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Financial fluctuation within the dance sector and the effects of this.

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Financial fluctuation within the dance sector and the effects of this.

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As a professional dancer, a crucial element contributing to everyday life and work life is my financial situation. Obligations such as rent, bills, food expenditure, insurance, pet bills; the list is not exhaustive, are financial outgoings that cannot be negotiated and are vital for an everyday person to survive. However, as a growing individual in the arts industry, I argue that for a young professional dancer it can be more challenging living in the 21st century with a dance job alone to support all your obligated needs, especially within a city such as Manchester and London. Based on an online average salary pay calculator 'Payscale' The hourly rate of a dancer is twelve pounds, with an annual total of twenty-one thousand pounds. Another calculation taken from an online platform, WageIndicator indicating that 'The majority of highly skilled Dancers and choreographers earn a salary between £1,776 and £5,118 per month in 2024.

A monthly wage for entry-level Dancers and choreographers ranges from £1,776 to £3,642. After gaining 5 years of work experience, their income will be between £2,104 and £4,414 per month.'

From these two studies based on London alone, it is clear to see that the threshold for salary steadily increases over time for a professional dancer. However from the date of entering the industry the probability of gaining well paid, immediate work is slim, needing to audition for jobs multiple times, with hundreds of other professionals alongside you is a long task to acquire repeatedly where perseverance is necessary.

'A professional dancer’s career can be short, down to talent, skill, injury or through being able to keep up with the fast-paced and sometimes devastating industry. Many dancers teach part-time to make a living if they do not have a steady number of roles through auditions, others choose to work for regional dance groups, tours or work on cruise ships and in holiday parks on a seasonal basis. The dream may be for West End dance opportunities, but you’ll need to be at the top of your game and be willing to audition more than once to obtain that goal.' (Unicompare, 2021)

From these findings and applying them to everyday life living in Manchester as a young artist, I find the difficulty to emerge as an artist whilst living through current financial crisis ever growing. Minimum wage in 2020 was £8.20 for a 21–24-year-old and is now £10.42. Dance jobs for many years are commonly situated in London City, where the inflation of food and energy prices alone have increased by 5.1% (gov, 2023). It would be in my best interest as an emerging professional to move to London as it holds the most opportunities for me to gain work, audition for work, train at studios and gain more opportunities. I have calculated that moving to London alone would save me over nine hundred pounds monthly in transport, with trains being seventy pounds per return which is needed to travel to train and audition to obtain a job in London. In order to achieve the above, I would need to work an average job to pay my current living obligations and save anything extra to train and travel to gain professional work. I feel that impact of this upon my career as a professional is immense as it requires a certain timescale (up to 1-2 years) to generate the financial gains to implement the entirety towards my career in hopes to succeed.

With many graduates struggling to gain work straight out of university, I feel the current financial situations we are in increases the chances of living with the difficulties of first world problems, making it harder to obtain a healthy dance career. On the upscale, gaining a professional dance job early in the career is amazing as I would start experiencing and gaining first-hand knowledge within the industry being able to travel to areas in the country and world, I haven’t been able to before. However, even with this prosperous achievement of gaining work, the salary has a possibility of being the same as minimum wage in a regular job in hospitality, referring back to 'wageindicators' facts, meaning I could not live off one job, depending handle my expenditure I may be forced to work two jobs to afford to live, again making it very difficult as a young emerging artist to build a career as time and energy is split over two areas of employment. Graduates’ salaries have decreased more than 10% in four decades, with inflation being the common denominator.  These hypothetical situations of career aspects show why it is imperative to consider the many ways in which a young dance artists career could steadily grow or the opposite and steadily fall due to the financial hardships we face in the 21st century. The ever fluctuation on inflation impacts dancers massively as the cost of living goes up so does our need to be in a stable long-term job, which only comes from long periods of experience in different fields. Prices of dance clothing is insanely expensive with an everyday outfit; shoes, leotard, leggings and jumper, averaging at over one hundred pounds. This coming from personal knowledge supporting myself in university has been challenging, however student finance has alleviated a lot of financial burdens therefore given me time to save for the responsibilities training also requires. Unable to have a safety net of finances is challenging when finding a full-time job in the industry as its requires you to spend the little income you may have on gaining the work, via travel and living costs, of such gen z and x face a much worse struggle with than ever before in history with the salary of dancers fluctuating between 1K and 5K forcing professionals to rely on other sources of income during the ‘dry periods’ of dance jobs.

As an emerging professional the current and ever-changing world of finance will impact me constantly during my career, even more so upon graduating as income is required immediately. The impacts force me and other professionals to constantly be mindful of what is affordable not only in every day in living, but also how financially we can afford to obtain a job in the industry before even successfully gaining the work. This constant assessment is imperative as an emerging individual as you constantly need to assess your working life; which is ever changing as contracts change being an artist, to your living situation, assessing whether you can afford basic needs with one dance job or whether you need a secondary job to keep you afloat. The financial hardships young emerging dancers face in today’s climate are appalling, yet unavoidable and only going to worsen over the years. Being aware and gaining knowledge on this matter is a vital step towards being more successful within the Professional and commercial dance sector, alongside being prepared between job and wage changes which will give individuals like me readiness for periods of hardships that I may encounter within the dance industry today and in the years to come.