There's More Than Waitressing - dancers, choreographers and their day jobs - Column

Dance Magazine, April, 2001 by Jody Sperling

David Thomson, 41, has held an amazing array of dancing and non-dancing jobs in New York over the years. He has performed as a freelancer for many, many choreographers (Jane Comfort, Mel Wong, Marta Renzi and David Rousseve, to name a few), was a longtime member of Trisha Brown's company, and recently finished a year-long project with Ralph Lemon. Between dance jobs, Thomson has often worked with computers as an independent database consultant and, for three years, as a full-time database programmer at Random House. He's also worked in retail (a bookshop and a florist), in the editorial side of publishing and at an engineering firm. Thomson sees his breaks from performing as providing him with renewed energy and enthusiasm for dance when he returns to it. He'll never give up dancing entirely and dreams of finding a single job that can support, and leave time for, his artistic life. Thomson is now an apprentice at a paper mill in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood, where he's discovering a love of papermaking.

One finding of the NEA moonlighting report is that artists often have more than one artistic interest. Silvers's artistic life has spilled over into poetry and filmmaking. Dancers, like everyone else, lead complicated lives. Despite the intensity of the training and the level of commitment required to perform at a professional level, most dancers, out of necessity, do sustain outside careers and interests. This is not always a bad thing. As artists, we must apply our creativity to our living. Perhaps this makes us appreciate more fully our precious dancing hours.

Jody Sperling is a New York-based dancer, choreographer and freelance writer.