Arts & Culture

Akron summit hosts choreography professionals and public can join dance too

By Kabir Bhatia

Published May 31, 2022 at 1:39 PM EDT

Participants in NCCAkron's summit will include (left to right) Dominic Moore-Dunson, Antuan Byers, and NCCAkron Executive/Artistic Director Christy Bolingbroke -- finding ways to buck trends in the administration of dance programs, schools, and venues. [Dale Dong / ] — Participants in NCCAkron's summit will include (left to right) Dominic Moore-Dunson, Antuan Byers, and NCCAkron Executive/Artistic Director Christy Bolingbroke -- finding ways to buck trends in the administration of dance programs, schools, and venues.

The University of Akron's National Center for Choreography is rethinking the business side of dance as part of a summit this week. And the public can participate too.

Dancers, artist managers and fundraising professionals from around the country will be in the Rubber City starting Thursday for the conference, which builds on two years of remote work studying best practices in running dance companies, schools and venues.

The choreography center’s executive director, Christy Bolingbroke, said she is “bursting with enthusiasm” for the events happening Downtown, June 2-4.

“There is no one way of making dances, so why would we prescribe one way of doing dance business?” she said.

She cites a 2016 study from the New England Foundation for the Arts, “ Moving Dance Forward,” which found that 80 percent of today's dance field is working on a project basis.

“That means that they are contracted,” she said. “They are getting 1099s from individual employers or taking the income and the personal tax liability because they aren't incorporated as an LLC or as a conventional 501(c)(3). So, we've really been pushing that: How do they navigate the very conventional, traditional systems to be able to capitalize on available resources?”

Bolingbroke added that if teaching is not a part of a group’s artistic viewpoint, then they don't need to open a dance studio or school, freeing them up to identify other opportunities.

NCCAkron will host three free public events as part of the summit.

Marc Bamuthi Joseph -- Vice President and Artistic Director of Social Impact at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts -- will speak at the main branch of the Akron-Summit County Public Library on Friday at 1 p.m.

Kate Wallich – founder of Seattle-based Dance Church – will lead a dance class at Cascade Plaza on Saturday at 10 a.m. Rain location is Greystone Hall. It will be followed at noon by the panel discussion, “Mindset, Motivation, and Money: Where Artist Meets Enterprise” at the Akron Civic Theatre.

Registration for the events is recommended, and proof of vaccination or a negative COVID test will be required.

Funded by a multi-year grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, NCCAkron’s Creative Administration Research participants share and compare notes from their individual journeys in dance administration. Bolingbroke says they hope to take the lessons learned through case studies and publish them in a book late next year through the University of Akron Press.