Annelies van Assche: Working and Living Conditions of Contemporary Dance Artists

The socio-economic living conditions of contemporary dancers are special and often precarious. 

While dancers have a great deal in common with other independent performing artists, dance often requires an extremely high level of mobility (due to the absence of a language barrier). It also has extremely high physical requirements that not only frequently necessitate decades of training but also generally mandate a change of career in ones thirties or, in the worst case, ends with severe long-term physical consequences. 

The mobility as well as the blurry boundaries with other fields also make it more difficult to obtain valid numbers and figures to use when advocating policy to politicians and funding institutions. 

Annelies van Assche has already examined the socio-economic conditions of contemporary dancers in Flanders and has now taken up the gigantic task of expanding her work to Berlin in order to achieve a reliable comparison. 

During the Industry Get-Together, she will present her prior research results, explain her observations of how various socio-economic conditions influence creative processes and talk about how she plans to continue her investigations in Berlin.

Participants:

Annelies van Assche (Universiteit Gent)