CriticalDance Forum

Hi everyone, i just thought i would find out some of everyones opinions on the money situation as a dancer.

Well, I dont know about you guys but I get so mad when i hear that a football player (david beckham) is going to be getting paid £120,000.00 to kick a leather ball filled with air around a football pitch.

We spend so many years in training, working hard and scrapin the barell through life to live out our dream. At the end of the day our dance career has to pay our bills. Why cant we earn 120 thousand pound a week?

Another thing, why is so much money being fed to the football clubs when they cant even afford to get hospitals and education together.

If i ever got the chance to speak to Tony Blair, this is one issue i would really go to town on. What do you guys think? Is dance a less technical, skilled job than football? I dont think so.

I can feel myself going mad inside now.

dave

Just want to know other peoples opionions on this.

<small>[ 19 June 2003, 04:37 PM: Message edited by: David Watson ]</small>

I honestly feel that our society's money is being paid to ingrates and morons. People get paid millions to sing and talk, things anyone can do, the entertainers with the money are more like a talentless parade. Doctors get paid thousands, while teachers get the minimum. Well, without the teacher, could the doctor have succeeded? Dance is much more difficult than MOST sports. Running, football, basketball, tennis, they are all things anyone can do. But imagine any of these " talented people" trying to dance ballet? haha. The thought makes me laugh.

I don't think he is getting 120,000 pounds per week for kicking a football, but he is getting paid that because of his maketing potential for the club. I would bet that he is going to bring in a lot more money than that over the long run, which unfortunately most dancers probably don't.
Its that whole supply and demand thing!

Oh, and just for a fun comparison, if Bill Gates put his wealth in a 3% tax free Muni - he would recive about 2.5 million dollars a day . Now that is crazy!

I'm with you on this, Dave. Football in the U.S.--more than Soccer, which is what we call your Football, basketball and baseball--are the three pillars of a big industry--Sports. Sports includes ticket sales, apparel, equipment, but players do endorsements for major products (not just sports-related)and betting/gambling syndicates are the illegal arm of big business tied to sports. A lot rides on this and the players are paid obscenely well because without them the above-mentioned enterprises would not exist. While athletes train just as dancers do, usually the bill for that training is also footed by business sponsors. Dance, as we know, while requiring more precision training and more training period and requiring artistic talent in addition to athletic talent, is "rewarded" with living a marginal existence--financially, socially and psychologically. How to tip the balance in favor of dance? Put money into the arts and reduce the lavish "living large" bucks spent in and around the sports industry. Personally, I don't think that can be accomplished in a big business-run society. So those of us in the arts have to keep the pressure on to adjust the relationship of forces. One important arena is youth: bring the arts into the schools, and recruit boys to dance. The less dance is viewed as a silly, frivolous passtime and the more it is taken seriously as an art form, the better armed we will be to win the battle.

It's real nice to get some replys on this. I could argue with people till im blue in the face about this. I think this is why I hate football so much.

Hey, it's always fun to grouch and moan and get mad together about how much better paid sports are than dance. But I'm going to (as politely as possible) break up the party.

First of all, no one forced you into dance. You made a choice to pursue it. You could just as easily pursued football and had a chance in that sport. If the money is that important to you that you get mad whenever you think about it, then maybe you should have gone into football instead. Of course, the chances for men to make it to a professional career in football are MUCH worse than in dance. Had you or I pursued football, it's quite possible we would never have made it onto a professional team.

Second, are you seriously asking why you can't earn 120 thousand pounds a week? The economics involved are not that complex. One football match can have an audience of millions because it's televised. Dance will never be televised widely because that destroys the character of the product. At most, a performance can have an audience of 3,000--5,000. It doesn't matter how popular dance might become, you will never get rich doing it unless it is televised.

The belief that pay should reflect the difficulty of a job is naive. The assertion that what we do is harder or on a higher plane of existence than what professional athletes do is arrogant; and it doesn't do justice to all the hard work they put into perfecting their sport.

Third, David Beckham is probably THE premier athlete in the WORLD right now. You just can't compare his income to what the average dancer makes. If you're going to compare football and dance, you have to compare Beckham to the top dance stars --- Nureyev and Baryshnikov, for example. Although I don't suppose either has ever made 120,000 lbs per week, I can assure you they were never cheap either --- and they're FAR from the poor house. Baryshnikov has made millions from his own marketing potential.

Are you upset that you're not a Beckham or Baryshnikov? If that's the case, then I don't know what to say; hey, I'm not either. I'm not at all unhappy with the decisions I have made, I made them fully aware of the difficulties of the dance profession. The world is what it is, it's up to us to learn how to live in it.

<small>[ 19 June 2003, 08:29 PM: Message edited by: citibob ]</small>

In defense of sports, saying that soccer is "kicking a ball around" is like saying that a ballet dancer is "jumping and spinning around."

There is a great deal of training and skill that goes into sports, and these atheletes have generally worked very hard to get where they are... i dont think we have the right to devalue that. I'm not saying that it really warrents the jillions of dollars they make. But it sure does entertain me! (though i personally prefer college sports)

I agree with gaeadea. As for the statement that anybody can run or play football, basketball or tennis, well, anybody can do ballet. But being able to do any of these things well is a different matter.

I do agree with David, though, that great amounts of government funding shouldn't go to sports when health care and education are suffering. But I would also object if the money were going to dance, at the expense of health care and education. However, there are other areas of government spending that I'd like to see decreased, and that money would be much better spent promoting the arts. (Don't ask, I don't want to get into a political discussion.)

I think the only way the pay for dancers and athletes will ever become more equitable is if dance becomes as popular as sports (not that that’s likely to happen). But, as Toba said, “keep the pressure on to adjust the relationship of forces.”

Your quite right no one forced me to become a dancer, and money is not that important to me but at the end of the day my career in dance is going to have to pay my way of living.

I am not trying to slate or bit** about football really, its just an issue i wanted to get peoples response to. I just think football is far too much funded and over rated. Your quite correct dance would be different if it were televisied but then that would not be the same.

I am just concerned that their is people like Beckham getting paid that much for his job, when our jobs as a dancer will be and are demanding. Whatever any of us say and do this is probably going to be the story of the rest of my life, not much money in the arts, education, health but loads in sport.

Thanks for everyones replys.

I'm sure there are people involved with healthcare, or welfare, that wonder why people get paid to "jump around" or "roll around on the floor".

I think, in general, it's more enjoyable to enjoy what you have, rather than covet what you don't.

Of course, I'd still like a house, money, and good retirement plan (or ANY retirement plan)

The point that gets my full support is that dance artists should have better pay and work conditions. Here is the link to the discussion that occurred on this theme as part of Dance Umbrella 2001. The Economist and Sociologist who gave presentations at the seminar were shocked to realise how little even the top modern dancers earned. This debate and the follow-up could be part of the reason that dance got a higher than average increase in the last Government spending round.

As for sportsmen and top business leaders, their salaries do make me uneasy, but capitalism and free markets are the only game in town and artificial restrictions just wouldn't work in my view. By coincidence there is a big debate in the UK as a leading Labour politician has proposed looking agin at higher tax rates for the very wealthy. Personally I think it is worth another look, but I'm not going to lead too far down that route here on CriticalDance.

Is this the link you intended to show, Stuart?

Seminar - Paying for the Privilige

Stuart adds: Thanks Barb! When you get to my age....

<small>[ 21 June 2003, 03:02 AM: Message edited by: Stuart Sweeney ]</small>

Hi, didn't we have a topic similar to this one before? I can't seem to find it...

Not totally off the topic, but does anyone think that professional women ballerinas tend to marry wealthy men at a higher rate than women who are non dancers or than male dancers marrying wealthy women? If true is this fair, or does fairness have anything to do with it?
I ask this partially tongue in cheek, but financial security is a factor is most relationships, if not early on, then at least when having children is considered. I also wonder for the dual dancing couples how difficult this must be financially, especially as they get older.