When a dancer is finally accepted into a dance company, the feelings felt are usually of overwhelming relief and disbelief. The dancer makes a million phone calls to friends, family members, and most importantly, their teachers to thank them for all those years of hard work. But more times then ever, the teachers will remind the newly-employed dancers of the next important step in their career: joining the union.
The American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA) is the union many dance companies are associated with. They implement boundaries for dance employees to ensure their protective rights as physical performers. The yearly contract issued to dancers is in heavy detail, from how many hours they are allowed to dance per day, to how many breaks they receive and for how long, to the travel details (hotel, food, transportation), and the list goes on and on. The contract is so detailed, it even lists what dancers can wear during practices in the studio. Wow.
One aspect of the AGMA is the specification of weeks of employment. For the 2008 year, the contract states the company (in this case, Merce Cunningham) must employ their dancer for 32 weeks out of the year. Why is this the golden number? Well, since dance companies cannot afford to employ their dancers for 52 weeks, this number allows the dancers to receive unemployment for those remaining weeks of the year. Of course, if dancers find another job opportunity, they can sign release forms, receiving permission to work outside of their company. This seldom happens because finding a dance job that lasts only 20 weeks is rare. Therefore, it is accepted between dancers that receiving unemployment is a fact of a dancer's life. Susan Shields, a dance professor at GMU and a previous Lar Lubovitch company member, explains that when she would walk to the unemployment office in NYC, she was greeted by several other modern and ballet company members waiting in-line at the door. She describes it as an "unemployment dance party."
Although the AGMA is meticulous when it comes to the boundaries dancers and companies have control over, they definitely understand the meaning of survival. If they did not create the "32 week" boundary, thereby allowing dancers to receive unemployment, there would be dancers waiting tables rather than taking dance classes and keeping their training up. This is definitely a reason why unemployment was created, and thankfully it is used correctly for once.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
It is amazing how much AGMA does for the dancers, chorale singers and production personnel. It sounds like the union to join for any dancer; I am surprised there are any professionals in this field that are not members. Especially when it’s basic philosophy is “whatever hurts a singer or dancer anywhere hurts singers and dancers everywhere and we strive to prevent harm to those artists and to help them advance their careers.”
It is unfortunate that there are not enough jobs to go round for all our gifted artists. Although receiving ‘unemployment’ is a good thing, there is nothing as satisfying as receiving remuneration for actual hard work. But definately survival is very important too.
I think the union should lobby for government to allocate more funding towards the teaching of singing and dance in our schools.
Post a Comment