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For love & money: in these tough times, dancers are lending a hand with fundraising.

Article Excerpt
The living has never been easy for arts organizations, but the recession has cut support sharply enough that this winter, Dance/USA conducted what it called the Rough Waters Survey, asking more than a hundred dance-based organizations how they're faring economically.

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Results weren't pretty: Over 40 percent of respondents said ticket sales and/or donations had fallen by five percent or more, and corporate and foundation funding had also dropped. In light of the economic situation, Dance/USA president Andrea Snyder has been organizing conference calls in which company managers, presenters and agents share what they're doing to cope. And Washington, DC's Kennedy Center is now offering financial advice through an initiative called Arts in Crisis.

Awareness and advice are undeniably helpful, but what is needed right now is cold, hard cash. Dance companies, like other arts organizations, are learning to apply their creativity to fundraising just as they do to performance (see "Dance Matters," April). And more and more, the dancers are getting directly involved in those efforts.

Dancers Make a Difference

Company artists factor into fundraising at Philadelphia's Koresh Dance Company. In the year that director of development Deborah Crocker has worked with the company, membership has doubled, due in part to the new interaction between dancers and viewers. The company has had good results with...

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