The dance service organization Dance/NYC has announced the results from its newly published report, State of NYC Dance 2023: Findings from the Dance Industry Census, an in-depth investigation of the economic realities of individuals and entities working in the New York City dance industry. The report is available in full on Dance/NYC’s Dance. Workforce. Resilience (DWR) Hub at Dance.NYC/StateofNYCDance23. In conjunction with the report release, Dance/NYC launched the DWR Hub (Hub.Dance.NYC) which will serve as the go-to digital resource for the dance industry and wider arts & culture sector.
Both the report and the Hub debuted at the State of NYC Dance: Findings from the Dance Industry Census event held on Tuesday, December 12, 2023, hosted in partnership with Chelsea Factory, curated by Alejandra Duque Cifuentes of ADC Consulting, and in artistic partnership with Sydnie L. Mosley Dances and Ladies of Hip Hop. A recording is available for viewing on Dance/NYC’s YouTube channel. More details on the event can be found online.
The report reveals that the NYC dance industry is contending with systemic inequity, changing audience participation, and ever-evolving revenue models. Despite their fragility, dance workers, organizations, groups, projects, and businesses create and share work with audiences and participants via many means, benefiting from strong connections to education, health, and leisure sectors. They are deeply committed to the art form, finding purpose, joy, and community in making, teaching, and documenting dance. And they are often doing so while consistently facing obstacles like pandemic-related challenges and enduring financial insecurity–obstacles that negatively impact their quality of life and wellness.
The report—a culmination of Dance/NYC’s Dance Industry Census and Roundtable Discussion Series—forms a comprehensive picture of the dance workforce, using data to equip the sector with the tools to advocate for meaningful change in policies and practices that directly impact the industry and a new vision for dance in the New York City metropolitan area. It will serve as an important guide for Dance/NYC’s ongoing Dance. Workforce. Resilience. (DWR) Initiative.
“There is a long history of dance workers alerting us to the conditions they face while working in the NYC dance industry,” said Candace Thompson-Zachery, Dance/NYC Director of Programming and Justice Initiatives. “This report affirms the studio hallway discussions, post-show small talk, and the history of artists creatively telling stories of survival while developing solutions through their artistic and organizing works. It affirms that the dance industry is unsustainable by design, but that dance workers and entities are investing their time and bodies into this and other sectors to make their lives and their entities operational. Dance/NYC’s report points to actions we can all take towards change. It’s time that systems of support meet the dance community halfway.”
Led and authored by Strategy and Research Consultant Alejandra Duque Cifuentes of ADC Consulting and Carrie Blake, Senior Consultant & Research Director at Webb Mgmt, the State of NYC Dance 2023 report is the fifth iteration of this sector-wide study. It features an expanded scope centering individual workers and considering a wider array of financial structures—going beyond previous studies that only considered the sector through a nonprofit institutional lens. The study engaged significant proportions of individual workers and entities through its iterative mixed-method research approach with survey responses being provided by 27% of the estimated 6,000 dance workers and 23% of the estimated 1,700 entities. In addition to survey input, nearly 250 dance workers provided qualitative input at seven in-person and two virtual roundtable events. The study was also undertaken in consultation with two advisory groups: the 2022 Dance. Workforce. Resilience. (DWR) Task Force and the 2023 DWR Advisory Group.
Leveraging Dance/NYC’s identified role as a conduit and collective voice for dance in the metropolitan area, the DWR Hub is a dissemination vehicle for the tools, learnings, and resources developed under the DWR Initiative. The online portal is comprised of three primary components:
- A digital home for the State of NYC Dance 2023: Findings from the Dance Industry Census report with accompanying data.
- A searchable DWR Resource Library housing professional development and self-advocacy tools for workers, organizations, and business entities.
- A sector-wide Dance Workforce Directory: a searchable, user-generated database of individual workers and entities predominantly working and/or based in the NYC metropolitan area, to be released in 2024.
Dance/NYC worked with Surface Impression, an international digital media agency that specializes in work for nonprofit organizations and the cultural sector. Dance/NYC also partnered with Accessibility Consultant, Minh Ha, to ensure that the DWR Hub meets the highest accessibility standards utilizing user testing with a variety of assistive technologies including screen readers, screen magnification, and keyboard access.
The Hub, research report, and event are all components of Dance/NYC’s current justice initiative, Dance. Workforce. Resilience. (DWR), focused on addressing economic inequity and strengthening the dance ecology. Through a number of activities, the DWR Initiative aims to directly serve the whole sector, including those communities not previously served through non-profit interventions in the field such as individual dance workers, fiscally sponsored groups and projects, and for-profit dance entities. The first phase of the Initiative focuses on the dissemination, collection, and analysis of research with the Dance Industry Census and subsequent release of the report. The second phase, beginning in 2024, will focus on the implementation of recommendations and actions based on research findings.
ConEdison is Dance/NYC’s Dance. Workforce. Resilience. Hub Lead Corporate Sponsor. Dance/NYC’s Dance. Workforce. Resilience. Initiative is made possible, in part, by leadership support from the Mellon Foundation, New York Community Trust, Doris Duke Foundation, the Mertz Gilmore Foundation and a coalition of general operating support funders, and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and the National Endowment of the Arts.
