I liked this documentary on Ballet 422, which refers to the 422nd original ballet produced from the New York City Ballet Company. This one comes from choreographer Justin Peck, a 25-year old dancer/choreographer – and it’s his first ballet for the company.

For someone like me, who knows little of the world of dance, it was educational to watch the process of choreography. It’s always been somewhat of an enigma, or it’s like magic. Anyway, I really enjoyed the interplay between the choreographer and the dancers, and the parts that almost seemed co-created, or at least collaborated on. How these fantastic dancers remember what they’re supposed to be doing is truly beyond me! But they do, I guess that’s why they’re stars of the NYC Ballet, eh?  Plus of course, there’s lots of eye candy no matter what your orientation happens to be.

The documentary (from director Jody Lee Lipes) also shows the requisite behind-the-scenes, including some parts of Justin’s life beyond Lincoln Center. We see him waiting for the subway, we see him go to his apartment in a borough other than Manhattan. It looks big enough by NYC standards, but then it got me thinking, he, a member of the corps de ballet probably doesn’t make enough money to live in that toniest part of New York.

So I looked up dancer salaries to get an idea. They are in the range, it seemed, of around $50,000 to $80,000 depending on what city they were dancing in and if they were chorus or principals or had a longer season, etc.

I found this information on The DL Reporter (http://dlreporter.com/2014/04/14/ballet-wage-issues/): (Raquel Nieves, author)

Jeremy Telman in his article, “New York City Ballet Dancers Agree to New Contract,” cited that a quick internet search suggests that a member of the corp de ballet makes $1,500 per week. He describes how the average rent in the city of Manhattan for a cramped one-bedroom is $3,150 per month and that it can get hard to find a two bedroom for under $1 million. “If the dancer gets paid for 38 weeks per year, that comes out to $76,000 per year, and that is a good salary in New York City as long as you can share a studio apartment in an outer borough with two or more other members of the corp (or you can marry an investment banker).[3]” Principal dancers, essentially the “A” list celebrities at ballet companies, make roughly about $1,000-$2,000 more per week than the corp de ballet (think below the line talent). Principals make more with the additional guest performance or teaching gig, but only a small percentage of dancers who join the company ever become principals.

So there you have it, on stage, like so many performers including actors and musicians, dancers appear to be so incredibly glamorous yet the society fails to reward artists for this. I also noticed during my viewing of the film that the theater building at Lincoln Center where the New York City Ballet performs is the David H. Koch Theater.

Yes, as in that Koch! Right, the Koch brothers, those infamous John Birch society right wing billionaire polluters from Kansas!

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According to the theater’s website:

In July 2008, philanthropist David H. Koch pledged to provide $100 million over the next 10 years for the purpose of renovating the theater and providing for an operating and maintenance endowment. It was renamed the David H. Koch Theater at the New York City Ballet Winter gala, Tuesday, November 25, of that year.

So great, he’s willing to support the actual structure and maintenance of the physical building, but the dancers who fly on the stage? Well, not so much, apparently. They are members of a union [American Guild of Musical Artists (AGMA)] and, well, you know, the Kochs, they just don’t like unions. Their group “Americans for Prosperity” helps states like Wisconsin gut union contracts, which is just another way to race to the bottom and destroy the middle class.

So I guess the dancers won’t really be able to look to David H. Koch for any help with their meager salaries that don’t really allow them to live in the city in which they perform. I guess it’s always been that way for robber barons, i.e., Andrew Carnegie probably didn’t help any turn of the century violinists with their rent either, though he built a theater in which they could perform.

Not that the $76,000 annual salary would make much sense to someone like David H. Koch, who, according to this piece, made $3 million PER HOUR from investments in 2012.

One of the last images in the film “Ballet 422” is of Justin Peck returning to the dressing room after all the curtain calls for this successful ballet premiere to don his costume to dance in the corps de ballet for the next offering in the program, later the same night. A worker among workers, a union man.