Dance/NYC launches Online Portal to Support the Dance Workforce in New York City
Company:
Dance/NYC
The dance service organization Dance/NYC today announced an upcoming launch — the Dance. Workforce. Resilience. (DWR) Hub (Hub.Dance.NYC) will go live on December 12 at 6:00 p.m. ET in conjunction with Dance/NYC's research event, "State of NYC Dance: Findings from the Dance Industry Census". Leveraging Dance/NYC's identified role as a conduit and collective voice for dance in the metropolitan area, the DWR Hub site will serve as the go-to digital resource for the dance industry and wider arts & culture sector.
The DWR Hub will be a dissemination vehicle for the tools, learnings, and resources developed under the DWR Initiative—educating and informing individual workers, organizations, and entities through accessible and relevant resources to foster inclusionary and equitable practices. The online portal will be comprised of three primary components:
A digital home for the State of NYC Dance 2023: Findings from the Dance Industry Census report with accompanying tools and resources–led and authored by Strategy and Research Consultant, Alejandra Duque Cifuentes of ADC Consulting and Research Consultant, Carrie Blake of Webb Mgmt.
A searchable DWR Resource Library housing professional development and self-advocacy tools for workers, organizations, and business entities. Topics addressed include equitable labor and industry practices, financial management, negotiation, emergency preparation, intellectual property and wages, contracting, funding, promotion, recruitment, auditions, etc.
A new sector-wide Dance Workforce Directory, following the success of its existing directories focusing on increasing visibility for disabled and immigrant dance artists. Dance/NYC will expand its offerings to create this searchable, user-generated database of individual workers and entities predominantly working and/or based in the NYC metropolitan area, to be released in 2024.
"So often, dance workers are losing time looking for tools and guidance—they are being directed by resources not tailored to their experiences or are getting wrong information about how to navigate their work lives in dance," said Candace Thompson-Zachery, Dance/NYC Director of Programming and Justice Initiatives. " The DWR Hub is Dance/NYC's response to this need and to create a centralized place for these searches—from how to decide on a rate for a job to what percentage of choreographers live in NYC. This is all with the aim to empower dance workers with tools that protect their labor, dance entity leaders on more equitable and appropriate ways to run their organizations and for all to be more informed community members."
Dance/NYC worked with Surface Impression, an international digital media agency that specializes in work for nonprofit organizations and the cultural sector. Dance/NYC also partnered with Accessibility Consultant Minh Ha to ensure that the DWR Hub meets the highest accessibility standards utilizing user testing with a variety of assistive technologies including screen readers, screen magnification, and keyboard access.
"Surface Impression has been delighted to work with Dance/NYC to develop the DWR Hub and home for their newest research report", said Dr. Amy Hetherington, Surface Impression Director. "Dance/NYC is doing incredibly important work for the dance sector in the New York area. Supporting that work by creating an accessible and user-friendly digital space to find important resources and information aligns with our company ethos, and we're excited to see what the future holds for this initiative and those to come."
The DWR Hub will debut at State of NYC Dance: Findings from the Dance Industry Census, a research performance event and community gathering that aims to share insights from the research report of the same name. There, Dance/NYC will unveil up-to-date data to equip individual dance workers, entities, and supporters with the resources and tools to advocate for meaningful change in policies and practices that directly impact the industry and its diverse set of workers, businesses, and organizations and a new vision for dance in the New York City metropolitan area.
Hosted in partnership with Chelsea Factory, curated by Alejandra Duque Cifuentes of ADC Consulting, and in artistic partnership with Sydnie L. Mosley Dances and Ladies of Hip Hop, the event will be held on Tuesday, December 12, 2023, with doors opening at 5:30 p.m. at Chelsea Factory in Manhattan. More details on the event can be found online at Dance.NYC/StateofNYCDanceEvent.
The Hub, research report, and event are all components of Dance/NYC's current justice initiative, Dance. Workforce. Resilience. (DWR), focused on addressing economic inequity and strengthening the dance ecology. Through a number of activities, the DWR Initiative aims to directly serve the whole sector, including those communities not previously served through non-profit interventions in the field such as individual dance workers, fiscally sponsored groups and projects, and for-profit dance entities. The first phase of the Initiative focuses on the dissemination, collection, and analysis of research with the Dance Industry Census and subsequent release of the report. The second phase, beginning in 2024, will focus on the implementation of recommendations and actions based on research findings.
ConEdison is Dance/NYC's Dance. Workforce. Resilience. Hub Lead Corporate Sponsor. ance/NYC's Dance. Workforce. Resilience. Initiative is made possible, in part, by leadership support from the Mellon Foundation, New York Community Trust, Doris Duke Foundation, the Mertz Gilmore Foundation and a coalition of general operating support funders, and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and the National Endowment of the Arts.
About Dance/NYC:
Dance/NYC's mission is to promote and encourage the knowledge, appreciation, practice, and performance of dance in the metropolitan New York City area. It embeds core values of justice, equity, and inclusion into all aspects of its programs and operations. Dance/NYC remains committed to delivering programs that address disparities in the dance field by continuing to fill gaps in the availability of resources where they are most needed. It believes the dance ecology must itself be just, equitable, and inclusive to meaningfully contribute to social progress and envisions a dance ecology wherein power, funding, opportunities, conduct, and impacts are fair for all artists, cultural workers, and audiences.
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