Study exposes poverty of U.S. dancemakers.

WASHINGTON, D. C.--According to a new report called Dancemakers, published by the National Endowment for the Arts, the average annual income that choreographers in the United States of America derived from their choreography in 1989 was $6,000, while their professional expenses totaled an average of $13,000. The average overall income for professional choreographers, including money earned from other work, was about $22,000; and eighty percent of them spent twice as much time doing the secondary jobs needed to support themselves.

The report, written by Dick Netzer and Ellen Parker and based on Alyce Dissette and Richard J. Orend's survey of some seven hundred choreographers in New York City, Chicago, San Francisco, and Washington, D. C., paints a picture of a field in crisis.

Since 1989, the year for which the low incomes were reported, dance funding in the U.S.A. has plummeted. Corporate funding for dance fell sixty percent between 1988 and 1991, while funding at the level of state arts agencies has dropped twenty-six percent on average in the four cities examined. (In the case of New York State, the decline has been a precipitous fifty-nine percent.) Though federal dollars have remained nearly constant, their value has decreased as a function of inflation. Overall, say the authors of the report, dance has suffered more than any other art form from funding cut-backs during the recession of the past few years.

Among the survey's most interesting revelations: Male respondents reported earning twice as much as women from their choreography, all factors except for gender being equal.

Seventy-seven percent of the choreographers surveyed were college graduates, yet those choreographers who had not attended college reported earning significantly more.

"Despite meager rewards," NEA Dance Program director Sali Ann Kriegsman writes, "and notwithstanding a level of difficulty that is causing some artists to leave the field or the country, choreographers continue to make dances that excite and inspire us, that cause us to think about life differently, to understand things about ourselves, and to engage in an art experience that is deeply human."

The authors of Dancemakers conclude by suggesting that more studies should be done to determine why the bottom seems to have fallen out of dance funding in America, at a time when corporate and public support for choreographers is needed more than ever before.

To obtain a copy of Dancemakers, phone the Public Information Office of the NEA at [phone].