Abstract
I discuss that in the bohemian work ethic artists have developed a variety of survival tactics so they can carry on to practice their profession despite the economic challenges affecting their work and lives. Especially the outline on the different forms of internal subsidization illustrates that in the art world, money is not an end but a means. All in all, I address several individual survival tactics that demonstrate that the contemporary dance artists in my fieldwork show themselves resilient toward the prevailing precarity in their profession. The outlined survival mode impacts not only the lives but also the artistic work of my informants. The prevailing working conditions greatly affect the quality and aesthetics of an artistic work. A noteworthy consequence of the survival mode is the creation of tactical pieces and precarity solos.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Yet bearing in mind that the majority of the respondents still remain above the poverty line and are for the most part white, middle-class and European citizens.
- 2.
To name a few: Jan Martens’ Common People (2016) or David Hernandez’s CROWD (2016).
- 3.
‘Theoretically,’ because a solo can be created in collaboration with, e.g., a sound designer, a set designer, a musician….
References
Abbing, Hans. 2008. Why Are Artists Poor: The Exceptional Economy of the Arts. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Bauer, Eleanor. 2005. Eleanor! http://goodmove.be/eleanor. Accessed 21 January 2018.
Bologna, Sergio. 2006. Die Zerstörung Der Mittelschichten: Thesen Zur Neuen Selbständigkeit. Graz: Nausner & Nausner.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1993. The Production of Belief: Contribution to an Economy of Symbolic Goods. In The Field of Cultural Production: Essays on Art and Literature, ed. Pierre Bourdieu and Randal Johnson, 74–111. Cambridge and Oxford: Polity Press.
Burt, Ramsay. 2016. Ungoverning Dance: Contemporary European Theatre Dance and the Commons. New York: Oxford University Press.
Cheal, David J. 1988. The Gift Economy. New York: Routledge.
De Certeau, Michel. 1984. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Graeber, David. 2011. Debt: The First 5.000 Years. New York: Melville House Publishing.
Guerreiro, Angela. 2011. Surviving Dance—Kunst/Wirtschaft/Politik. Hamburg: K3–Centrum für Choreographie.
Hesters, Delphine. 2004. De Choreografie Van De Danscarrière: Kwalitatief Onderzoek Naar De Carrières Van Hedendaagse Dansers in Vlaams-Brusselse Context. Unpublished master dissertation, University of Leuven.
Klein, Gabriele. 2012. Labour, Life, Art: On the Social Anthropology of Labour. Performance Research 17 (6): 4–13.
Kunst, Bojana. 2015. Artist at Work: Proximity of Art and Capitalism. Winchester: Zero Books.
Laermans, Rudi. 2015. Moving Together: Making and Theorizing Contemporary Dance. Amsterdam: Valiz.
Mauss, Marcel. 2002. The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. London and New York: Routledge.
McRobbie, Angela. 2016. Be Creative: Making a Living in the New Culture Industries. Hoboken: Wiley.
Menger, Pierre-Michel. 2002. Are There Too Many Artists? The “Excess Supply” Issue: A Measurement Puzzle, an Increasingly Flexibility-Driven Functional Requirement and an Unavoidable Mismatch Effect in Creative Activities. In Proceedings of the International Symposium on Culture Statistics, October 21–23, Montreal.
———. 2014. The Economics of Creativity: Art and Achievement Under Uncertainty. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Pewny, Katharina. 2011. Das Drama Des Prekären: Über Die Wiederkehr Der Ethik in Theater Und Performance. Theater. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.
Roller, Jochen. 2009. Script for No Money, No Love (Perform Performing Part 1). Kampnagel Hamburg and Podewil Berlin.
Sabisch, Petra. 2017. For a Topology of Practices. A Study on the Situation of Contemporary and Experimental Dance, Choreography and Performance Art in Europe (1990–2013). In Independent Theatre in Contemporary Europe, ed. Manfred Brauneck and ITI Germany, 43–184. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag.
Sorignet, Pierre-Emmanuel. 2010. Danser. Enquête Dans Les Coulisses D’une Vocation. Paris: La Découverte.
Throsby, David. 1994. A Work-Preference Model of Artist Behaviour. In Cultural Economics and Cultural Policies, ed. Allan T. Peacock and Ilde Rizzo, 69–80. Dordrecht: Springer.
T’Jonck, Pieter. 2013. Dance in Flanders 2007–2013: An Outline of the Dance Landscape. In Perspective: Dance, 11–30. Brussels: Vlaams Theater Instituut.
Trivers, Robert L. 1971. The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism. The Quarterly Review of Biology 46 (1): 35–37.
Van Assche, Annelies, and Rudi Laermans. 2016. Contemporary Dance Artists in Brussels: A Descriptive Report on Their Socio-Economic Position. Ghent and Leuven: S:PAM/CeSO.
———. 2017. Contemporary Dance Artists in Berlin: A Descriptive Report on Their Socio-Economic Position. Ghent and Leuven: S:PAM/CeSO.
Zukin, Sharon. 1993. Landscapes of Power: From Detroit to Disney World. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Van Assche, A. (2020). Survival Artists. In: Labor and Aesthetics in European Contemporary Dance . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40693-6_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40693-6_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-40692-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-40693-6
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)