Dance/NYC Launches Dance Workforce Directory Online Platform

Dance/NYC is launching the Dance Workforce Directory, the first-ever comprehensive, searchable online platform designed to amplify the visibility of dance professionals, connect them with opportunities, and help the entire New York City dance ecosystem thrive. This free and accessible resource on the DWR Hub is open to all dance workers, organizations, and businesses based in the NYC metropolitan area and beyond.

The Dance Workforce Directory enables users to create and manage personalized profiles that showcase their work, including bios, images, and videos. It is designed to serve a diverse range of dance professionals-from performers and choreographers to behind-the-scenes collaborators such as stage managers, costume designers, and teaching artists. Similarly, the Directory will help dance organizations and businesses promote their programming, and identify potential collaborators and clients, fostering growth across the entire sector. By providing those without personal websites an opportunity to build an online presence, the Directory reduces economic barriers to participating in the creative economy.

"This tool advances our work to uplift New York City's dance community, amplifying the voices of historically underrepresented artists and organizations," says Dance/NYC Co-Executive Director Vicki Capote. "By promoting visibility and fostering cross-sector collaboration, it enhances our collective capacity to build a more equitable and sustainable dance ecosystem. I am excited for dancers and dance organizations to leverage this platform to forge new partnerships, catalyzing meaningful impact and lasting change."

"The Dance Workforce Directory is a game-changer that offers a new way for dancers, choreographers, dance workers, and organizations to connect, create, and collaborate," says Antuan Byers, Dancer, Organizer, and Founder and CEO of Black Dance Change Makers. "So much of my work is about building and strengthening community, so I'm excited about a new tool that amplifies voices, creates opportunities, and helps us better organize for justice in dance."

"Access to information is often a major barrier for smaller, often, BIPOC cultural organizations, and for dancers too often siloed, working several jobs, and living further and further from city centers," says Lucy Sexton, Executive Director of New Yorkers for Culture and Arts, a member of the DWR Network. "The Dance Workforce Directory will provide an ability to connect with the dance community across the city, and lay the groundwork for a stronger, more vibrant dance ecosystem."

A project years in the making-with ideation beginning in 2019, planning in 2022, and now implementation in 2024-the Directory was developed in collaboration with Surface Impression, an international digital media agency that specializes in work for nonprofit organizations and the cultural sector, and Accessibility Consultant Ricardo Rodriguez, ensuring that the platform is accessible to the widest possible audience.

"Surface Impression was pleased to take on the build for this project with Dance/NYC-aligning our digital development and accessibility knowledge with the organization's arts-focused community work," says Amy Hetherington, PhD, Managing Director of Surface Impression. "The Directory is an important move in providing equitable digital access for dance professionals and organizations around New York City and beyond, and we heavily focused on user testing with a range of audience types to ensure the site is usable and friendly to everyone."

Dance/NYC invites dance workers and organizations to create accounts and begin building their profiles. The platform has already garnered excitement within the dance community for its potential to transform how dance professionals find work, collaborate on projects, and network across the NYC metropolitan area.

Dance/NYC will host Directory "Office Hours" during its November 13, 2024, Field-Wide Call, where participants can explore the platform live and ask questions in real-time. Those interested in attending can register on Dance/NYC's website.

The launch of the Dance Workforce Directory is a major milestone for Dance/NYC's current Justice, Equity and Inclusion initiative, Dance. Workforce. Resilience. (DWR), focused on addressing economic inequity and strengthening the dance ecology. Through a number of activities, the DWR Initiative aims to directly serve the whole sector, including those communities not previously served through non-profit interventions in the field such as individual dance workers, fiscally sponsored groups and projects, and for-profit dance entities. The first phase of the Initiative focused on the dissemination, collection, and analysis of research with the Dance Industry Census and subsequent release of the State of NYC Dance 2023 Report. This second phase focused on the implementation of recommendations and actions based on research findings, which produced the Our New York City Dance campaign and the Directory.

Con Edison is Dance/NYC's Dance. Workforce. Resilience. Hub Lead Corporate Sponsor. Dance/NYC's Dance. Workforce. Resilience. Initiative is made possible, in part, by leadership support from the Mellon Foundation, New York Community Trust, Doris Duke Foundation, the Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Rockefeller Brother Fund, and a coalition of general operating support funders, and by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and the National Endowment of the Arts.

To explore the Dance Workforce Directory, visit Hub.Dance.NYC/Directory.