It’s always sad when a good dancer disappears from the arts community – and it is so much sadder when the reason for their departure is financial. Over and over – it’s always the same story – the cash-strapped dancer takes a “normal” job which doesn’t give them the flexible hours they need to train and audition. After a while – they start to loose their physical ability and their dance career is over. A lot of times – this happens before their careers even get started – especially during that dangerous in-between stage – between when your parents were supporting your dreams and you are establishing your reputation as a solid dancer that people want to hire. There are countless numbers of dancers who have waitressed, worked in stores and cleaned toilets, etc. to make ends meet while they continued their training or when they were between jobs. People forget sometimes that dancers don’t get paid a whole lot – so the financial cushion during lay-offs is pretty slim. Survival is all about planning, saving, being fluid with your jobs and a little luck. Sometimes there is more to it. We were in Stavanger Norway when several of us got into the conversation of “What would you do to ensure you could dance?” What our conversation came down to was this – there are basically two kinds of people: those who will enter into uncomfortable situations to ensure their ability to dance and those who would rather forgo dance if basic needs are not met. I have had friends who crashed in other people’s apartments for months on end or cleaned up in gas stations because they were low on cash. My friend Todd lived with a guy for a year in your basic sex-for-living expenses and shelter arrangement. Some would say that Todd’s situation was prostitution but for Todd it was a mutually beneficial arrangement. He had a goal of being a dancer and this was the route he chose to get himself through a rough time.
In order to pursue my own dreams, I had spent almost an entire year in terror. I had managed to get a job as a waitress in a restaurant on New York’s East Side, near the United Nations. A friend of mine who worked at one of the sister restaurants talked the owners into hiring me – by lying about my past experience. Getting the job was pure luck and holding down the job was a miracle. I was – without a doubt – the worst waitress in New York City. I couldn’t remember the orders, I couldn’t write the orders down quickly and I couldn’t hold more than two plates at a time. Luckily for me – the establishment was more of a pub where the emphasis was on drinking. I developed some nice friendships with the bartender and the police who frequented the place. The problem was the chef – a fairly handsome man from the Dominican Republic named Pablo. Pablo seemed pretty easy going or at least he was in the beginning. About a month into the job, our working relationship changed and I still to this day have no idea what changed things. All I knew is that from that point on – every time I went into the kitchen Pablo grabbed me. I spent months getting pinned to the refrigerators, the sinks and up against the counters – it was a never-ending wrestling match. Things got so out of hand that I enlisted the help of the bartender. I would tell him when I was going into the kitchen to get an order and he would keep an eye on the kitchen door. If I didn’t return within a minute, he would come and get me by yelling to “Hurry up that order!” Unfortunately, the situation with Pablo escalated. The kitchen closed down every night at 9:00 at which time, Pablo would go home. I continued working in the bar until 1:00. I will never forget the first night that I came out of the restaurant and found Pablo waiting in the street for me. I fought him off that first night – then I used my friends – the cops in the bar. From that point on, the police took me home. It’s nice to have friends.
Around the same time, my friend who had gotten me the job, had an enormous fight with the chef of the sister restaurant. She was such a fantastic waitress that the owners decided to switch the chefs. Pablo went away and Mr. Chang arrived. I was relieved or at least I was temporarily. Mr. Chang was a handful. I had no problem with his constant screaming of guttural Chinese interjected with “Stupid girl”, but when he started throwing knives I knew that I had reached the end of my waitressing career. There’s no sensation quite like seeing a cleaver flying past your face. As luck would have it, a few days after the knives started flying, I landed a job in dance and could financially afford to leave.