It’s an all-too-familiar experience for freelance dancers. “You go for these auditions, and you think it’s a big opportunity,” says BRAT, a New York City–based dancer who founded the #FreelanceDoesNotEqualFreeDance social media campaign and has performed in a variety of music videos and at events like the MTV Video Music Awards and the U.S. Open. “And then after you’ve already gotten the gig, they’re like, ‘Oh, we don’t have rehearsal pay.’ ”
Lack of clarity around how much a job pays can be frustrating for seekers of all kinds. But in the dance industry, where gigs are often underpaid or unpaid, and where most performers string together many opportunities over the course of a year, the lack of wage transparency can be particularly fraught. Two new laws in New York City and California seek to rectify this, by requiring employers with four or more employees (in the case of New York City’s law) or 15 or more employees (in the case of California’s SB 1162) to include salary information in all job postings, or risk paying penalties.
When New York City’s law took effect in November, service organization Dance/NYC immediately adjusted its popular job listings page to require salary information for all postings. But Alejandra Duque Cifuentes, Dance/NYC’s strategy and research consultant and former executive director, says the organization and the wider dance world need more guidance from the city to implement the law effectively. For one: The law states that employers must list...
The Ghana Museums and Monuments Board (GMMB) has issued a formal apology to Professor Wazi Apoh, Dean of the School of Arts and Professor of Archaeology at the University of Ghana, following the c...