Our Wish List for the Next Decade of Dance

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 […]

Dancers, Are You Making Any of These 8 Common Money Mistakes?

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 […]

I Took an Unpaid Job With a Major Company & I Have Regrets

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 […]

How Much Can You Make In Dance? Here Are More Than 200 Actual Salaries

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, […]

The Power & Pitfalls of Winning Money With No Strings Attached

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 […]

How Do You Convince A Patron To Give Their Money To Dance?

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 […]

#RVLiving: Meet the Dancer–Choreographer Couple Who Lives in an RV

Though living in New York City is expensive, dancers can be downright resourceful in finding creative ways to make it work. Shaina Branfman Baira and Bryan Strimpel Baira have taken that resourcefulness to a whole other level: For the past two years, the co-directors of BAIRA | MVMNT PHLSPHY have lived off the grid. In […]