At 18 years old, when illness dragged me kicking and screaming off of the stage and into my bed, I felt as though I’d lost myself entirely. The physical pain was stunning, sure, but it was the loss of dance, of what I saw as my identity, that I struggled to cope with. Now, with […]

Pre-pandemic, many dancers’ incomes were project-based, at best, and unpredictable at worst. Of course, once COVID-19 took hold, performance gigs dried up and artists’ finances, consequently, took a huge hit. For many, that meant reconfiguring their budgets, not just once, but often. For choreographer Tariq Darrell O’Meally, budgeting over the last year has been an […]

Caring for yourself as a dancer is about more than rolling out your IT bands and eating the right food. However, when my podcast partner and I conducted an exploratory study of dancers’ perceptions of their own well-being, only a handful of over 175 participants identified financial counseling as important self-care, even though many stated […]

Financial planning for dancers usually runs along the lines of “How to live on pennies a day.” But what about when you begin to earn a steadier income? Whether you’re patching together several jobs or have landed a full-time position, you should develop a financial strategy. Budgeting may seem dour, even daunting. But a realistic […]