Don’t decide on your dancers’ fees until you create your entire project budget. Translation: you may not be able to afford to pay your dancers as much as you’d like (and as much as they’re worth), but if you know what you can afford, your dancers will a) respect your budget and its limitations b) […]
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Making Next Year’s Holiday Season Much More Merry
Now that the holidays are over and we have begun a new year, it’s a perfect time to refelct on the hoidays and realize that it truly is the season of giving. I just threw away the last lingering annual holiday appeal that was in my pile of “to do’s” having made that donation online two days before the year officially ended. For my CLIENTS who sent appeals, the success stories are coming-in, and the reports are positive. Fact #1: People give more money away in December than any other month of the year. Fact #2: ANNUAL APPEALS work.
Many people ask me if sending an e-appeal can be sent in leu of a snail mail appeal. The answer is, “Yes, but that it will yield less dollars than if you do both”. For example, the artists and organizations that took the time and effort to send me a snail mail appeal got a donation from me (which ironically, I ultimately gave on-line). Sending a snail mail shows your serious, committed and willing to spend a few bucks to make more vs. anyone and everyone can send an e-appeal (and they certainly do indicated by the look of one’s inbox in December).
My Plea to Not Work for Free
If you’re a dance artist, please don’t work for free. When choreographers don’t pay their dancers it feeds the entire broken system under which we are forced to operate. When dancers work for free it undermines his or her value to the fullest extent. As a dancer, I know that money is tight. As a choreographer, it’s even tighter. How can I afford to pay my dancers for performance let alone rehearsals too? (sidebar: Im a solo artist, but you get what I’m saying). There is something so deseprate about working for literally no money, and it sends a simple message loud and clear to the world: we’re not worth it, and neither is our art. And yet, if you were to ask a choreographer or dancer if he or she felt that way about their dance, they could most likely find its value and share that in a somewhat articulate way.