This is not news. But this article breaks it down real well.
Small Dance Companies in NYC: The Economic Reality
by Natalie Bostick
http://www.ballet-dance.com/200708/articles/NYCDance2007.html
In this article, Natalie pulled out some facts from a recent survery by Dance/NYC, Her research shows that, “Small modern/contemporary companies collectively reach as large an audience as do the 3% of New York companies with budgets over $1 million. That’s an impressive 50% market share.”
While these numerous companies have a huge collective market share, they do not have a huge share of the resources. Even when they are working, dancers usually do not expect to make a living off of dancing alone. Many work other jobs to make ends meet. Choreographers face similar financial problems.
The difficult questions are:
“How do you support your work? In other words, how can you create work if you or your dancers are expected to lose money on a show?”
“How do you present your work with limited financial resources?”
There are no simple answers here. However, there is a great opportunity in showing excerpts of work online. Or simply create work for an online venue. Currently, there are a few online “venues” (think YouTube) but they do not focus on the arts.
What if there was a place to see the performing arts online? Why are the performing arts so behind the curve technologically? Is it a money issue? A skill issue? Do companies and artists know how to use webtools to show or document their work online?
It’s time artists begin creating work for an online audience. With enough artists doing this on a consistent basis, there would be enough content to create regular programming for either an internet audience, or an IP Tv audience.
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