Dance/NYC Releases Dance Industry Census Featurette Highlighting Diversity And Contributions Of The NYC Dance Community

The dance service organization, Dance/NYC, released a featurette highlighting the diversity and contributions of the New York City dance industry to the local creative economy. The video was produced to encourage individuals, organizations, and businesses to complete the Dance Industry Census, which will close on December 15, 2022 at 11:59pm EST.

As Dance/NYC enters the final weeks of its effort to have every dance worker, dance business, dance organization, and dance-related group counted, leaders of the initiative and featurette participants hope the video reveals the many ways dance happens in our communities and how integral dance workers, businesses and groups are to a thriving society.

Dance/NYC also hopes the video will serve as a call to action for the dance community to make sure they are recognized and represented in the decisions about creative workers' rights, protections, pay equity and labor issues-decisions where the dance community is often neglected.

Featured dance workers and organizations in the video include:

• 2022 Queensboro Dance Festival

• Ajna Dance Company

• Arthur Aviles, Alethea Pace, and Richard Rivera courtesy of Arthur Aviles Typical Theater

• Dance/NYC

• Dance Rising, Footage edited by Carley Santori

• Danielle Riley, Contemporary Ballet Theatre

• Devin Matias, Indigenous Dancer, Redhawk Native American Arts Council

• Donald Lee

• Gibney Dance's Digital Media Initiative

• Jason Samuels Smith courtesy of Divine Rhythm Productions

• Jeremy McQueen's Black Iris Project

• John Fernandez, Abrons Art Center

• Khalil Peoples, Contemporary Ballet Theatre

• Kwikstep a.k.a. Likwid

• Leslie Prosterman & Austin Alexis

• MBDance

• Navatman Dance and Navatman Staff

• Nel Shelby Productions

• Omar Edwards, Freedom Tap Studio NYC

• Pepper, Choreographer, Contemporary Ballet Theatre

• PMT House of Dance, Julie Carter Choreography

• Potri Ranka Manis, Kinding Sindaw

• Sachiyo Ito, Artistic Director, Sachiyo Ito and Company

• Sydnie L. Mosley, Artistic Executive Director, Sydnie L. Mosley Dances

• The Pearling Principle

About the video, Dance/NYC Executive Director, Alejandra Duque Cifuentes stated:

"This video aims to highlight the beauty and breadth of the dance community in NYC. Our hope is that it will galvanize our industry to get counted in the Dance Industry Census thereby ensuring that the contributions we make to the City's creative economy are acknowledged, and that economic justice for the dance community becomes a priority, rather than an afterthought."

The Dance Industry Census survey period is open until December 15, 2022 at 11:59pm. The full featurette can be found at https://youtu.be/R5_4VNy4z84.

Launched in July 2022, the Dance Industry Census is a first-of-its-kind effort to count every individual dance worker, dance-related business, and organization based in the metropolitan New York City area which includes the five boroughs, Westchester, Rockland, Nassau, and Suffolk counties in New York state; and Hudson and Bergen counties in New Jersey. The Dance Industry Census will close on October 31, 2022. More information is available at Dance.NYC/DanceIndustryCensus. The Dance Industry Census is made possible, in part, by leadership support from the Mellon Foundation, The New York Community Trust, the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, the Mertz Gilmore Foundation 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 for the Arts. The Dance Industry Census is conducted in partnership with research consultant Carrie Blake of Webb Mgmt.

Dance/NYC's mission is to promote and encourage the knowledge, appreciation, practice, and performance of dance in the metropolitan New York City area. It embeds core values of justice, equity, and inclusion into all aspects of its programs and operations. Dance/NYC remains committed to delivering programs that address disparities in the dance field by continuing to fill gaps in the availability of resources where they are most needed. It believes the dance ecology must itself be just, equitable, and inclusive to meaningfully contribute to social progress and envisions a dance ecology wherein power, funding, opportunities, conduct, and impacts are fair for all artists, cultural workers, and audiences. Visit Dance.NYC/DanceIndustryCensus for more information.