PUSH Dance Company, Ethan Dennis and Ashley Gayle
More artists are starting to understand arts adminis- tration as a way to navigate budget complexity, how to market themselves, and project management; and out of that is a mere step away to sustaining their creative practices. This article offers considerations for study- ing the economics of dance through empirical studies on Black dance and numerical data, it identifies current trends, and advocates for the inclusion of Black experi- ence in creative business approaches.
bridge a siloed world into dance practices. However, as a Black woman of mixed heritage, I have found professional development opportunities for arts leaders a far and few in between. Both the Arts Administrators of Color (AAC) founded in 2016 and Women of Color in the Arts (WOCA) founded in 2010 are more recent examples of associations formed to take on the issues of diversity in the arts. However, Echo- ing Green (EG) found that even when Black women leaders in their EG portfolios consistently had the same education level as other arts leaders, they consistently received less funding and financial support than other groups. The para- dox facing Black arts leaders is a desire and self-efficacy to sustain Black culture includes enduring discrimination set forth by funding disparities, deeply entrenched post-racial overtones and colorblind mindsets in San Francisco. The San Francisco Bay Area tendencies towards displacement of global majority people raises serious questions about its commitment to cultural diversity. HOW TO LISTEN: While writing articles such as these or expressing experiences of being Black, my white counter- parts will oftentimes perceive this as a bellyaching com- plaint. To have space to express discontentment on an racial issue is paramount to change, and therefore opens a discourse in order to adequately identify the problem; without an oversimplification or quick fix solutions. Perhaps by measuring bellyaching complaints (polling) of racism in the arts, we can measure these inequalities, Economic instability means foundations are hesitant to take big risks which includes investing in artists at the level of an emergency as they did from 2020–2023, thus reducing their power and control over money. draw up visualizations of identifying it as a problem in need of more informed policies. The importance of deep- ing communicability in order to strip away the discursive greige of manipulative gaslighting can erase the ambiguity around disputes of race’s existence in the arts field, particu- larly in dance. Much has happened in the new millennium, and the expansion of Black contemporary dance credit in San Francisco goes to Joanna Haigood and Robert Moses. Both choreographers have furthered Black dance in partic- ular by blending topical issues and historical Black figures into their dances. Black choreographers are found or even asked to remain silent about social events concerning Black people. While silence can be a powerful statement of sur- vival for Black artists, we also need spaces to air grievances or just speak in drafts without judgment or punitive retali- ation from listeners.
For Black choreographers the intersec- tion between racial bias economics has them financing a type of creative freedom of cre- ativity in tandem with arts administration. Delving into creative administration brought me such joy to study the best practices for developing a mindful nonprofit work. Around 2016, the then executive director of the African American Arts & Cultural Cen- ter, Mohammed Bilal invited me to partici- pate in business arts residency. It was there that the director of Cultural Odyssey, Idris Ackamoor asked me to join the African American Theater Alliance for Independence (AATAIN!) whose members included Afro- solo, Lorraine Hansberry Theater, the San Francisco Theater Bay Area Company Afri- can American Shakespeare Company and PUSH. AATAIN! Additionally I was fortu- nate enough to have consultation from Ted Russell, who later went on to the Kenneth Rainin Foundation. Later, the co-interroga- tors of Dancing Around Race, Gerald Casel, David Herrera, Yayoi Kambara, Bhumi B Patel, and myself began providing racial
BARRIER ONE Access to Arts Administration
Access to the arts administration field is a privilege brought on by the ability to access education and raise capital for Black arts administrators and organizations. As mentioned, Black dance demonstrates their success through commu- nal expansion of culture and proves their intrinsic worth through social capital. The National Center for Chore- ography – Akron (NCCAkron) described creative busi- ness as intermingling the humanistic principles found in the choreographic process as a basis for changing how choreographers approach arts administration business. As my group PUSH Dance Company (PUSH) enters into its 20th anniversary, we’re at a crossroads of managing a new dance sanctuary that centers the experiences of global majority artists. For our organization, the combination of Black dance analysis and business frameworks blends well together in a tapestry of wellness and restorative dance practices. This journey combines Afro-wellness, profes- sional development and business led us to an “ask first, then create” process for developing our programs and resi- dencies. By polling the participants who look to our organi- zation for services, we’ve developed a trustworthy relation- ship in many cases which in turn allows us to bridge the business nonprofit model in tandem with our communities. Similar to finding arts administration opportunities to NCCAkron’s 1 virtual study groups, I found creative busi- ness frameworks through then Executive Director of CounterPulse, Jessica Robinson, the Foundation Center (now Candid) and business class during my undergrad- uate at SUNY Purchase. Young performing artists are oftentimes encouraged to think of themselves as entre- preneurs. While to be a dancer is to be a business owner, Black dance artists own the distinction for overcoming interpersonal, systemic and familial issues associated with race. Like many Black choreographers, the power of Black collective culture started to transcend into my administrative life as an arts leader. As a continued exam- ination of organizational behavior in the cultural sector, I have found arts administration has become a focus to 2
equity workshops. We wrote our own grants, tracked our own budgets, and collaborated with each other to fortify our entities only because we knew there was no one there to save us. WHAT’S TO UNDERSTAND: To fully understand emergent strategies in motion to determine Black dance’s influence on the study of economics, look no further than tech- niques to combat the nonprofit model’s alignment with capitalism’s boom and bust economy. Capitalism and other forms of economies (i.e. socialism, communism, etc) determine how resources are dispersed while simultane- ously race amplifies the disquieting magnitude of income inequality. Significant differences remain between capital- ism and nonprofits, however the latter is subject to capi- talism’s rules, regulations and policies. Despite nonprof- its being mission driven, they are still purposely limited in their efforts to carry it out those fundamental values by trickle down economics. More specifically, extant data shines a light on how funding is dispersed and to which demographics. As an educator, I’m reminded how the study of economics oftentimes excludes elements of sociol- ogy and historical context. The nuances of the socio- historical context in the African diaspora provide implica- tions for the capitulations of 1950’s redevelopment, redlin- ing, suburban mass incarceration, and gentrification. From this perspective Black dance artists have a layered under- standing of the racial dilemma found in economic survival of the arts and culture sector.
BARRIER TWO Overcoming Racial Bias
Perhaps there’s a circular phenomenon for Black dance artists for which the cycle plays out in perpetuity with a lack of finance due to the stigma placed Black entre- preneurs. As producer and founder of Black Choreogra- phers Moving (BCM) Towards the 21st Century, Halifu Osumare gave considerable intellectual and artistic commitment to broadening and futuring the definition of Black dance here in San Francisco and beyond. Despite most Black scholars’ focus on the Deep South and Eastern states, Osumare, a scholar, choreographer and teacher, offers us an extensive portrayal of Black dance in California and Hawaii. In her most recent memoir, Dancing the Afrofuture: Hula, Hip Hop, and the Dunham Legacy (2024) , 2 Osumare delves into Black dance as a roadmap of the future. BCM changed the landscape as to what Black dance could potentially be and portrayed as, which was later furthered by Kendra Kimbrough Barnes and Laura Elaine Ellis through the Black Choreographers Festival. That being said, it would be hard to ignore Black dance in California or for that matter, its place on the national stage. 3
3 Halifu Osumare, Dancing the Afrofuture: Hula, Hip Hop, and the Dunham Legacy, University of Florida, 2024
2 Artists On Creative Administration: A Workbook from the National Center for Choreography, University of Akron, 2004
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