Economic Issues of Ballet

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Dance is a very expensive career path that requires an extensive amount of training from a very young age at an extremely high price that may not be available in low-income areas. An invisible social hierarchy still lingers around the ballet world that keeps the door closed to aspiring black dancers. In the article, “Finding Solutions to Ballet’s Diversity Problem”, published on Huffington Post, writer Phil Chan offers several solutions to the dominantly white art form of ballet. He discusses the economical standpoint of ballet and the struggles that low-income families will face when trying to succeed their children through ballet. According to a study based on government data from 2009, white households make approximately 20 times the average black household makes. This rapidly decreases the possibility of black children becoming involved in ballet at a young age. Abby Abram’s article, “Raising A Ballerina Will Cost You $100,000”, published on Five Thirty Eight, examines the high price tag that is keeping ballet from being more diverse. According to her research, a top-tier ballet school training for over 15 years would (on average) cost $53,000. Of course there are less prestigious companies that dancers can train in, but still, the cost would be around $30,000. With the cost of pointe shoes averaging around $29,000 (over seven years), $2,000 on tights and leotards, and $32,000 on summer intensive camps at prestigious ballet companies, the total cost of raising a ballerina would come out to be around $100,000 to get the best possible ballet training. This total amount doesn’t even put into consideration transportation costs, physical therapy, or additional classes taken alongside ballet. That is the bare minimum. For families that are struggling to put food on the table every night, affording ballet is not even on their radar. The pool of colored dancers shrinks as the demands become more impossible to meet. Scholarships tend to be very limited and do not cover the full costs of tuition. The next issue that arises is the income after all of the endless training and outward flow of money. You would think that after all of the money spent, a ballerina would acquire much of it back to move on into the world with a nice cushion to land upon. You thought wrong. According to Jayne Thompson’s article, ““The Salaries of Ballet Dancers”, the median salary for a ballet dancer is $30,007 annually. That would cover the cost of all the 15 years of training in the least prestigious ballet school. Not only does the cost of ballet deter the colored dancer, but also the very low income after the fact. 

Jane Onyanga-Omara’s article, “Classical ballet has a diversity problem and its stars know how to fix it”, discusses the different factors that exclude people of color from the art of ballet. It is very crucial to start dance at a young age if wanting to pursue a serious career in ballet. Eric Underwood, an African-American soloist in the Royal Ballet, states, “I feel that because you have to start training as a youngster, it’s the responsibility of the parents or society’s responsibility to introduce children to it”. A colored parent may not be as inspired to involve their child in ballet especially because of the white dominance over the art form. Underwood was introduced to ballet at the age of 14, a very rare occasion for such a successful dancer. Virginia Johnson, the Dance Theater of Harlem’s artistic director claims, “Blacks have been in ballet at least since the middle of the 1930s. You see the odd dancer but you see very few principal dancers”. Why is this? We are in the 21st century where boundaries are being broken and voices are being raised yet for some reason, there is still a huge lack of principal black ballerinas. A solution could be to introduce ballet to young children in low-income areas. Cassa Pancho, 38, founder of the British Company, Ballet Black, asserts that “Children and teenagers need to see someone who looks like them on stage to keep them invested in ballet”. This is where we see the never-ending, continuous cycle. There is a lack of black ballerinas, to begin with yet the process to become a colored ballerina is next to impossible. How can we fix this as a society? Many organizations have recently formed to provide scholarship money to black dancers who are pursuing ballet careers yet I believe that the problem lies deeper than this. The discrimination from the past still lingers around the ballet world. The emphasis on uniformity and ideals of what a ballerina should look like still exists. The time to change standards arrives now. Many people in the ballet community are starting to recognize this need and are taking steps to create a more accessible environment for people of all colors with institutions such as Project Plié. The lack of role models is a whole other issue but the process is slow and this is only the beginning.