Photo Source: CC Photography
Last week Dance/NYC, a dance advocacy group, released "State of NYC Dance," a 30-page study that analyzes employment and financial information from 127 nonprofit dance makers and organizations. The data came from the Cultural Data Project, a statewide survey on the arts and culture.
"Because of the Cultural Data Project, we saw the opportunity to look at this data and create benchmarks to measure the growth of the industry," said Lane Harwell, director of Dance/NYC. According to the report, the dance industry is giving "a healthy contribution to the economy," the total expenditures of the 127 dance organizations amounting to $230.7 million.
The study categorized dance companies by budget range. For instance, organizations with budgets of more than $5 million provided 31.3 percent of all commissions and 15 percent of premieres. Dance groups with budgets of $25,000 to $99,000, however, were responsible for 22 percent of all commissions and 19 percent of all premieres, despite their financial disadvantage.
These numbers did not surprise Harwell: "A lot of what we found is in large part what we expected but until now was only based on anecdotal evidence. Even though resources are limited, dance makers are being creative and putting those resources to work. We see that there is a high level of entrepreneurship." Organizations within the smaller budget range had low numbers of full-time and part-time staff and relied more on in-kind resources, which are donated time and materials (supplies and costumes).
In a struggling economy, one might expect that smaller groups would not be able to produce as many works. Though these organizations "have struggled on the whole," according to the study, they are still finding a way. Harwell pointed out that there may be advantages to having fewer workers and a lower budget: "There are a lot of different variables at play. It's probably true that because they have so little overhead, they are not burdened by overhead. Moving from one budget category to the next really requires major shifts in both your funding and your operations. And the infrastructure comes when you move to a larger budget size."
Smaller groups may possess other qualities that cannot be measured as easily as monetary factors. "I don't want to generalize, but those in this budget category come into this budget size with youth, enthusiasm, and energy to get the work done," said Harwell. "These smaller groups are start-ups, but you might call this whole industry really a start-up."
Harwell looks forward to more research on New York City dance being released in the near future. He mentioned that the Dance/NYC Junior Committee is working on an employment report on dance workers ages 21 to 35. "We are in conversation with different fiscal sponsors of individual artists and unincorporated groups in the city to see if we might learn more about them," he said, "but that's a conversation that's really just beginning."
Lacey Althouse, development/program associate of Dance/NYC, is glad that the study will help others see the diversity of dance in New York and hopes it will promote more discussion about dance in general. She said, "Our findings did not surprise me all that much, because I knew that dancers and dance makers have a huge impact on the city. It's unfortunate that in some parts of the country, dance just isn't as accessible. But in New York, it's everywhere, and given how diverse it is, there's something for everybody."
