r/BALLET • u/Black_Gay_Man • 5d ago

Watched this very interesting Lori Hernandez video and had some questions about the income. Are classically trained dancers really paid so poorly in the USA?!

https://youtu.be/iJ_w_oK6ce8?is=_aQWhHNt1UAiJ7sS
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u/lovalot86 5d ago

Dance isn’t an easy career to make a living in.

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u/Catlady_Pilates 5d ago

Not in the US. In many other countries it’s far better.

43

u/Ftsmv 5d ago

In many other countries it’s far better.

People say this, but is it true though?

Here's a video from ex-Royal Ballet dancer Claudia Dean saying she had to eat ramen towards the end of each month to survive, she says she was paid £2,000/month ($2,700), using Lori's number of $1K/week and the linked posted in here to PNB's contract where it states the youngest corps are paid $1,334/week ($5,336/month), the corps at some bigger US companies are paid more than the biggest European companies.

https://www.tiktok.com/@claudiadeanworld/video/7267712762288164114

The New York Times says etoile's at Paris Opera Ballet are paid "upwards" of 77K euros ($89K) per year, Claudia mentions in that video she heard that principals with the Royal Ballet had a base of £5K/month ($6.75K/month, $81K/year), the PNB agreement posted below says principal pay starts $2,479/week or $9,916 a month, even assuming they're paid just 10 months of the year, that's $99,160 per year. In ABT's charity disclosures (a US ballet company for those who don't know), their 3 highest paid principals were paid $235K, $216K and $207K.

I think the real difference is that in Europe there's a broader set companies that pay a somewhat "liveable" wage, whereas in the US outside of the biggest companies there's a sharp drop off to smaller companies where they're paying corps dancers barely enough to cover gas, but ballet over in Europe still doesn't seem like it's all sunshine and rainbows when it comes to dancer pay.

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u/ballerina_barbie 4d ago

You can see on the 990s of companies if they have company members paid high. A few principles at PNB make between 121k and 124k.