At the moment I am looking into my current practice and the issues and questions that emerge whilst in a working environment. These generally involve ethics surrounding various contracts I have done;
Financial
Wage differences between Dancers and Singers.
Wage differences between Male Dancers and Female Dancers.
Performers receiving half wages during rehearsal periods.
Creating a Work/Life Balance
How can performers have a good work/life balance when working on board cruise ships or on tour?
Can professional performers continue to work after becoming a mum?
Ethics
Is it ethical for agents or agencies to charge performers to be placed on their books? Even if this is described as an administration charge?
Looking into these questions I believe they can be broken down further.
Financial
How do wage differences effect performers during contracts?
What effect does this have on the dynamic of show teams?
Can self esteem issues etc be attributed to people not being treated the equally?
How do wage differences between males and females stand legally?
Where do companies stand when the hours worked balanced with the half wage drops below the legal minimum wage?
How can companies manage to pay a full wage for rehearsals when they are not receiving any money from the booking?
Creating a Work/Life Balance
How does a minimal work/life balance effect performers emotionally, mentally and physically?
Would a company employ a performer who is a parent?
Should companies assist in finding nurseries for performing mums?
Ethics
If it costs a company time to find performers work why is a fee viewed so negatively?
How does paying an agent effect the rate they charge commission at?
This is just my basic starting point so far. I would be really interested to hear other students views and experiences relating to any of these ideas.
Hi Michelle!
ReplyDeleteYou have come up with some really good questions which I think a lot of performers would like to know the answer to.. there are a lot of ethical issues here and I think there is a lot to be discovered. I've noticed a few people asking about wage differences between male and females including Aicha. Your work/life balance question would relate well to Emily's inquiry into the mentality of dancers.
You have quite a broad range of questions at the moment though..do you have any more thoughts on what you think you might like to focus on more specifically?
Let us know what you're thinking :) And even though I think my inquiry might be quite different to yours I'd still appreciate any thoughts on my posts!
Clare
PS. Are you on FB? If yes, add me and then we can add you into the group we have discussing SIG's
DeleteI have just added the SIG on facebook, thanks for that. I think I am more leaning towards looking at work/life balances and have taken a lot of interest in Emilies post. This relates more to where I stand at this moment in my career and so I can draw on a lot of my own experiences as well as many of my friends and collegues. The reader asks what we hope to gain from our questions and I feel I would most like to gain some clarity for myself. What do you think?
DeleteI think the work/life balance would be a great one; whatever you can get most information from and be passionate about pursuing is probably your best bet. I'm still uming and ahing a little bit about mine..I hope things become a bit clearer!
DeleteHi Mimi, great set of questions there and you are developing the answers to them - reading through I was wondering if you would pick up on the 'breach of minimum wage' aspect from your half pay earlier on and you did. I think if the companies were to be confronted with this issue they would probably say that the overall wage for the contract wouldn't be a problem- I know from experience of cruises you can be on half wage for 9 hour rehearsal days, earning maybe less than half of the British hourly rate. But quite often once on board you are paid a daily rate when you have complete rest days, or aren't working anywhere near the amount of hours as in rehearsals. So the overall wage for the contract works out as legal. I'd be interested to know if this is the same in every case though! And would it be better to redefine the wage structure to avoid issues like this?
ReplyDeleteLooking at your bio and future goals I think it might be an idea for you to develop the work-life balance issue, especially the mum aspect. Have you thought about other areas of society who might be missing out on dance? And how you could bring it to them? If you wanted something a bit more linked/on those lines.
ReplyDeleteAlthough I'm doing teaching there's lots of points in here I'd love to keep discussing, looking forward to seeing your thoughts develop!
Hi Aicha, I think I am leaning more towards the work/life balance issues as it reflects more strongly how I am feeling at the moment, also many of my friends have gone on to be parents and it seems easier for men to continue performing than women? My concern with looking at wage differences is that many people aren't keen to discuss this openly and I may find that my research dries up. I have searched out a few blogs on the issue so will link them into my next post. I look forward to seeing how you develop your ideas too X
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