Labor Unions in the Dance World (2): Speaking Up and Being Heard

Léa Poiré

Unionizing in France’s dance world isn’t as straightforward as in other fields, because of unique challenges to uniting performance professionals around collective issues: this was the conclusion of the first instalment of this 2-part investigation. However, when dance professionals organize together, through labor unions or in more informal settings, they know how to make their voices heard. In an increasingly threatening political climate, they’re using both tried-and-tested actions and new strategies to join forces.

The curtain won’t rise. When the director of the Paris Opera made the announcement, almost 45 minutes after the ballet Paquita was scheduled to start, the audience booed angrily. On December 5, the dancers deliberately arrived “late” to protest against the partial payment of their performance preparation time. Over the course of a month, this represented a total of up to 35 unpaid hours. Two weeks later, Sud Spectacle took over the fight from the labor union CGT: this time, other employees of the august institution denounced “chronic understaffing.” Management finally listened to the strikers and agreed to hire more people.

At the same time, another battle was being waged. The president of France’s Pays de la Loire region announced unprecedented budget cuts, including a 62% reduction in their financing for culture. A consortium of unions representing arts and culture professionals across the country immediately called for mass mobilization, and 2,400 demonstrators gathered in front of the region’s political and administrative center in Nantes. Despite these protests, the new budget bill was voted and passed, threatening thousands of jobs and the continued existence of certain arts venues. The National Center for Contemporary Dance Angers notably had to cut 20 performances, half its annual program.

Though the levers available for collective action to defend common interests (such as dialogue and concessions) are not always immediately effective, they remain essential in the face of the anxiety-inducing climate of unilateral decision making without consultation that looms over the dance world. In addition to the modes of direct action historically used by workers, like strikes and demonstrations, in-depth negotiations, though far less visible, are being carried out on a daily basis by union representatives.

“Fighting is one thing, but unions aren’t only about conflict,” says dancer Antoine Roux-Briffaud, an elected member of SFA-CGT, the primary union in France for performers. “Between answering e-mails, re-reading documents, writing practical fact sheets, helping to organize commissions... a lot of my union work is done at night,” laughs the man who also devotes time to advising performing artists without permanent contracts on their individual work situations. “It’s all volunteer, unpaid work, and the rule is: whoever is available... is available,” says Roux-Briffaud. “That’s how I ended up spending a week at the International Labor Organization in Geneva.”

Unions don’t only rely on volunteers. Even the smallest ones have “permanent” employees, “to ensure some form of continuity”, explains Julie Trouverie, herself an employee of the union Chorégraphes Associé·e·s. Tristan Ihne, who was elected to the SFA-CGT national office, left the Ballet de Lorraine to pursue his own choreographic projects and take on a part-time contract with the union, in order to manage day-to-day operations, defend an entire profession, and “be a dancer that is on the side of dancers.”

The reason he specifies this point is that it’s a challenge in itself to make the particularities of professional dance understood by the institutions they’re often at the bargaining table with. “I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen top management, often older people, realize while listening to me that they don’t know anything about our profession,” says Roux-Briffaud. “Following the departure of some of France’s leading choreographers from the board of the Syndeac, we were all very worried about the collective representation of dance,” recalls Alexandre Bourbonnais, Deputy Director of the National Choreographic Center in La Rochelle, who was elected as a substitute member of the union’s board alongside choreographer Mélanie Perrier. Within this arts employers’ union, both are involved in strengthening the “dance group.” Regular meetings resulted in a “thorough diagnosis of the sector” in 2022, including a “Plan for dance” written with four other collective bargaining organizations, including Chorégraphes Associé·e·s.

Aimed at the French Ministry of Culture, these proposals for more ethical working practices were not followed by drastic measures, but they did entail “compulsory solidarity between companies and venues.” For Perrier, this is a necessary step in the face of current urgencies. In January, the Héraut department followed in the footsteps of the Pays de la Loire region and cut 100% of its budget for culture. “We’ve noticed that elected representatives have lost the habit of attending performances, and therefore have zero knowledge” of local artistic programming, says the choreographer. “The idea of culture as a public service and something that all citizens can share is under threat,” says Perrier. “We have to rebuild a lot of what we thought were solid foundations.”

“Our lever for action is to be visible at the right time, in the right place, by the right people, and using the right vocabulary” Mélanie Perrier

Neither Perrier nor Bourbonnais are afraid of using the word ‘lobbying.’ “The strategy of political influence has long been sidelined by culture because it refers to industry,” they explain. “We don’t have anything to sell, but today we also have to convince politicians.” The Syndeac’s “dance group” has focused on communications, designing a fact sheet to explain “what dance can do” that they’re planning to present it to elected representatives of the National Federation of Municipal Cultural Affairs Directors in the Fall. The union has also initiated #deboutpourlaculture, posting photos on social media of audience members ‘standing up for culture’ at the end of performances. “Today, our lever for action is to be visible at the right time, in the right place, by the right people, and using the right vocabulary,” summarizes Perrier.

Alongside unions, who are “fighting” and “getting involved” on the “political and social” front, other collective voices are being raised. “There are plenty of choreographers’ groups being formed, and they insist that they are only groups, not unions,” adds Nathalie Tissot, the co-president of the Chorégraphes Associé·e·s union. She herself has joined a collective of choreographic companies in the Centre-Val de Loire region drawing the attention of the Ministry of Culture’s regional body to the extreme economic precarity of arts venues and their employees in the region, situated directly east of Pays de la Loire.

“It makes sense to multiply spaces for action and discussion when what you want to say can’t be said in a union,” says dancer Tristan Ihne, “One doesn’t preclude the other.” “The CGT can’t comment on the artistic content of works,” he explains, “and using the word ‘racialized’ is still an issue...”. La Permanence, a group of activists in the field of dance and performance, has, for example, accused choreographer Yoann Bourgeois of plagiarism in a video that went viral, as well as conducted a statistical study on the programming of non-white artists in culture venues, and organized one of the first public forums in France on sexual violence in the dance world. Roux-Briffaud adds: “It’s necessary to have these freer, more radical frameworks, to draw the unions towards these subjects. But we mustn’t forget that these representative unions are the ones that have the power to negotiate, to sign agreements, and therefore in the end, to make the law evolve.”

Léa Poiré is an independent journalist based in Paris and Lyon. After studying choreography and being in charge of the dance section and co-editor in chief for Mouvement magazine, she is now working in cultural journalism and media education. She collaborates regularly with choreographer Mette Edvardsen as a researcher and teaches critical writing and editing at the University of Saint-Etienne. She is also the editor of CN D magazine.

“Labor Unions in the Dance World (1): Stepping Towards Collective Organizing”
First part or the investigation in CN D Magazine
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Chorégraphes Associé·e·s
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« Vade-mecum du chorégraphe »
Publication: 2024
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Syndeac
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SFA-CGT
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La Permanence
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