Tools
Pay Guidance – Day Rates
Example Session Request Form (coming soon)
Invoice Template (coming soon)
Useful Links
Wellbeing
NIDMS (National Institute of Dance Medicine and Science)
Free NHS Dance Injury Clinics in London, Birmingham and Bath where you can see a specialist sports/dance medicine consultant and/or physiotherapist: An extremely thorough resource list for all things mental health, dance and performing arts – specialist and general. Complemented by BAPAM
BAPAM (British Association for Performing Arts Medicine)
Performing Arts Medicine Clinics Book free face to face clinical consultations; available in Belfast, Birmingham, Cardiff, Gateshead, Liverpool, London and Manchester. Complemented by NIDMS
Free workshops and training for artists and creators
Networking and Representation
Movement Directors Association
Legal and Financial
Uncultured Resources for freelancers including a template financial planner spreadsheet and ACE grant application Word templates.
The Illustrated Freelancer’s Guide A wealth of easily accessible information on how to operate as a freelance artist
HMRC Business Income Manual Information on what costs can be claimed on tax returns
Project Reports
Freelance Dance Artists’ Working Ecology – Project Report
This report is the accumulation of the project methods and findings. It includes policy recommendations and concludes with thoughts for moving the sector forward. The working group of freelance dance artists have been fundamental in shaping this report.
Policy Brief
This policy brief lays out the survey findings from 74 freelance dance artists and their contractual arrangements and working patterns from 2019-2021. Included is information on union membership and the ecology of freelance dance artists set in a wider arts context.
“Freelance dance artists exist within the same structures and have similar working conditions as other freelance art workers, but form a higher proportion of the workforce and with particular needs for resources. Their freelance income is also lower on average at £11,669 (Aujla et al, 2019) compared to £16,000 for performing arts freelancers (McDowall et al, 2019). The Coronavirus pandemic highlighted the precarity of the freelance art worker community, the fragility of their working practices, and the consequent weakness of this economic model.“
Further reading
On funding:
- A new deal for arts funding in England PEC, 12th January 2023
- The austerity decade: local government spending on culture PEC, 29th July 2021
Freelancers during and post pandemic:
- The impact of Covid-19 on jobs in the cultural sector – part 1 CCV December 2020
- Mind the Understanding Gap, The Value of Creative Freelancers, Coventry University
- Dancing Through Crises, University of Roehampton
- Dance Conversations and Dance Counts, A report on the living and working conditions of dance artists on the island of Ireland
- Dance After Lockdown Coventry University
- Freelance Task Force The 5 Guiding Principles
- Dance Freelance Task Force
- IPSE (The Association of Independent Professionals and the Self-Employed), The Self-Employed Landscape in 2021
In general:
