Dancers win workplace childcare - Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre

Dance Magazine, March, 1997 by Paul Ben-Itzhak

NEW YORK CITY--The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater has agreed to provide limited on-site childcare to its dancers, becoming the first performing arts company in the United States to guarantee the service in a contract. The three-year contract provides one week of childcare during its first year, and two in the subsequent years. The agreement was signed in October, but details were not announced until late December.

"This was a major coup," says Alex Dube, administrator for dance at the American Guild of Musical Artists. "This is the first time in a performing artists' collective bargaining agreement that there is a provision for paid childcare in the workplace." Officials of the Screen Actors Guild, Actors Equity, and the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists confirm that none of their contracts provide for on-site childcare.

The Ailey contract agreement now states: "The Employer will provide space at its New York Studios during one week in the first contract year, and two weeks each of the subsequent years, as selected by the Employer. for children of the Artists with a paid caregiver during the rehearsal day. The Employer shall provide a total of $450 per week to subsidize the expense incurred by the parent(s)."

Dube says that the dancers would like to see the number of weeks expanded in future contracts. Ailey dancers typically work fourteen weeks per year at the company's home base in New York City.

"The artists of Alvin Ailey believe this is the beginning of a very important provision in the collective bargaining agreement," Dube says. "Hopefully, in all future negotiations this will only grow and be more effective for more members of the company who have children. This year it starts out a week, next year we'll probably get a couple of more weeks, then the next year a few more. This is something that will grow, because it will turn out to be a good thing....

"Childcare in the work place is a very normal fact of life. You work for a major corporation, and they have a day care center downstairs. Why should artists be any different? Why should they be deprived of seeing their child during the day, especially for a company that tours a lot?" With between thirty and forty weeks on the road per year, the Ailey company tours more than any other, says Dube.

At present, two company dancers have children: Linda-Denise Evans and Toni Pierce.

"It's time to accommodate us," says Evans, who with Leonard Meek represents the dancers. For many years, she points out, the conventional wisdom was that "if you had a child, your career as a dancer was over. And that's not happening nowadays. People are having babies. We're moms, but we're dancers too. Just to be acknowledged by the company is a big step. I [now] feel like, as a mom, I'm not ignored by the company." During the company's December City Center season, Evans's three-year-old daughter, Adia, was close at hand, with a nanny provided by the company watching her. "It was great," says the dancer.

Whether Evans and other dancers will eventually get more than a couple of weeks of childcare is problematic. "I don't see realistically that it could happen," says Ailey executive director Sharon Luckman. "Alley, like most companies, only has a certain amount of money. We are a nonprofit organization, and whether it's in anyone's interest to give a percentage to mothers as opposed to someone who needs to take care of an elderly parent, these are very complicated issues. It's not realistic to think that out of that pocket of money we could spend a big part of that money on people who happen to be parents."

Dube not only thinks it's realistic to hope the company will add more weeks of on-site childcare, he also maintains Ailey has become an example for other companies. "The administration of the Ailey company should be proud and pleased that they have set a paradigm for all other dance companies nationwide," he says.

Will others follow suit? "It has never come up" in contract talks, says American Ballet Theatre spokesman Robert Pontarelli. "So we don't have a reaction one way or the other." Glenn McCoy, general manager of San Francisco Ballet, says that the issue did not arise at SFB's last contract negotiations. However, he adds, "Just like any other issue that's bargainable, we'd be willing to listen to and talk to our dancers" if they brought the issue up. "We'd be willing to bargain." At SFB, principals David Palmer and Yuri Possokhov are the only parents.

At New York City Ballet, where five principals have children, a spokesman was noncommittal when asked if the company would consider offering on-site childcare. "We're very supportive of our dancers having children," says spokesman Steve Miller. "But at present we don't have a plan such as Ailey's." NYCB parents include Helene Alexopoulos, Peter Boal, Darci Kistler, Lourdes Lopez, and Kyra Nichols.

At Pacific Northwest Ballet, where one dancer is a parent, spokesperson Ashley Fosberg says, "We're always looking to improve the quality of life for our dancers. [On-site childcare] is something we would consider in the future, if it becomes more of a need. Nationwide, in any profession, that's more of a consideration, so why wouldn't it be in dance?"