Dance/NYC launches Dance. Workforce. Resilience. (DWR) Hub
The dance service organization Dance/NYC has announced— the Dance. Workforce. Resilience. (DWR) Hub (Hub.Dance.NYC) in conjunction with Dance/NYC’s research event, “State of NYC Dance: Findings from the Dance Industry Census”. Leveraging Dance/NYC’s identified role as a conduit and collective voice for dance in the metropolitan area, the DWR Hub site will serve as the go-to digital resource for the dance industry and wider arts & culture sector.
The DWR Hub will be a dissemination vehicle for the tools, learnings, and resources developed under the DWR Initiative—educating and informing individual workers, organizations, and entities through accessible and relevant resources to foster inclusionary and equitable practices. The online portal will be comprised of three primary components:
- A digital home for the State of NYC Dance 2023: Findings from the Dance Industry Census report with accompanying tools and resources–led and authored by Strategy and Research Consultant, Alejandra Duque Cifuentes of ADC Consulting and Research Consultant, Carrie Blake of Webb Mgmt.
- A searchable DWR Resource Library housing professional development and self-advocacy tools for workers, organizations, and business entities. Topics addressed include equitable labor and industry practices, financial management, negotiation, emergency preparation, intellectual property and wages, contracting, funding, promotion, recruitment, auditions, etc.
- A new sector-wide Dance Workforce Directory, following the success of its existing directories focusing on increasing visibility for disabled and immigrant dance artists. Dance/NYC will expand its offerings to create this searchable, user-generated database of individual workers and entities predominantly working and/or based in the NYC metropolitan area, to be released in 2024.
“So often, dance workers are losing time looking for tools and guidance—they are being directed by resources not tailored to their experiences or are getting wrong information about how to navigate their work lives in dance,” said Candace Thompson-Zachery, Dance/NYC Director of Programming and Justice Initiatives.
“The DWR Hub is Dance/NYC’s response to this need and to create a centralized place for these searches—from how to decide on a rate for a job to what percentage of choreographers live in NYC. This is all with the aim to empower dance workers with tools that protect their labor, dance entity leaders on more equitable and appropriate ways to run their organizations and for all to be more informed community members.”
Dance/NYC worked with Surface Impression, an international digital media agency that specializes in work for nonprofit organizations and the cultural sector. Dance/NYC also partnered with Accessibility Consultant Minh Ha to ensure that the DWR Hub meets the highest accessibility standards utilizing user testing with a variety of assistive technologies including screen readers, screen magnification, and keyboard access.
Through a number of activities, the DWR Initiative aims to directly serve the whole sector, including those communities not previously served through non-profit interventions in the field such as individual dance workers, fiscally sponsored groups and projects, and for-profit dance entities. The first phase of the Initiative focuses on the dissemination, collection, and analysis of research with the Dance Industry Census and subsequent release of the report. The second phase, beginning in 2024, will focus on the implementation of recommendations and actions based on research findings.