Has Answers
Emily Hansel is a San Francisco-based dancer, choreographer, dance teacher, arts administrator, and dancer advocate.