A dancer’s pay within the U.S. is unpredictable. In line with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the median hourly pay for dancers and choreographers in 2023 was $24.95. However that quantity belies a variety of experiences, with pay fluctuating relying on location, profession degree, and freelance standing, amongst many different variables.
All too usually, the pay a dancer receives appears lower than what their work is value. Consequently, unions and protests have grown within the trade. Dance artists are getting more and more snug demanding extra and talking up about their work situations.
To assist paint an image of the present monetary panorama within the trade, 4 dancers obtained candid about their typical earnings—and the monetary wants and issues that form their careers.
Nicole Pedraza
Modern dance artist and choreographer, Miami, FL
“I get very nervous about attempting to make ends meet,” Pedraza says. “What’s holding me again is unquestionably the shortage of consistency in dance work in my metropolis.”
Pedraza has 4 essential types of revenue. She has a versatile, full-time arts administration place that pays $19.31 an hour. She is a part of two dance collectives; one pays $30 per hour for rehearsals, whereas the opposite pays per efficiency. The frequency of labor for each is determined by the annual efficiency schedules. She books sporadic freelance performances and choreographic gigs. And he or she teaches a number of occasions every week at her childhood dance studio, for which she earned $35 per hour final yr. (Pedraza requests not less than $50 per hour when educating elsewhere.)
She has cash saved from school monetary support and scholarship stipends after graduating in 2021, giving her a layer of consolation. However maintaining together with her schedule will get tiring.
Pedraza’s earnings primarily go in the direction of payments and serving to her mom financially. Her automobile payments are her high precedence. She obtained a brand new automobile this yr as a result of her previous one stored breaking down when she traveled between 50 minutes and an hour and quarter-hour for rehearsals and performances.
Earlier than getting her full-time job, she contemplated solely working as a dance artist. She calculated the pay for dancers in Miami and the variety of alternatives out there and concluded that it didn’t provide a livable wage.
“This yr, I used to be sitting again and analyzing and considering like, Oh, I’m very pleased with myself for persevering with to pursue dance and my dance profession, my choreographic profession,” she says. “As a result of it very a lot felt not possible financially, particularly when nobody talks about it.”
Jay Carlon
Freelance dance artist, Los Angeles, CA
Carlon’s work focuses on group engagement by dance and multidisciplinary performance. His earnings rely on the character of his dance apply—whether or not it entails freelance choreography commissions or educating motion and somatic-based workshops. Most of his revenue goes in the direction of paying again bank card payments for professional-development bills.
Carlon was a part of the primary class of FARconnector’s Designed Govt Fellowship Workforce, an arts administration fellowship that fostered three-year partnerships between artists and humanities employees. For 2023, the joint efforts of Carlon and his producer/DEFT fellow Brian Sea resulted in nationwide, state, and native Los Angeles Metropolis grants, by which they paid themselves every a base revenue of $1,000 per 30 days.
Lately, Carlon carried out in Joan Jonas’ Mirror Piece I & II on the Getty in Los Angeles, which confronted backlash after it was revealed that the dancers solely acquired a $1,000 flat charge for eight days of labor that included six-hour rehearsals and two performances. Dancers in a earlier efficiency on the Museum of Trendy Artwork in New York Metropolis had acquired $150 to $200 per day for rehearsals and $750 to $1,500 per day for performances, in accordance with the performer name.
Carlon, who’s energetic in labor rights efforts, initially introduced the discrepancy as much as the opposite dancers in an e-mail, explaining that from an establishment of this measurement and wealth he’d count on $40 to $50 per hour of rehearsal and $400 to $1,000 per efficiency. “I’m very grateful for this efficiency alternative, and admittedly I feel we must always receives a commission extra,” he wrote within the e-mail, “particularly for the reason that Getty [Trust] is the world’s wealthiest arts establishment.”
Carlon’s greatest challenges contain the shortage of arts funding. He stated he spends extra time writing unguaranteed grants than creating work every year. He’s acquired seven rejection letters from grants thus far this yr.
“The present system is means too aggressive and peculiar, so I’m looking for alternative ways of working,” he says.
Nat Wilson
Modern dance artist, New York, NY
Wilson has a small monetary cushion because of severance pay from a earlier full-time job with Kibbutz Modern Dance Firm in Israel, which they left in October 2019. However after shifting to New York Metropolis in January 2020, the pandemic arrived, and so they witnessed their “complete profession dry up in a weekend,” Wilson says.
They began on-line faculty at Washtenaw Group Faculty to pursue an affiliate diploma in human companies. Whereas at school, they acquired $5,000 each six months from an unused tuition fund their dad and mom had—a privilege Wilson acknowledges.
Final December, they accomplished their diploma, and this yr, they transitioned to dancing full-time. They earn about $20 per hour for rehearsals and often $100 per efficiency.
Additionally they turned a licensed trainer in FoCo Approach, created by Yue Yin, and educate FoCo lessons at 92NY, the place every class pays $150. Different lessons they educate usually pay per scholar.
Smaller types of revenue embody driving for a supply app, which pays about $200 per 30 days.
In complete, they earn about $500 every week—sufficient to cowl payments and see reveals or eat out every now and then, however not sufficient to contribute to financial savings. “I’ve been residing in this sort of life-style for thus lengthy that I’ve bother conceiving what it could be like if I made more cash,” they are saying.
Alexandra Gentle
Principal dancer, Texas Ballet Theater, Fort Value, TX
Although Gentle’s contract prohibits her from sharing her annual wage, as a principal she earns greater than most dancers at TBT. She ruefully quotes a saying: “The very best-paid dancer doesn’t even make half of what the lowest-paid symphony member does.” Though that’s an exaggeration, the pay disparity is actual.
“We practice so onerous, and our coaching is dear,” Gentle says. “I’m not saying we have to receives a commission like a neurosurgeon, however we have to not less than make a residing wage.”
Gentle is married, and a few years her husband has earned greater than she has. His highest annual wage, for work in artwork gross sales and retail administration, was $50,000.
However presently, the couple is in a transitional interval. Gentle’s husband is at school, learning artwork historical past. Gentle is retiring after this season to concentrate on her choreography, part of her profession that she’s been capable of foster over the previous few years.
As she prepares for that pivot, Gentle is usually involved concerning the unpredictability of freelance pay. Prior to now two years, her fee charges have ranged from $500 to $3,000 per piece.
“Engaged on a wide range of several types of tasks with a mixture of finances sizes has been very rewarding, so it’s all about attempting to determine what’s the greatest match,” she says. “It’s good to feed your checking account but in addition feed your artistry—that’s been a giant takeaway for me.”
One among Gentle’s skilled objectives is to assist eradicate the stress on dancers to work at no cost. “I’ll work as onerous as I can to make it possible for the funding is secured earlier than any venture occurs,” she says.
