There’s an interactive feature with my friend, dancer Taylor Gordon, in the New York Times today. She talks about her career as a freelance ballet dancer – from performing in Radio City Music Hall’s Christmas Spectacular to taking extra work in ABT Met season productions, to venturing into jazz and contemporary roles. Yay Taylor!
And here is the full article by Claudia La Rocco.
Photo above by Rosalie O’Connor, taken from Explore Dance.
Yay Taylor!!!!!!!!
Thanks for posting this Tonya! The full article that goes with the slideshow is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/arts/dance/18dancer.html?ref=dance
🙂 I’m excited!
How can she survive without being under contract somewhere? I can’t imaging how little money people might actually pay her. Not that she’s a bad dancer, of course. But don’t contracts with bigger companies ensure that she can make a living?
Philip, thanks for pointing the videos out to me!
Taylor, sorry, I looked and looked and couldn’t find the accompanying article. I’ve now linked to it on the post!
Liz, I have no idea how freelance dancers make it, particularly in NY. I know Taylor makes most of her annual salary from that Radio City gig that’s seasonal, so that obviously pays quite well. But that has to last the whole year. And she’s very blessed to get that; most dancers don’t have something like that. I think many of them make ends meet by teaching pilates, yoga, things like that, and by working another job – clerical often. When I worked in a law firm I remember a lot of the floating support staff were opera singers, dancers, and actors. Yeah, life for a dancer must be extremely hard if you’re not with a secure company.