Introduction to Dance and Accessibility- Ticket Sales
Let’s talk about Dance. Dance, at its core, is a bodily expressive art form. It pushes the human body to portray and feel emotional, theoretical, abstract and even concrete concepts. The physical and emotional pressure put upon a dancer’s body and mind is immense. This relationship can be beautiful but also heartbreaking. As a dancer and movement maker myself I find the relationship to my dancing body and mind to be a strained and complicated one. On the one hand, performing is the closest thing to peace I have ever felt. Yet, because of dance I have dealt with extreme body dysphoria and anxiety. I know this isn’t a unique experience.
While I sort through anxieties about how my body looks while moving and begin to wonder how my work functions in the greater dance community I have begun to think about how I and other dance makers function inside the American capitalist system. I wonder if there is a way for us to do this in a way that doesn’t inadvertently harm others. I am making this series as a way for me to deal with these questions.
Concert dance- that is dance performed in a traditional theatre setting- is finding it hard to adapt to the modern economy. Millennials- who are the group that art organizations are relying on to continue viewership- are in dire financial straits. They cannot afford to own homes. Many are saddled with huge student debts and most are working multiple jobs to pay the bills. Thus they are not attending nearly as much performance art in the traditional settings. How could they? The money and time needed simply isn’t there.
I wanted to do this this series so I could explore how we as performers can create access to dance in more comprehensive ways. Though I think that is a bit out of scope for this first article. Here I simply want to start to look at how performance makers contribute to an overall system that make it hard, or at times virtually impossible for poor people, many millenials and other marginalized groups to be a part of the creation of dance.
First off, who am I? And why would I have any right to speak on this issue anyway? Well, firstly, I am a dancer and dance maker. I have a degree in dance composition and have been studying movement all my life. Secondly, I have experience in research looking at dance and its ties to queer identity as well as class. And I think most importantly, I did all of this while being poor. I grew up in a single parent household and was lucky enough to be given help both financially and emotionally from family. I was given opportunities that most poor kids never get. On the one hand I am a white woman who is classically trained in dance and ended up going to an expensive, neo-liberal arts college. Yet, I am mentally ill, queer and poor. I have an intimate knowledge of the emotional labor included in dance and its financial strains. But I am far from the end all source of that knowledge. My complicated and often fraught relationship to both dance and capitalism have given me the opportunity and privilege to experience both for their benefits and extreme downfalls.
So now, how exactly does dance function inside of capitalism? I would say that is not an easy question to answer. On the one hand dance is often trying to commercialize itself, with examples like So you think you can dance, while still struggling with funding for concert dance companies and dance schools as the government continues to cut funding for grant programs. So, most of us in the dance community have to navigate this strange landscape. But, what exactly do we do as artists and creators that unintentionally gatekeep this community and reaffirm harmful capitalist institutions. In this series I plan to look at the various ways we as creators contribute to negative systems that exclude large populations of people. Today I am going to focus primarily on class and performance ticket sales.
Let’s start in Seattle and look at PNB- Pacific Northwest Ballet. Seattle recently raised its minimum wage $15 an hour. This was a much needed increase due to Seattle’s high cost of living. According to Seattle Refined one needs to make one needs to make $72,092 a year to live comfortably in Seattle with $36,046 for necessities. If one made $15 an hour and worked a 40 hour work week they would make approximately $43,680 a year. This would leave only $11,634 a year for rent, bills, medical bills, school needs, car repairs and other incidental expenses.
Pacific Northwest Ballet charges $860 overall for the youngest level of their classes. If you progress beyond their children’s division you would be looking at $5,300 overall for the lowest level of their teen division and $9,800 for their highest division each year. This may not seem like the worst amount of money, especially if these students have two parents earning minium wage. And PNB offers both scholarships and payment plans. Though the scholarships are competitive and the payment plans come with processing fees. What about adults looking into their school? If you make minimum wage and pay for their top, adult’s division classes you will have $1,834 left over for any incidentals for the entire year.
Now, what about those who are not dancers but want to appreciate the art? The cheapest seats that Pacific Northwest Ballet offers are usually around $124 per seat. If an audience member makes the $15 minimum wage that would be just under an entire day of work to afford one ticket.
Most people will see these costs and probably think that this is to be expected in a city that is well known to have a high cost of living such as Seattle. But below I have included ticket and class prices for dance companies in Nebraska and New York City for comparison with each state’s minimum wage. These sources will show that it would take 10 to 21 hours of work for minimum wage for the lowest student’s tuition for Nebraska’s American Midwest Ballet. It would take 29 to 37 hours of work for their teen tuition. That is almost an entire week of work for one month of dance classes.
So, why are the costs of performances and classes so high? Off the bat, class pricing is usually a way to fundraise to pay the teachers and sometimes it can be used for general maintenance, costume budget, and some performance costs. That all seems relatively straight forward. Ticket sales also go towards these things. But then, why can companies not use other forms of fundraising for those things? The answer is, they do.
The problem comes when the budget is simply to high. This is a structural problem. To pay for the seamstresses, the cost of fabric, shoes, performance and rehearsal space and its upkeep a company has to generate a huge amount of money. In the 2017-18 season Pacific Northwest Ballet had an operating expense of 25.3 Million dollars. In that same season they received, in total, from Government grant programs, donors, and corporate sponsorship $6,953,073. This left them with over 18 million dollars worth of expenditures to cover. Thus, they have a need for that income.
The problem is that this income gatekeeps who can be a part of the concert dance world. On the one hand this is problematic in a very direct and obvious way. Though, it is problematic in a more insidious way. This class separation reinforces the concept of high vs. low art. This concept is used to describe the difference between fine art that is “worthy” of being seen in established settings and art that is either mainstream or made for entertainment purposes. Unfortunately, this tradition has a long history of being used against poor, POC and queer artists. So, by keeping poor people, and historically this has included POC and queer individuals due to racist and queerphobic housing and hiring policies, out of the dance community it continues to keep many marginalized communities out of the creation of dance.
In the rest of this series we will be looking at how other facets of dance creation and production keep many from being able to participate. I plan to end this series with a look at how we can begin to create a new dance community centered on accessibility.
American Midwest Ballet
https://amballet.org/school/classes-programs/#academy-division
NYCB tickets https://www.eticketsboxoffice.com/results-ticket?evtid=3777995&event=American+Ballet+Theatre%3a+Manon
Sources
https://www.clydefitchreport.com/2016/10/millennials-arts-nonprofit-digital-marketing-audience/
https://medium.com/@OPERAAmerica/what-do-millennials-want-69623590d458