NewYork City Ballet Dancers Agree to New Contract

As the New York Times reports here, dancers with the New York City Ballet (NYCB)  have been operating without a contract since the summer of 2012.  No details of the agreement are available, beyond the fact that the dancers are guaranteed pay for 38 weeks of work now, up from 37.  

A bit of quick internet research suggests that a member of the NYCB corps de ballet makes $1500 a week.  Let's assume the new contract is more generous and round up to $2000/week.  If they get paid for 38 weeks of work, that comes out to $76,000/year, which is a good salary in New York City, so long as you can share a studio apartment in an outer borrough with two or more other members of of the corps (or you can marry and investment banker).  There was a bit of controversy about five years ago when tax returns for Peter Martins, the NYCB's Ballet Master-in-Chief, surfaced and revealed that he made about $700,000.  Some of that money comes from royalties he earns on his choreographies.  In any case, it seems that was considered a lot of money for a dancer.

To put that in some perspective, the median salary for an NBA player is $1.75 milion, if we include players on short-term contracts.  The top salary exceeds $30 million, and the lowest salary, as of the 2011-12 season according to nba.com, was just under $500,000 for a rookie.

And now, here is the New York City Ballet performing an excerpt from George Balanchine's Agon