On Money

Or why we, as artists, shouldn’t sell ourselves short.

Money is a touchy subject.  I’ve never been good with it. When I was younger, my brother was the one my family members would ask for 10 bucks.  He always had it.  Now he’s an electrical engineer, paid about four-times-as-much annually as I make as a dancer/writer/Artist Representative/Dance Advocate.  And I’m the one with the college degree.

Ask a dancer what their annual salary is and they probably don’t have a clear idea.  Artists have lots of jobs-paid and unpaid, performance and teaching, day and night.  Why is the subject of money in dance taboo?  Are we embarrassed to be paid for doing a job we love?  Why is compensation never clearly discussed in an audition?  Why do dancers keep working for free?  We create art.  Art is valuable to culture and human nature.  We should be paid accordingly.

I recently learned about a grant that awards choreographers with $10,000.  The proposal asks applicants to “describe how you would use $10,000 to shape a sustainable future for your dance company.”  One artist’s response was:

In order to shape a sustainable future for my company I will open a 401k.

Brilliant!  This is how we should be thinking about money.  Dancers should not be shy about asking for it in exchange for their services.  Choreographers should not be afraid to put an appropriate price tag on their work, one that provides them with sufficient livable wages.  One needs a job in order to eat, jobs strengthen the community and the economy.  Dance is our job.  We should be paid to live by doing a job we love.

This is the video that inspired this blog post:   Made Here

-Angela Leum