Another company is doing something a bit similar:

http://www.paballet.org/calendar/detail.aspx?id=67

For $150 you can 'Dine with the Dancers' of the Pennsylvania Ballet.

Kate

all you're proving is that ballet companies are willing to sink as low as each other to raise paltry sums of money.

Just curious, were you/ are you a dancer PA-19? I was a dancer and was thrilled to do anything to help the company that I was dancing with. I had a blast at many a function that I was asked to attend, and pleased to spend time with any patron that I was asked to meet, or wanted to meet me. I have life long friends from some of those functions, so I would have not minded donating my time (for auction) for the company who was so good to me. I never felt that if I did not attend it would have had any affect on my job security. I was with a very large well endowed company in the USA for 17 years. Great salary and a pension for re-training. Still they needed us to help keep it that way.

I don't know of any one of the company members who felt it beneath them or like a lap dancer.

Just my 2 cents having been there.

I guess I have no chance of having dinner with Miss Press-Article19?

Yes I was, although in the slightly harder edged world of contemporary dance. If you asked any of the contemporary dancers I know to do this the last thing anybody would remember about you was your body being found in the river.

As ballet has taken a knocking from Michelle, let's lob a few hand grenades at a modern dance company. Here is the page with the levels and benefits for the donors' programme of the Mark Morris Dance Group:

https://markmorrisdancegroup.org/support/donate_now

Through a variety of fund-raising activities, including donor receptions etc, Mark Morris, who leads from the front at such events, has provided his dancers with admirable class and rehearsal conditions, despite the paucity of the US state funding system:

http://markmorrisdancegroup.org/the_dance_center

Well done Mr Morris!

yep, Mark Morris Dance Group, there's an atypical contemporary dance company if ever we saw one!

Well, gasp, one of the benefits of donating a certain amount of money to the Rambert Dance Company is "An invitation to an exclusive Supporters’ event at Sadler’s Wells Theatre to meet some of Rambert’s dancers".

The Alvin Ailey Dance Theatre also specifically mentioned opportunities to meet dancers as a perk of donation.

Semi tangentally - in looking at a number of websites for UK based contemporary companies I'm shocked at the lack of any or any obvious information on how to donate to the companies. I don't think SDT mentioned it anywhere on their website. These are the companies that could probably most benefit from donations - private and corporate - but they are probably turning off potential donors by a lack of info. Is this a cultural thing or is is much harder to get people to donate here because of different tax laws?

Kate

again, Rambert? borderline contemporary company and considering their history not at all surprised at their pandering.

Yes, different tax laws make giving to an arts organisation of little or no benefit to an individual or a corporate sponsor.

Is it possible that you are worried about the physical well-being of the dancers, worried about the possibility of stalkers?


This topic is starting to waver into dangerous territory, posters. I am getting to the point of wanting to close it...

You're right, Michelle, MMDG is "atypical": it provides excellent conditions for its dancers.

Just out of interest, Michelle, how many works have you seen by MMDG?

Lucy said:


I think that you may be in the minority of artists who feel this way Lucy. I enjoyed this facet of my work as a dancer/skater as well. I think back to the 1982 Spoleto Festival in South Carolina and the amazing events we were asked to attend to promote the Festival to "money people."

Many company members have no idea of what it takes to keep an organization up and running. And just how perilous fund raising to keep a non-profit company alive is. In many instances they probably just don't care. In my experience, now having worked on both sides (dancer/marketing manager) dancing was the easier (less stressful) job, and at the time I never would have thought that!!





Amen to that LMC. Now it's starting to pit ballet against modern/contemporary dancers, etc. And modern/contemporary company's against each other. What a lovely way to support each others passion.

yes, very dangerous territory??

debate the arts, dance, dissenting voices...... stop the madness!

No one here is implying we shouldn't. I believe the word "dangerous" entered the fray with the addition of name calling.

It's been a long time I'll admit, since I worked with contemporary dancers, are you saying they have both lost their sense of humour and turned homicidal in the intervening years?