A Series of Workshops
Empowering Dance Artists
in Personal Finance Now & for the Future
The mission of these workshops are to empower dance artists and creatives through knowledge sharing about money management, financing a freelance career, negotiating fair pay contracts, and how to discover one’s value and potential for earning by being clear with and creative about their earnings, spendings, savings and vision.
Aims
- educate and empower freelance dance artists and creatives to becoming more literate about their finances
- promote greater wellbeing so dance artists and creatives can have more sustainable careers
- support efforts and challenge perceptions around money, value and worth
- open up greater opportunities for growth professionally and personally
Content
I offer a series of three 90-minute workshops that can be delivered back-to-back in one day, across several days or over a longer period of time. Sessions can be delivered online or in person as one-offs or as a series. Participants will be given exercises to explore their relationship to earning and spending, handouts and examples of ways to keep numbers, create spreadsheets and track in/out goings. In the series assigned tangible actions will be given to the participant to take with them, build on and return with for the following session. There will be time for group discussion, writing and reflecting. Relevant resources and outside support will be shared that is relevant to the material covere
Up to 25 participants per workshop. Ideally, participants will attend all three workshops (if a series) to get maximum benefit yet there may be flexibility to accommodate those who can only attend individual sessions.
Costs (introductory price until end 2023)
£375 per workshop in-person* or online
£1015 for series of 3 workshops in-person or online (10% savings)
*Travel expenses not included for in-person workshops
I offer a unique perspective through my lived experience of working as a freelance dancer and choreographer for 38 years across the US, UK, EU and SE Asia. During that time I have directed my own company and worked across the sectors of culture, commerce, government and education.
In 2012 I wrote my (now well-known) Open Letter to Artists , a call for freelance dance artists to unite for more fair working and pay conditions. As an activist I went on to serve on the Equity UK Dance Committee (2017-2022) and was Chair of the Dance committee in 2022 seeing dancers through the pandemic and supporting members with issues of unemployment and finances.
I also work as a consultant with arts organizations such as Dance East and Trinity Laban and serve as a funding reviewer for Arts Council England. I am a leader in dance and serve as a Trustee on the board of Dancers’ Career Development, a mentor to Museums Development and advisor to Move Dance Feel.
“It’s always really valuable to be part of something where you feel that there has been a lot of energy, thought and consideration in the way a project is set-up economically and politically in terms of working conditions, clarity of communication, respectful fees etc. I feel I learnt a lot from recognising the investment that went into that kind of ethical set-up. It makes me more conscious of how I manage to set up my own projects and to not settle for substandard conditions as much as possible.”
Anonymous response from a dancer working as part of Sara’s (Re)Make project, 2019