Boston, MA (For Immediate Release) – Creative Action, a dance advocacy partnership between Midday Movement Series and Studio at 550, announce the launch of the Greater Boston DanceView, a first-of-its-kind effort for Greater Boston to tell the story of the Boston-area dance sector at the grassroots level through data collection and analysis designed by dance artists for dance artists. The DanceView will launch on March 9, 2026 and will close May 3, 2026. The survey will be open to all professional dance artists and small/micro dance organizations based in Boston, Cambridge, and Somerville, and will be available on this site. 

The DanceView will examine the current realities of Boston-area working artists, including demographics, space use, income levels and work wages, resource gaps and other needs, and inequities at the individual and systemic levels. Collected data will help provide a more comprehensive picture of the local grassroot dance workforce –individual artists and small/micro organizations with budgets under $500,000–including who they are, where they live, how they are making work, and what they need to continue living and creating in Greater Boston. This information will be used to advocate more successfully among municipalities and foundations; to create more impactful programming among local dance service organizations and institutions; and to provide more opportunity for collective action among local dance workers in the ecosystem.     

The DanceView seeks to address gaps in local arts reporting while building on previous analyses. Important recent local reports, such as the Mass Cultural Council 2024 Cultural Asset Inventory and SMU DataArts Arts Vibrancy Report, indicate that Massachusetts in general and Boston/Cambridge/Somerville in particular possess vibrant arts scenes, yet individual artists struggle to survive given the lack of consistent financial stability or creative infrastructure. Dance artists are particularly vulnerable as the lowest-paid artists in the state, with a median annual income of about $7,000. As MCC’s Executive Director Michael Bobbitt stated, “That is a crisis” –one that Creative Action seeks to address. Notably, these previous reports do not illuminate the ways that race, gender, disability, and other factors intersect with dance artists’ general vulnerability, nor do they capture the unique challenges endemic to supporting dance artists, given the inherently transient nature of their work that connects them to venues and resources across Greater Boston rather than exclusively within one city or one institution. Building off the success of other dance-specific studies, such as The Black Report by the International Association of Blacks in Dance and Dance/NYC’s Dance Industry Census, Creative Action seeks to address these information gaps through an analysis created by and for the local grassroots dance workforce.

Starting on March 9, individual artists and leaders of small/micro dance organizations (those with budgets under $500,000) will be invited to fill out the DanceView. All entries will be anonymous. The Census may be filled out online at www.creativeactionboston.org or in-person at one of Creative Action’s three DanceView Events in Boston, Cambridge, or Somerville. More information and Event registration available at www.creativeactionboston.org.

Creative Action, a dance advocacy partnership between Studio at 550 and Midday Movement Series, is on a mission to make advocacy for dance more possible and prominent in the Boston area. Each organization has provided an array of subsidized direct resources to the dance sector for a decade –including classes, consultations, studio space, performance and residency opportunities, and more.  Directors Callie Chapman (Studio at 550) and Marissa Molinar (Midday Movement Series) have each worked as organizers with the grassroots dance workforce for nearly fifteen years, working in community with artists and leaders across genres in the dance sector. Furthermore, as a BIPOC-led grassroots initiative, Midday Movement Series has been a leader in centering BIPOC and other marginalized dance artists at all levels of their work, from programs and operations to partnerships and community initiatives.

The DanceView is made possible through the generous support of the Cultural Equity Incubator, whose mission is to collaborate to disrupt, experiment, incubate, program, advocate, model, and educate around collective liberation, action, and leadership.