Hear Chicago Dance: Stories and insights of the lived experiences of dancers

Dancers are a unique breed.

Whether we trained in the halls of a conservatory, in a storefront studio, or on the sacred grounds of our respective communities, each of us carries the oral and kinesthetic history that we’ve been honored to receive from the generations before us.

In this way, regardless of dance style or pedagogy, one of the things that dancers share is a connection to heritage—the heritage of movement.

Whether guided by a guru, a crew leader, a coach, a studio instructor, or our very own peers and family members, dancers are bound by a sense of responsibility and often gratitude to the past, even as many of us work to challenge entrenched practices and push ossified traditions that hold us back.

We invite you to keep this collective dance heritage—historical and ephemeral—in mind as you listen to these stories and consider the challenges that dance and dancers face moving into the future.

These stories can help all of us in the community better understand the lived experience of dancers and identify opportunities to better serve the community's artists and organizational leaders.

This study also intends to share narrative insights from dancers’ professional experiences with people outside the community—their audiences, immediate support networks, creatives in adjacent industries, as well as funders, decision makers, and influencers who shape the dance profession and industry in Chicago.

Guiding you through this journey is Kennedy Ward from See Chicago Dance. But first, we’d like to allow the dancers to introduce themselves.
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Meet the Dancers

Mad Dog: Dance allowed me a space to fit in, where it didnt even matter if I had the coolest clothes or anything. And so, I liked that dance allowed me the space to communicate and build healthy, sustainable relationships with folks regardless of where they from, where they was at. My name is Christopher Mad Dog Thomas. I'm the program manager and artistic director for Kumba Lynx Performance Ensemble, and I am a member of the Creation Footwork Battle Clique.

When I decided that I was going to dance for real was when my friend Fred had passed away. He was like a brother to me and I just saw him the day before. And he, a blood clot, ruptured.

I was like 19. I was 19 about to be 20. So it was like 2005. It's like 2004, 2005. And yeah, I was just going through a rough time, I was a bricklayer and I worked at this place called Edward Don & Company. I moved my family into a little two bedroom apartment, basement apartment. It was about seven or eight of us in there. And, you know, that's kind of what was, like, motivating me to do something that I love doing versus just working. Even though I liked the money, it was something missing, didn't love it.

And then Fred died. And so I was outside listening to a gospel song called Yes by Shekinah Glory. And I was just dancing because I was sad. And some kids saw me and said, “Hey, you should start a dance group.” And so I was like, all right. And at this point I've been through a lot of ups and downs athletically and not being able to go to school and I always put dance on as the last thing that I did. I always did it, but I didn't commit real time to it. But when some kids said you should start a dance group, it kind of motivated me to take it fully serious and I'm going to see where it go. And so I started a group called Not Enough with some kids at Cooper Park, and that's how I kind of really got going. Then everything kind of just switched. I wanted to work less and dance more. I was always around dancing. I danced since I was like eight years old. And so I developed a passion for dance always but I never took dancing serious until the kids bumped into me.

It allowed me to communicate with my peers. So especially when you in the hood, you mask up. So you mask up with materialistic things, but when you can't mask with the material things, you are the one that's picked on, right? So dance allowed me a space to fit in where it didn't even matter if I had the coolest clothes or anything.

And so I liked that dance allowed me the space to communicate and build healthy, sustainable relationships with folks regardless of where they from, where they was at. I think that's what I liked most about dancing.

Simone Stevens: My name is Simone Stevens and I am in my third year as a company artist with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago.

My mom introduced me to dance when I was about three years old. She was taking dance classes and I really wanted to imitate my mom. So I went was doing those classes. And then as I got older, different mentors showed me that there is a career in dance. I didn't know that that was really an option, but probably it feels like it was late but things work out how they're supposed to. It was my junior year of high school that I was looking at where I wanted to go to school and what I maybe wanted to study in that just kind of kickstarted me looking more seriously into if this was a career that I actually wanted than what that would look like, what I might have to shift in my training, what I might have to research a little bit more on how I wanted a career to line up for myself.

Even then, I wasn't aware of contemporary dance. And so I wanted to be a dancer in Alvin Ailey or something of that regard. And that's not to say that that is not something I admire or anything anymore, but I think even my scope back then of what was possible was pretty narrow and pretty limited.

As far as range, I really knew New York City Ballet and American Ballet Theater and Alvin Ailey. And those were my only gauges of what was possible in the dance world.

My senior, that year, is from Chicago and she showed me Hubbard Street for the first time and she was just like, oh my goodness, I really think you should look at this company. And I was like, didn't even know people danced in Chicago, like, I didnt know that was a thing.

Jonathan Pacheco: The Ensemble Espanol allowed me to have a fufilling career and allowed me to see the different possibilities that were there for me. My name is Jonathan Pacheco and I am currently a company dancer with the Ensemble Espanol Spanish Dance Theater.

I first began as an actor in musical theater around the age of 13, 12. I think many people started similar as me in church performing there, singing there. And then fast forward a few years, I did musical theater for some time here in Chicago, some regional community centers theater there. And then fast forward, I attended Northeastern Illinois University and my theater teacher at the time knew that the Ensemble Espanol was in residence at the university, and she knew I loved to dance, knew that I wanted to perform, and was thinking about what avenues I could take to have a career in the performing arts. And she knew that the Ensemble Espanol being in residence at Northeastern offered classes for college credit. So she was like, “Hey Jonathan, you should check it out. Check out a class. Take a class, you'll get college credit for it. See if you like it and see what happens.” So I began taking classes there with our current artistic director, Ima Suarez Ruiz, began in Spanish Dance 101 with her, did that for a couple of years and then eventually fell in love with the art form of Spanish dance and eventually auditioned into the company and made it in. And now I am entering my ninth season with them.

I think I was more curious about what the possibilities were. I knew I wanted to be a performer. I did not know how to make that dream into a reality. And I think the Ensemble Espanol, what it did for me was create that path for me of allowing me, someone that's born and raised in Chicago, a Latino that did not have a lot of mentors, I would say, or people to look up to when it came to a career in the performing arts. I didn't have that. So coming to the Ensemble Espanol, and I'll also add that I started dancing relatively at an older age than many professional dancers do. The Ensemble Espanol allowed me, in my specific circumstances, to still have a fulfilling career and allowed me to see the different possibilities that were there for me.

Devika Dhir: I just had this, like, feeling of urgnecy. Anytime I would watch a dance performance, I would love it, but I would also feel kind of unsettled like "hmmm I want to be doing that". My name is Devika Dhir and I am a freelance dancer, I dance with a few organizations. I started learning classical Indian dance when I was four years old. My mother got me and my sister into dance classes and we studied that kind of on and off throughout our childhood. We moved around a lot as kids, so we didn't have one consistent teacher, which is kind of unusual for a classical dancer. Around the time that we started high school, we moved to a small town in Georgia and there just weren't teachers around. So we stopped dancing for at least 10 years. And it wasn't until I moved to Chicago in 2012 when I decided that I wanted to return to dance as an adult. So I sought out a dance studio, started taking classes again. After a few years I met another dancer, an Indian classical dancer at a networking event, and we kept in touch for a couple more years and she reached out at one point saying that she was putting together this Indian classical dance production and asked if I would like to audition.

The audition just consisted of showing up to a rehearsal and dancing with everyone else who was there. And after that she was like, "yep, you're in". We'll do this production together. At the time I was dancing with another studio in the city and after a few months of preparing for this production, I ended up leaving that studio and joining this other studio where the woman that I had met was the artistic director. So that was in 2016. And from that point on, I have been dancing professionally with Kalapriya and with other dance organizations for other dance styles that I do. And yeah, the thing that brought me back to dance though was I just had this feeling of urgency. Anytime I would watch a dance performance, I would love it, but I would also feel kind of unsettled. I want to be doing that. So it was always something in the back of my mind that I wanted to get back to and do it a serious way.

Lyn Cole: Dance has been a part of my being. I didn't go the instrument way because of other life things, but I went the dance way. My name is Lynn Cole and I am a studio owner, teacher, choreographer, computer person, jack of all traits type of person.

I got into dance at age nine because I was sick for a year and my mom's boss told her that if she put me in dance I would get better. And so I started dancing and I liked it, and then I started choreography. I started choreographing my own numbers. I was hooked from there.

My father was a blues musician. He wasn't a part of my life, but I got that part of him and he was talented where he could pick up an instrument and play it. And I knew that from a little kid. And when him and my mom were together, he would practice in the basement and I would be down there singing the blues. I was two and they split up when I was three, so I was able to do my thing at two and once he left, he left albums and I would listen to those albums, dance my little heart out, sing my little heart out to the albums, and it is just music and dance has been a part of my being. I didn't go the instrument way because of other life things, but I went the dance way.

When I was 13, I moved from one school to the other because my mom wanted to see recitals and the first school didn't have recitals and the new teacher I had was instrumental in breaking this relationship that I had with how I was being treated and how I should be treated. And so she'd started treating me very well and she saw something in me. And I did that all through high school.

When I got to college, I went to University of Illinois at Chicago. I almost minored in dance but I still maintained a relationship with a dance studio. And so I took classes outside of going to college. And so I stayed in the dance world because I was happiest there. And once I graduated from college, I went into the work world, but I still danced and I still choreographed. On the drive to work and back I would choreograph all the way there, all the way back. I just would choreograph while I was driving, choreograph and choreograph. But I didn't do any performing except when the studio performed. So it was about seven years of me being in the working world and just dancing on the side. Then I had some tragedies in my life and I cut back on dance for, like, four years and I got back in and I was offered a job and I stayed with that job for 19 years. And then when that became something that was not feeding my soul, I started my own dance studio and that's how I am here now today.

Silvita Diaz Brown: I am Silvita Diaz Brown, choreographer dancer, and artistic director of Sildance/Acrodanza.

When I was about 12 years old, and, uh, I was actually, I wanted to be some sort of performer. I didn't know what kind, but I thought I wanted to be an actress. So I asked my dad to take me to this conservatory program in Puebla, Mexico where I grew up and through the conservatory program they have dance lessons besides acting and other things. And honestly, the class that I enjoyed the most was dancing. And there was another class with worth and movement. And the movement part was always the most interesting part to me. So right there, the ballet teacher I was taking classes with, she was like, well, it seems like you really love it and you have ability, so you should just take it more intensely, more seriously if you want to. There is a school, there was the dance school above the Conservatory Theater program, and so I went and asked the director of the school and I was always very independent since I was a kid. So they did some testing and he was like, yeah, and they gave me a scholarship, have a scholarship to start the training everyday, as a kid. But it was like, I was, like, 12. I wasn't super young, but I was like, yeah, I want to do this.
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The Relationship Between Perception and Value of Dance

Kennedy Ward: This is Ken, your resident dancer and dance administrator with See Chicago Dance. Craftsmanship, choice and sweat. That's how I see dance in its most earnest. In the untranslatable carriage of the body, in arousing touches of eye contact, and in those poor, tireless sinews hitting that motif for the 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th time. I see dance and I am entertained, I am overjoyed, I am moved for the billionth time. I see dance, I take dance, I do dance, so listener please understand I am biased. Your narrator is me, Kennedy; I have been moving and grooving for as long as I can remember, I went to school for it, and by most standards I am a professional. I am also an administrator with See Chicago Dance, your local dance nonprofit. So, as a lifer in the dance community, I’m here to chat with you about major points arising in this study.

So we know, dance is invaluable, it has existed some 10,000 years and may perhaps last another 10 more. The meat of how to see dance last another 10,000 years is in regarding the value of dancers. Specifically, we're looking at the internal and external forces that perceive dancers and then decide their value. As we're about to hear, these perceptions are often grandfathered in and disproportionately affect artists of color and artists without ample resources to decline inappropriate offers.

Please keep in mind that these 5 dancers represent pieces of not only their communities but also the histories they've inherited. We’re starting todays episode with Simone, a company member of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago whose story illuminates a common barrier, and what it takes to deconstruct it, within the already competitive space of seeking sustainable performance opportunities.

Simone Stevens: Hubbard posted auditions in December 2020, and I signed up for those auditions because prior I had auditioned for Hubbard, but there was a whole process of where you have to send your resume and send the videos and all of that. But the year that Linda actually took over, the audition process was different in that you just signed up.

Kennedy Ward: Linda, whom Simone mentions, is Linda-Denise Fisher-Harrell, currently Artistic Director of Hubbard and formerly a principal dancer with both Hubbard Street and the Alvin Ailey Dance Company. Linda arrived at Hubbard St in 2021 and within her first year as Artistic Director, Linda used her power to alter the audition process, increasing opportunities of equity to all interested dancers.

Simone Stevens: We auditioned on Zoom, so there wasn't the requirement for your CV and your resume and all of that beforehand. That all came after the fact. So we did the audition on Zoom, then we submitted everything, did our letters of rec, and all of that. And then we had interviews, and then I got into the company in March of 2021.

There are so many elements that go into saying yes to bringing someone into a space. You do want to know who they are, what they're about, maybe what they've studied before and everything. But I think there's something just about the order of seeing someone on paper and deciding if that's something that you want to welcome into this space versus seeing them and being like, oh, maybe I'm interested in this person. And then getting more information. I think that order makes more sense to me and I think is more accessible for a lot of people. I was very excited and very proud of the work that I did in my school, and I think the information that I was given was and still is so useful to who I am today and very much so a part of my artistry.

So even if there is the looking at a paper to determine what someone could be about, I think you're losing a lot of clarity and you're making a lot of assumption also about who a person is just because of where they went—and then sometimes even where they went, you also don't understand how they got there or maybe what opportunities were predisposed them or even, just like, everyones journey is different.

And so just by default seeing a name on paper or seeing a location on paper, and having that be the deciding factor, I think that just limits, for one, diversity, and that also can shy people away from wanting to pursue certain companies or certain areas of work if they're seeing that they're only choosing the same people or they're only viewing people from specific places.

On paper, I was like, not many people know my school. So yeah, I appreciated the order where it was just like, “If you want to audition, we're open to seeing you". And then from there we'll get into more of who you are. The interview also with Linda was very much, “So why do you want to be here? What specifically about being here is it that you want? What brought you to this place in the first place?” And things like that.

So it wasn't even like, “Who have you studied from?” It was less of proving anything, just more like, “Who are you as a person?” And I think that when you show it on paper first, it does feel like you're having to prove why you can get into the room. And then if you don't get into the room, then you feel like you have to add more to that paper in a way. So yeah, the reverse was helpful.

It very much so has to do with who is in the front of the room and who you're bringing into the space. When Linda became the artistic director, having a black female at the front of the room, that changes, that shifts things. That will, by default, just kind of shift what kind of work we're doing. Because she has her own experiences as a professional dancer. She has her own values that are, like, shared within the company, but she also has her own experience within that. And also to bring from her 20 plus years when she was dancing, things that she valued or maybe didn't necessarily appreciate—shifting that now that she's in a different position.

Kennedy Ward: Assurance and security is uniquely untethered to the health of the community as a whole. Here's a bit of data from the survey conducted two years ago.

Of the 144 dancers surveyed in 2022, 41 (just 28%) identified as being a contracted dancer -full or part time- despite 54% of participants identifying as having more than a decade of professional experience.
This experience includes but is not limited to attending a performing arts high school, youth dance studio training, entering a college program or conservatory, taking part in summer dance intensives, studio experience as a professional, professional second company experience, as well as one-on-one training with a master or guru as most of our 54% noted.

To reiterate, this means out of 144 dancers surveyed, 103 were without the security of a contract despite having more than a decade of dense, embodied dance experience.

As we listen to Silvita, Devika and more, I ask you to notice how viable advocating for yourself and your community is? We have perseverance and hardiness in spades, but how could dancers sustain themselves and their work while being the voice, the action, the energy to decline injustice within the institution of inequity?

Silvita Diaz Brown: I've been assertive in letting people know that what I do is valuable, you know? And I feel that through different times in my career and in my journey as a dance artists, I have had different struggles, different teachers who undermined me. I think especially through my younger years as an artist. I believe that if I am supposed to be doing this, my work has value, and something will come out. There is always something that comes out.

Dancers are really hard workers you know?. We work with our bodies every day, so we're accustomed to “do the thing.” I see a lot of people working hard to do their passion. I wish we all could find a way to support each other more and make it more sustainable. We are the community and it has to start with us and how we value each other, how we support each other, how we embrace different types of dance and art and make it thrive.

Devika Dhir: I find that since I came back to dance as an adult and I'm maybe less impressionable, a little more set in my ways, I found it easier to stand up to elders within my own community about, for instance, not dancing for free you know, as an example. I find that some of my younger peers don't talk about that at all, or they would not push back. And I know that it leads to whispers about me sometimes, but it doesn't bother me because I think that it's important to address the fact that, like, in Desi, in Indian culture, a lot of times elders are just like, you don't go against them, or you just kind of go along to get along. And I think that in taking on this mindset of I should be compensated fairly for this talent or this work that I've done, it's really at odds with that mindset. And personally, I try to push back against that. I try to take back that power a little bit or normalize it in front of other dancers. So they'll be like, well, maybe it's okay for me to insist on getting paid to do this, even if it means that they'll be like, no, we don't have a budget for that. And I'll be like, okay, then I'm not signing on.

Kennedy Ward: Dancers like Devika, who are advocating for the equitable reimbursement of money in ratio to performance and skill, challenge the idea that internally, the spectacle of performing alone will feed the eager and devoted-to-the-craft dancer.

This inaccuracy creates a system that values the dance but not the dancer. Separating personhood from the person you want to contract, commission, or pull forward only honors what they can do for your stage.
Honoring the person along with what they can do for your stage can mean many things; food/housing support, designated marketing support, systems of growth and support, or even the ability to rest. Having one without the other, makes the scene unsustainable.

Let’s listen in on Jonathan and Mad Dog, who will share their perspectives on this.

Jonathan Pacheco: Part of my mission as a dancer is I want to raise the awareness and the understanding of what it is that I do as a Spanish dancer and of Spanish dance, and to raise the recognition for dancers like me of non-traditional dance forms, meaning non-traditional in the sense of concert, American dance, not ballet, not contemporary dance, but Spanish dance. I want to make a space for us, to be more recognized, to be more valued, to raise awareness of what it is that we do. And I think there's still a long way to go in that.

Dance is of the people. And again, taking it back to being a Spanish dancer, there's no truer quote than that for Spanish dance because Spanish dance literally was born of marginalized communities in Spain that used dance as a way to express their suffering, to express their religious and political persecution. They used their experiences as a people that were suffering to create Spanish dance and flamenco. So Spanish dance literally comes from the people.

I think we as dancers and choreographers and companies should also question of who it is they create dance for. And I think this is always a question of why do you dance or why do you do what it is that you do? Some people could say they dance for themselves right? They dance because it's their passion. They dance because it makes them happy. They dance because it's their love. They feel free when they dance, they enjoy it. But if I'm going to perform in a theater and charge a ticket price, in my opinion, it cannot just be about myself. It needs to be about the audience. They need to come and feel something, experience something, feel moved. And to me that is theater. It is the exchange between the performer and the audience. That is why it is I perform.

Mad Dog: When the media got that first whiff of it, they just wanted more of it and they kind of created issues within that community that created elitism, which was already there, but not on the level that the media perpetuated it to. The media just wanted more of it. Like, we was on every news channel, we was in all the newspapers. And when Footwork Kings came, it kind of took it even to a higher level where we are dancing at the San Francisco Hip Hop Festival, we are dancing at Ellen, we on Verizon Wireless commercial, we doing Rolling Stones, we doing everything you can imagine. But it's only a few people that's doing this, and it kind of isolated the rest of the community.

I think where it really took its turn was in 2009 when we go to America's Got Talent and we book the Madonna tour. Now the footwork community is even more hungry than ever. So any event that we are promoting or doing or wherever we're at, the whole footwork community because it's an opportunity now, it's almost like getting drafted by the NBA. Now they don't know how much money we're getting. In reality, we are not really getting any money. So all the press, all the magazines, we ain't getting no money for none of this. Going to 106 & Park twice — we paid to be there. We had to pay all flights. We slept in the airport. But how it's being promoted and pushed on the media platform, it looked like we winning. And really we still hungry you know, we still figuring it out. And they don't know that, but they want an opportunity to be in that same position. And so when we was Footwork Kings, what we should have did was shared all the information, shared all the curriculum, shared all the resources that we had at that time, we should have just shared it. And by the time we realized that, we had broken up — half the group moved to LA, another half stayed in Chicago.

Kennedy Ward: I want to remind us that the 5 dancers we’ve heard from today are unique individuals, and masterful of what they do, but their experiences are shared. The disparities, the systems that depreciate and erode are common. And from the vulnerability that they’ve shared with us, we can find strength, commonality, and therefore community.

There is honor and beauty and a deep, richness that can be found in generating pathways outside of traditional value systems; BUT a system that depends on the obfuscation of security, of compensation, of the value of the people doing the work is no system at all. The desire to grow was heard, to be within a community that supports your growth, to be sustained, to have longevity, understanding, clarity, access was heard.

And this future is not far.

Simone Stevens: Even though now I am in primarily a performance-based aspect of the art, this isn't necessarily where I have to stay. I have to continually reassess what it is that I'm valuing and what it is that I hope to carry out. Seeing how they can align or how I can produce those ideas in as many ways as possible so that I'm not just relying on one way to complete the art. That I'm able to make sure that I am constantly reimagining and also constantly invigorated. I guess that I'm not just staying stagnant in what I'm doing because I'm like, “Oh, I made it to the place that I thought I was going to be.” It's very much like, “Okay, so then how are we going to continue evolving from here?”

Kennedy Ward: A question I’ll leave you with is “How can we generate greater space to have all these things, BE all these things while holding accountable the powers that continue to stagnate progress?” In our next episode, we’ll hear firsthand accounts of the barricades dancers face in pursuit of their careers.
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Inequality in the Chicago Dance Community

Kennedy Ward: Hey there, this is Ken. Your resident dancer and dance administrator. Remaining one of the most segregated cities in the US, Chicago is no stranger to disenfranchisement and divestment. With almost three centuries of inequality under its belt, the symptoms of this long standing marginalization bear fruit in all aspects of life.

The weight of this intersectionality can be seen within the field of dance as development resources such as access to grant writers, administration staff, reliable networks, and reliable funders are behind the translucent wall of institutional customs, geographic racism, and the most insidious of all, time. These barriers persist because commodification does not honor context, because exploitation cannot empower, because, for most dancers the system does not work.

From Mad Dog and Silvita, we’ll hear about the invisible barriers they face in aspiring to institutionalize their form -a viable process to give non-european dance forms increased credibility- and gain access to resources that will mature their career.

As we listen in; I want you to challenge the idea that these stories could not happen, would never happen, are not currently happening to someone you know.

Mad Dog: There are invisible barriers that are not invisible, if that makes sense. The only times that we really get an opportunity is when you become a Chicago dancemaker or you get a residency at a location or a space where you have an opportunity to showcase it. But we not going to be at Crown Palace for six months because we don't necessarily have the credentials. What we do isn't in a class at Columbia or DePaul or the university. There's no real representation on the academical platforms. It's perceived that it doesn't have the same level capacity that the traditional spaces have.

Because we dont have the financial power, we dont receive anything back. We'll probably never receive anything back. But if we're given a chance, if you allow us to make a rubric or allow us to show you our unit plans or our lesson plans, and that's where I'm working towards. This is how we merge in hip hop arts and education. And my faith and my belief is that schools and mostly schools and colleges will eventually see the academical component and give us the stage to try, even if it's just a minor class, right? A minor class in college, but it could be a day-to-day class in high school. It could be a day-to-day program in elementary school. So that will be the way that that happens.

Silvita Diaz Brown: Writing grants is super hard. It takes me so much time. I had to, like, prepare myself. And I probably will say that's the most stressful thing about being a creative artist. I feel like I love dancing for other people, but I feel like my calling is a choreographer, really. That's where my heart is. And sometimes I feel like it is exhausting to have to do that. I've been able to different times, have the support of people who trust in my work, care about my work; "Check this, does it make sense?" It doesn't make sense. I feel the grammar in English and Spanish is slightly different. English is kind of short phrases, a little bit more straightforward but in Spanish you can embellish. And it just takes a very different form. I think in writing terms, maybe, you know? And I've been improving myself, more and more each time. I do know that and people tell me that, but I feel like somehow, I still feel like the weight of having to write this thing in my head, this idea, and explain it to people so they can see it the way I see it and why it this important to make it happen.

If I have more funding, then I can pay someone without the stress of having to get that extra money so that the person can write it or edit it because I had to write it. I have it already. It's already written. But with each grant, they ask different things that might mean the same thing but you had to always modify it to what they are asking you to. And so that takes time. So if I have someone that can help me on the side, that's really helpful. And last year I did it because I got the Chicago Cultural Center Studio residency. So I had funding to do that. It was super helpful because I was in the process of creating, and my time was focused on creating the piece, on being with the dancers, on all the artists involved, and the custom designer.

But even that way, you never know what is going to happen. So I'm just saying finding a way to have a more sustainable practice as an artist. I just feel like for the many hours that we work, including training and practicing, because you had to keep practicing, you know teaching, writing, going to the studio, choreographing, thinking about this, organizing schedules, and all of that. It's your time. And if someone were paying me for that, I probably would be a millionaire. But that's unfortunately not true. How can we make an artist career more sustainable, especially dancing, I feel like there is other arts that have more opportunities or get paid more. I have done a few gigs as an actress and that pays way more, but that's not where my heart fully is.

Kennedy Ward: The struggle to institutionalize or secure consistent funding exposes a disparity of not only who receives funding but who has the ability to pursue funding opportunities.This disparity illuminates the idea that despite expertise and wisdom, there is glaring scarcity within the community.

In our 2022 Study, we found 84% of participants made less than $20,000 from dance and dance related work. This means that 84% of participants could not sustain themselves from dance and dance-related work alone; galvanizing a community of artists to seek other means of employment to sustain themselves.

This, in turn, allots full time commitment to dance and the pursuit of its resources to those with often once-a-decade career placements, trusts, or third party monetary support.

Let’s continue with Devika and Lyn, and hear their accounts of social and institutional racism.

Devika Dhir: I have definitely witnessed and experienced inequality in the dance world and in classical Indian dance specifically, this is a huge issue. Today in the South Indian dance form that I do, which is Bharatnatym, it's primarily stewarded by a specific group of people within India, a specific caste background, a specific religious background. But this demographic is not the original demographic that developed the dance form. It's kind of an upper caste group that has taken it and sort of turned it into something else that has now become the mainstream. And for a long time when I was very young, this was not a conversation that I knew about. It was not a history that I knew about. It wasn't until a few years ago that I became aware and started educating myself more about it. And it is unsurprising because these things happen all the time.

Kennedy Ward: Not dissimilar to Western but non-Eurocentric forms of dance; such as house, breaking, vogue/ballroom, jazz and so on; the oral histories, and the context within them, that are passed down aligns respect with representation.This awareness does not bar people outside of that community from participating, but instead ensures that the form can continue with integrity. We can see this in the various ways breaking and ballroom, house and jazz, or footwork and house have influenced each other.

Let’s hear from Lyn, as she recounts an instance of inequity that impacted her career.

Lyn Cole: As a 9, 10, 11, and 12-year-old, I went to a dance school on the south side — Agnes Gleason School of Dance. So everybody was white there and all these little black kids were there taking dance down the street from Mayfair, which was black-owned, black-run with black mentorship. And so Agnes Gleason was a great teacher, but she didn't have recitals. She was wonderful and her studio was wonderful, but she was very old and she was not into recitals. So my mom takes me to Evergreen Park, Ideal School of Dance, white-owned, white-run.

I endured three years of prejudice being at that school because I love to dance. At the beginning, she didn't want me to be in the class with kids my own age because I was black, they were white, and they were having issues. And finally after she saw what was happening to me at one of the recitals, she stopped everything. She said, if anybody in here calls that child the N word, we are not having a show. And so for the rest of the dress rehearsal, everybody left me alone, but they would give me the side eye. And then that next season I went into class with kids my own age and some of the kids stopped coming to the studio, but she gained a whole bunch of other people that were happy to have me there. And so I didn't feel that I'm the only black kid here.

Kennedy Ward: The anecdotes we’ve heard today support the reality that we already know; racism, systematic financial marginalization, social inequality, and everything in between are barriers that are pervasive, constant, and unfortunately compounding. These barriers protect the center, in other words the status quo. They ensure disparity for every single person outside of that center, and multiplying the further out you go.

What we don't know is when these barriers will cease to exist. And that’s not going to bother us. Let me tell you why. We will not lay awake at night, scared, upset, or anxious of the inequality around us, of the global scale that racism and systematic oppression operates on, of the threat that we are not enough and will not thrive.

In spite of nothing we will go to that audition, submit that grant application, and create new works, lean on each other, speak up when wrong occurs. We will tell our stories because we all feel that it is what we are meant to do. We will live, and be dancers because it is what we are meant to do. And that is successful. Every success achieved by you, or me, is a success to our community. Nothing can take that away from us.

Follow me into the next episode, and we’ll learn more about what success can look and feel like.
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Notions of Power and Success Metrics

Kennedy Ward: Welcome back, this is Ken, your resident dancer and dance administrator with See Chicago Dance. Let's start with some data.

Of all 144 participants surveyed in 2022, only 34% identified with experiencing fulfillment with the current state of their career. Fulfillment being defined as consistent employment as a teacher, being able to create and share work, build community, or still move their body. Now what's interesting is that of that 34%, 18% (just 9 people) identified with earning an income above $20,000+ from dance and dance related work. Meaning what?

Well, two things; first, contentment and fulfillment are not solely defined by salary or income; and let me be clear, this does not conclude that dancers don't need money to be happy. The security of having enough money to live and live comfortably, to be compensated for all the time, energy, and effort that is behind a performance would, in fact, make me and most any other dancer extremely happy. Instead this shows us that dancers are defining fulfillment and success outside of pay, which is controlled by inequity and racism.

Secondly, the traditional image of the Dancer: sustaining yourself with a full time contract from a single, major company, touring constantly and creating constantly is not one that the community is wholly committed to.

So what is the image? And who defines it? Let’s hear from Jonathan.

Jonathan Pacheco: What does it mean to be successful? Does it mean that I made a lot of money in my career? Does it mean that I have a lot of awards, right? I have received this award and that award, or I was listed on this list or this article about me or I was on the cover of this magazine? Is that what succes is?Success being in a company and having a full-time contract? Or is success touring and is it performing in theaters like the Auditorium Theater here in Chicago or touring to Europe or to other countries? So I do deal with what does success mean, particularly for me, as a Spanish dancer. And my opinion is that Spanish dance is not valued here in the United States or even in the Chicago dance community, like other art forms, like ballet, like contemporary dance. So I regularly am having the conversation with myself of what does it mean to be successful as Latino artist doing a culturally specific art form like Spanish dance?

There's classical Spanish dance, there's folklore Spanish dance, there's contemporary Spanish dance, and at the Ensemble Espanol, we do all of that. Unfortunately, there a lack of education, you could say, from an audience perspective. I do mean both from people that are dancers, people that are just dance watchers, people that are dance funders. There is a lack of education when it comes to what it is- what Spanish dance is. And because of the lack of education, I think oftentimes we are not critiqued correctly in writings. What we do is not valued correctly because it is not understood correctly. I read reviews from shows happening in New York and shows happening in LA and in other cities. And unfortunately, it is not always talked about correctly.

I read a review just recently of a show that happened in New York where basically the performer was dragged, you could say, by the critic, and even the review ended saying, New York audiences deserve better flamenco than this. I know the Spanish dancer and I know the type of work they do, and it's not flamenco, it's classical Spanish dance, but because the critic or dance audiences have a limited understanding of what Spanish dance is, unfortunately, that dancer got a review saying, that's not good flamenco.

Kennedy Ward: We can hear from Jonathan that the work of securing a full time contract, a magazine cover, or receiving awards is flattened without critical understanding.

The example here, but is often the case elsewhere, is that a journalist is speaking on behalf of your work and therefore your community. This dynamic, while seemingly inclusive, actually excludes the individual, Jonathan in this case, from being understood and appreciated appropriately. So the validity of having achieved all these things are undermined when your form (and your community) is fundamentally misunderstood.

We’ll be hearing from Lyn and Mad Dog next; Lyn speaking about starting her own dance studio after being disenfranchised within the corporate world and Mad Dog, speaking on his role as a community activist. They both share how their activation within the community counters structures that create powerlessness.

Lyn Cole: The place that I was at changed from something that was a cradle into a jail cell. And so I started going to work wearing what I termed as war paint. And what it was, it was glitter on my face, but it was in a specific location. It was across my cheeks. And that to me was war paint, and it was my way of getting through the day. I kept hearing people say, “I work at a corporation,” and I kept hearing people say, “This is my job.” I kept thinking, “Well, I didn't sign on for a corporation, I signed on for a community", and "I didn't sign on for a job, I signed on for a place that was supportive to me and everybody around.” And so if I stay, it will suck the life out of me. And I also got really sick and ended up in the hospital, and it was because of the stress that I was feeling and I was like, I'll be dead.

Just because I'm little doesn't make me less powerful than the big companies. It actually makes me more powerful than the big companies because I personally can touch and help change the world of people that come to me and that I teach because I don't just teach dance. I teach how to have respect for your body, how to have respect for other people. I teach body mechanics so that you know where your body is as opposed to flailing in the world. I teach whatever life lessons because I'm going to be 60 this year, so I can teach life lessons that I have to my teenagers and my young students and even my adults because I have different experiences than they. I also teach history and I impart that to my students because if we know the past, then we know the future. And those things are hard to get when you're at a corporation, a big studio, because their objectives are usually not the same.

Mad Dog: They're not going to do the research and connect it to the economical struggles for Chicago footwork/Juke community. But I can't do that if I'm not at the table. I knew a few things was going to happen. One, I'm going to be publicized as an activist or organizer, a person that uses footwork as a tool to address social economical issues, I'm also going to get strong mentorship. I knew people who I felt were very understanding and had to have their ears to the ground when it comes to Chicago dance movements. And I felt like they will be key folks who will help me navigate my scope of work to get it at where it's at today.

And so what makes me successful is the people in my community who gets the benefit of my success. Two years ago I started the Juke for Liberation Project, where I hired six Juke DJs, seven or eight dance groups, and I hired 255 footwork slash Juke dance youth. We went through intense six week popular education training because I always felt like I wasn't sharing what I was learning. And a lot of it is life, right? You got kids, you got girlfriend, my mom dies in 2018. So life is also happening. And so, I felt like I wasnt sharing with my community so I kind of went ghost in the footwork community a little bit. I was ghost for a while because I didn't feel like it was fair for me to be a part of something that I wasn't really given a righteous contribution to.

And what happened was that I created a show called Footwork Through the Trauma where I talk about, you know I kind of wrote down all the things that impact Chicago footwork. And one of 'em for me is everybody in my family for four generations, died from cancer, heart attack or asthma, something that has to do with respiratory issues. And that's because we grew up in the gardens, whereas they burned the trash and all that stuff. So I create Footwork through the Trauma like a video project. And that video project led to Juke for Liberation where I can get the stories from young people and bring them in. And then I also was hiring other young dancers who have masters in ballet, masters in contemporary, masters in Caribbean and South American dances, right? So I hired some of those youth too to allow access to these young folks who only have juke access and now you're going to exchange.

So you're going to get to learn some of this street stuff. And they get to learn some of this stuff, this downtown stuff. Which they're hungry to learn because they only get to see it from afar. They don't get to see it up close, so they don't think they can do it. And so now this is going on our second year of Juke for Liberation. So I feel like my artistic success is centered and based on who else can benefit and profit from that.

Kennedy Ward: From these two perspectives, I heard a sentiment that defies paralyzing structures. From the frustration and anguish inside these stories, we heard Lyn and Mad Dog feel the responsibility to carve space, to create community that is actively accepting and empowering.

This tells us that success can be one-one-one engagement, in fostering community, in being responsible to your community and not just your audience. From Devika, we’ll hear how institutional power can assert its own metrics of success and how its measures of accountability are felt in the community.

Devika Dhir: In Indian classical dance, there is this concept of you don't do things without your guru sign off, you know? When it comes to Kathak. My teacher, verbatim, told me, “You have my blessing to go out and perform anything that I've taught you because you're at that level.” And similarly with Bharatnatyam, there have been stories that my previous gurus have told me about where one that sticks out in particular was she was telling me about a student that she had who had performed a piece that she had been taught at some event. And then after the fact came to her, my guru, and was like, “Oh, I did this performance. Here's the video. What do you think?” And it was not up to par, according to my guru. And she was mad; she was really upset. She was like, “You didn't ask me if you could perform this. I would've said, ‘No. This is not done and I don't want you to be my student anymore.’” And that's not an uncommon thing. It's kind of understood that if you're going to go showcase something, especially if it's your guru's choreography and you're representing them, you really need to clear it with them first. So having that validation is definitely, it's important, but it also lets you know, yeah, you have reached this level. You're good to go, go out into the world and represent me.

Kennedy Ward: So, we’ve heard a lot. Before I let you go, I want us to focus on the heart that sits within each story. You, ya’ll, all’ya’ll. Teachers, studio owners, presenters, administrators, contracted dancers, my gig workers, and everything in between; power is yours.

Jonathan, Lyn, Mad Dog, Silvita, and Devika are redefining and challenging the images of success that no longer serve us. They are finding community and solidarity that transcends competition, wisdom without exclusion; they are leveraging their experiences (good and bad), resources, and prowess to create change.
These collections of voices, and their communities are challenging the metrics of success and power; our institutions should as well.

Because we can sell tickets all day, but do you have people/persons who you can rely on to offer you guidance and strength, do you have a community that KNOWs you and then pushes you to rise to your potential, will stand behind you when you face inequity, do you have a venue that is as invested in you as you are of it?

Success is guaranteed when the community is empowered. We will win when the community is empowered.

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Hear Chicago Dance: Stories and insights of the lived experience of dancers is brought to you by See Chicago Dance, in partnership with Polyrhythmic and Cove.

Research was conducted by Angelina Perino and Demetrio Maguigad for LimeRed Studio and in collaboration with Julia Mayer and Kennedy Ward at See Chicago Dance. Original music and production was provided by Polyrhythmic in partnership with Cove.

Thank you to all of the dancers and artists who participated and provided their time and insights to our study.

Learn more at SeeChicagoDance.com.