(New York, NY)

General Support

Total Award: $50,000 over 1 year

Presidential Authority Grant
To provide general support for the Advance Project, an initiative that researches and documents the challenges that professional dancers face worldwide when transitioning to a post-dance career. The Advance Project offers practical solutions that seek to ameliorate the three major challenges facing dancers in transition: low earnings throughout their careers; their deeply ingrained identity as dancers and the brief tenure of a dancer's career. The difficulties that dancers face with career transition often lead to economic, social and psychological challenges that can adversely affect the rest of their lives. This project acknowledges that dancers are highly employable and have valuable resources that can be transferred into a contemporary labor market. Improving the transition process is critical to sustaining a healthy dance sector and will help with the recruitment and retention of young dancers who are entering the field. The research for this project was conducted in eleven countries and explored four types of dance; ballet/classical, modern/contemporary, indigenous/fold and commercial/show dance. The Advance Project is seeking support for the second phase of their work which involves disseminating its research findings.

Program Contribution Breakdown:
$50,000 Arts and Culture Program: Objective I, Strategy 3