PAY DANCERS Black Hat

PAY DANCERS
Dancers are fighting for fair wages. Frequently working as independent contractors, they’re forced to take on the additional burden of advocating for timely, equitable compensation while already performing the job expected of them. Even within highly commercialized fields like the music industry, dancers are underpaid. So what can we do about it?

As working dancers, we want to see these issues addressed within our field. We want to invite other dancers to demand better working conditions and to support each other during times of cultural strife. Through our collective experiences, we’ve determined that for these changes to occur, we must organize ourselves and build our own artist-driven infrastructure.

WHAT’S HATS GOT TO DO WITH IT?
Moved by the collection of dancers — including BEMOVING artist Julia Eichten — who organized in response to less than adequate working conditions during the recent re-staging of Joan Jonas’s Mirror Piece I & II at the Getty Museum and in response to the amount of funds BEMOVING currently needs to raise for our upcoming premiere at REDCAT’s NOW Festival, we’re making hats.

By creating these hats, our primary goal is to spread the message of PAY DANCERS widely. But they also represent an experiment with developing our own merchandise and dipping our toes into new revenue streams. Yes, we want to generate income, but we also want to extend solidarity toward fellow dancers and encourage others to act in kind instead of relying on traditional art and culture institutions. PAY DANCERS is a means for us to express ourselves through a professional identity while setting the standard for how we deserve to be treated in professional contexts.

BUY HATS, PAY DANCERS
Whether you are a dancer yourself, a dance enthusiast, someone who hires dancers or just someone who loves hats, you can be a part of this movement.

While these hats are currently a way for BEMOVING to raise money for its artists, we see the potential for this work to build into collaborations with other dancers and artists that are fighting for fair wages.

LET’S GET ORGANIZED, LET’S EXPERIMENT
BEMOVING is our experiment with artistic autonomy. As a small nonprofit that operates using a collective model, we’re learning that our size gives us greater agility and insight than larger cultural institutions with robust — and sometimes even burdensome — infrastructure and resources that have at their disposal. Using that knowledge, we want to set an example of how we want movement artists to be treated and engaged in the field.

Historically, dancers have been forced into many non-nurturing, self-destructive spaces for the sake of their art — a trend that is all the more disturbing when we acknowledge that dance is a somatic practice which encourages empathy, sensitivity, and bodily self-awareness. Bucking this trend, BEMOVING envisions a world where artists set the terms of engagement across industries. By letting our natural capacity for balance, grace, and beauty shape how we work and support each other, we set the standards of care for future generations — and isn’t that what dancing is all about?