Affording Affordable Care
Many dance organizations have long been unable to afford health
insurance for dancers, even though they are the tools through which we
fulfill the missions of our companies. The Affordable Care Act and its subsidies to small businesses provide
an opportunity for dance companies to invest resources in their
employees’ health care, many for the very first time. Great! But, wait …
what options are available? What can we afford? Is my organization
required by law to provide insurance? What if my company can’t afford
insurance?? What are the deadlines???
What We Talk About When We Talk About Race, Part Two
Too many of the mainstream narratives about race in the United States
are stuck in mid-twentieth-century paradigms of black vs. white. The
classic archetypes of the oppressor and the oppressed make for good
movies, but the racial groups that feature in conversations about race
today are insanely reductive visions of reality. Read on for more on this provocative topic.
A Dancer & Health Insurance
I have been without health insurance for one year, three months, and
10 days as of today. I am 27 years old, physically active, have no
chronic health problems that require treatment or medication. I don’t
smoke. I only drink on occasion (and then in moderation), and as a
freelance dancer and part-time non-profit administrator in New York, I
make about $22,000 a year after taxes. I am at once exactly the kind of
person the Affordable Care Act was written for, and exactly the kind of
person they are afraid won’t sign up.
If I choose not to sign up I will be penalized $224 (1 percent of my income). Read on to find out more about the options Alexander Thompson faces.
A New Year’s Resolution for the Dance Field
My hope for all of us in 2014 is that we can practice and celebrate
self-determination. By self-determination I mean using our voices,
making our own frames of reference, and creating for ourselves. I want
us to be loud, and large, and powerful, both as individuals and as a
field. I want us to be a force to reckoned with. I am dance, hear me
roar!
Is the Great Recession Over for the Arts?
The Great Recession that began in 2008 was the worst economic disaster
to hit America and the global economy since the Great Depression. While
the Great Recession is technically over as measured by economists,
millions of Americans are still out of work or have stopped searching
for work and some sectors of the economy still have not recovered.
What about the arts? Read on to see where the arts stand in the economic recovery.
What’s On the Legislative Docket This Fall That Dance Organizations Should Know
This fall, Congress faces looming decisions around the budget and the
debt ceiling, while also working on such big issues as tax and
immigration reform and the reauthorization of the Elementary and
Secondary Education Act (ESEA), also known as No Child Left Behind.
Additionally, sequestration was not a once-and-done deal, but part of a
10-year plan to reduce the deficit and this will very much impact
appropriations.
As one of the core services offered to members,
Dance/USA actively advocates for and lobbies on behalf of the issues
that create an impact on the field of dance. Read on for more.
Symbiosis and Support
“Outside of change, the only constant in art is community,” writes choreographer, dancer, and educator Helanius Wilkins. Read more about his thoughts on creating conducive artistic communities by working collaboratively and symbiotically with fellow members of the creative class.
Letter and Apology to Dancers About To Enter the Dance World
So! Congratulations are in order. You’re about to graduate from your
dance program and enter into the real world. I hope you’re feeling
amply prepared, totally comfortable and at ease with the mammoth
transition to come.
…
Guys? … Oh. You’re freaking out? You feel
like you don’t have a clue what you’re getting into? How you’ll get paid
/ afford rent / find a place to make work / find auditions / get a job /
afford insurance / pay off your historically huge student loans?
Yearning on the Dance Floor … and in the Science Lab
Thirty-nine hapless heterosexual women were then asked to observe the 30
dancing avatars, and rate them for “dance moves.” On a seven-point
scale, these women (hopefully paid for this excruciating experience),
rated the dance moves from “extremely bad” to “extremely good.”
We are not making this up.
What We Talk About When We Talk About Race, Part One
Art and arts organizations are not capable of solving racism on their
own. It’s not that the arts have nothing to say about race or that
diverse cultural expressions aren’t important, but in the absence of a
clear and shared understanding of the underlying factors that perpetuate racism,
I fear that arts-centric interventions can all too often end up being
little more than a band-aid – a way to reassure ourselves that we’re
doing something important and valuable when in reality we’re really
having very little impact at all. I believe that the sooner we as a
field start framing our efforts not around “what can we do as artists
and arts administrators to promote diversity?” but rather “how does
racial injustice manifest today, what are its root causes, and how can
we as human beings most effectively be part of the solution?” the
sooner we’ll actually have something to be proud of.