Her name is Sara Wookey and she is well known in the international dance world. When this choreographer and dancer with 16 years of experience was offered a chance to audition for an appearance in a renowned performance by world-renowned artist Marina Abramovich, she naturally seized it. She auditioned and passed the audition with six others, but not until after she signed a contract not to speak to anyone about the audition, under penalty of a $1 million bail.
Now she speaks, as she opposes the working conditions that applied at this performance. It involved a performance at a dinner at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, for which seats had been sold for $100,000 each. There, Wookey had to lie naked and dead still on a table for four hours as part of the artwork. The fee for this was a whopping $150, and then it was assumed that the 15 hours of rehearsal time were made at his own expense.
Wookey does not oppose the role, nor Abramovitsch, but rather the fact that there are still no proper agreements on working conditions for performing artists in the US. A minimum remuneration, as is common in Europe and Canada, does not exist.
Incidentally, compensation for performing artists is generally better regulated in the Netherlands, as long as they are affiliated to a sub-licensed company. Dancers and stage actors without a collective labour agreement are also badly off here. Musical actors usually get 1,500 euros gross a month for working weeks of six days, which usually include a total of eight shows.
Then Sara Wookey is still well off.
Read Sarah Wookey's open letter to her colleagues here
English (UK) 
Nederlands 
Français 
Read filmmaker Yvonne Rainer's letter on the issue: http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/yvonne+rainer
The anger in America is now also focusing on this outgrowth of the American 'giving culture'. How far do you have to go to still extract money from the very rich? After all, the MoCA has the naked dancers pose as table decorations on a dinner table, with the ladies also having to make eye contact with the table guests. Although they are told not to touch the 'works of art', the possibility cannot be ruled out that after the third glass of Californian wine, the culture of giving gives way to the equally famous American 'Gravy Culture'.
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