It should be pointed out that almost every professional theater (and many others, as well) requires that their equipment be operated by their personnel, whom, of course, the teneant must pay.

There are several reasons for this, not the least of which are human safety and the preservation of the equipment.

<small>[ 17 July 2004, 12:55 PM: Message edited by: salzberg ]</small>

yes i expect recruiting dancers would be the easiest part as the profession is so competitive. how much is an average dancer's wage? so if the theatre provides all the technical people do they also design e.g. the lighting or does the company still need to provide a lighitng designer to tell the theatre lighting person what to do?

See above, where I said:

thanks for the reminder. question to shallom: not counting the dancers and choreographers, roughly how many people did you have to recruit to help your show to get on the stage?

Hi Alex,

OK, other than the dancers and choreographers, we needed a lighting designer (who doubled as a stage manager), sound engineer, and a graphic designer/artist to design the poster graphic and layout and to get the posters/programs printed. These people were paid a lump sum of $100-$150 for helping us, and all printing expenses were also reimbursed by the organizing committee (approx. $300).
The theatre supplied us with front of house (box office) staff and ushers as part of the contract. They also required that we pay for their technical director to be in the theatre with us at all time including set up and strike. He cost $20/hr up to 8 hrs, then $30/hr after that for a total of about $260 for a 1 night show. Hope this helps!
Shallom

Yes thank you Shallom that helped a lot. can anyone tell me what an average dancer's wage is, or is that too hard a question to answer as they are so varied?

It's too hard a question to answer as they are so varied.

Some (bigger) companies pay dancers a weekly salary. Many (smaller) companies pay dancers by the performance, but nothing for rehearsals.

Some pay nothing at all.

Some companies don't pay their dancers anything? are these still professional companies who use professional-standard dancers? surely in this case the dancers must technically be amatures (wrong spelling i know) since they must have another job to earn a living?

Here are my impressions regarding the payment of dancers from the perspective of an outsider to the professional dance world. If anyone wants to correct or expand any points, please do let us know.

An interesting example is the annual Resolution! festival at London's The Place for new and developing companies. The choreographers and dancers will be almost entirely graduates of dance colleges and a number of performances are reviewed in the national dailies etc. Some companies and performers, like Wayne McGregor, go on to great things and others fade away quickly. Thus I consider this to be professional work, albeit of VERY mixed standards.

I suspect that many of the artists performing for the new companies are not being paid for their performances or receive very little money. So what do they do if they are not earning money from dance? A number of dancers subsist on catering, building or show dance work if they can get it.

The key thing is to pay your dancers as much as you possibly can - they are one of the most exploited group of workers around.

Here are the current Equity (UK stage union) minimum rates and it's not a lot. My impression is that few dancers are members of Equity and new companies, such as many in Resolution! will not pay even these rates:

Theatre Rates

July 2004

Contact Equity for details of rates for subsistence, touring, understudy, swing etc

Minimum weekly rates

West End - 8 performances

Performers £343.12

Assistant Stage Managers £343.12

Deputy Stage Manager £428.90

Stage Manager £480.37

Company Stage Manager £514.68

Commercial Theatre - 8 performances

Performers £275.00

Assistant Stage Managers £275.00

Deputy Stage Manager £343.75

Stage Manager £385.00

Company Stage Manager £412.50



Subsidised Repertory - 8 performances MRSL1

Performers £309.00

Assistant Stage Managers £283.00

Deputy Stage Manager £340.00

Stage Manager £381.00

Company Stage Manager £412.00

ITC

Performers and Stage Management: £310.00

<small>[ 10 August 2004, 02:22 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

Thank you that was very helpful in giving me an idea of how much people in the business earn.

Hello everyone!.(I origianally ment to post this to this thread..but ended up making a new thread Dancer care!..anyways here goes). This dance company discussion really intereting. I am a just starting out dance/filmmer/choreog..not covered by a company, grants, insurance soo this hightens my concern about anyone getting hurt. There will modest but good pay for their time. How do I fairly and safety work with dancers in my situation?

Thanks!

sorry not an answer to the above post but a question concerning music: if i want to use existing music for a piece of dance, would i have to get permission from the artist/recording company to use it and maybe even have to pay them to use the music? or do you not need permission as long as you credit the artist?

Firebirdie, welcome to Criticaldance.com. A few years ago, we discussed this at length in the Backstage forum in a thread called Safety in Dance Performances.

If you have any questions, I'd be happy to (try to) answer them there or in email.

<small>[ 14 August 2004, 05:21 PM: Message edited by: salzberg ]</small>

Alex, you most definitely need to get permission to use anyone's intellectual property, including music. I'm not sure how it works in the UK, but here in the states, it's done through ASCAP.