By Rachel Straus
The Slovak National Dance Congress 2014 recently asked me to speak about the state of New York City dance. Since I’ve been living in New York City on and off since 1979, I decided to take up the challenge. In the following slides (which have been converted into a movie), I tease out the changes that have occurred for New York City concert dancers following 9/11 and then more recently in the wake of the financial crisis. What I found most striking (and dismaying) in my research was that the U.S. capital of Terpsichore is increasingly recognizing dancers and dance organizations not as artists and arts groups—the obvious—but as brands for luxury consumption. Because this project was made for a European audience, the monetary valuation is in Euros. Note: The embedded movie requires you to use the pause and play icons in order to read the full text. To see the work, click below.