Ballerina by Deirdre Kelly

Author:Deirdre Kelly
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: PER003010
Publisher: Greystone Books
Published: 2012-07-11T04:00:00+00:00

5. Laboring Under an Illusion

The Ballerina at Work Today

There is an enduring perception that ballerinas live on air, unfettered by earthly concerns, and so they are not in need of special protections. As artists specializing in wordless dance, ballerinas appear voiceless and are expected to be silent—an image exploited by their employers, who generally overwork and underpay them, confident that they won’t speak up or fight back. Ballet exacts docility from the dancer to achieve its superhuman feats; blind obedience to ballet’s rules is necessary in an art that contorts the body through early and methodical exercise to achieve the essential ninety-degree turnout from the hips. When dancers do speak out, the repercussions are often swift and career damaging.

The dancers of American Ballet Theatre in New York learned this firsthand when in 1979 they voiced concern over the small salary and benefit increase presented to them as part of contract negotiations. The dancers rejected the offer, and management responded by locking them out. With nowhere else to ply their trade, the situation was dire. Ballerinas took to the streets, carrying placards, drawing public attention to their plight. They also spoke to reporters and went on television, demonstrating that ballerinas could indeed speak and that what they had to say about their workplace conditions—one ABT dancer described their situation as nothing short of slavery—was deserving of attention. For outsiders, it was their first glimpse of how the ballet world really worked: “the long hours, low pay, paltry benefits, and occupational hazards.”1 The crisis ended ten weeks later when management finally conceded to some of the dancers’ demands, granting them improved wages and workplace conditions. “The starting salary for a corps dancer went from $235 a week to $495 a week by the end of the three-year contract; a fourth-year corps dancer, who earned $285, now [made] $420; and a tenth-year soloist, who used to earn $422, now earn[ed] $610.”2

It looked as though the dancers had empowered themselves. But within three years, back at the bargaining table for a new round of contract negotiations, it looked as though they would lose the ground they had earlier gained. In 1982, ABT ballerinas again took to the streets and marched en masse in the New York City Labor Day Parade, asserting their status as workers with rights. It was startling to see them out on labor’s front lines, dressed in their short classical tutus, faux tiaras, and running shoes and holding aloft a banner declaring them full-fledged members of the American Guild of Musical Artists. Still, crowds of onlookers cheered them on. To at least one observer, the appearance of dancers in the Labor Day Parade was a sign that ballet was itself marching into a new enlightened era of fair labor practices. But that was an illusion worthy of the stage. Within a few weeks of that event, ABT’s ninety-two dancers were again locked in a dispute with management over their collective rights as workers. A new contract was on the table, which the dancers were refusing to sign because it failed to meet their demands for increased pay.

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