Dancers’ working conditions

Are you a dancer? Are you about to spend some time in another EU member State on a temporary work assignment or simply looking out for job opportunities? If yes, then this information is for you!
Dancers spend a considerable part of their lives training very hard to become professionals. They usually begin formal training at an early age – between 5 and 15 – and many have their first professional audition by age 17 or 18. When they succeed, despite the intense competition, their careers are notoriously short. Many dancers stop performing by their late 30’s. Whilst teaching, coaching, directing and choreography are among the possible career alternatives for professional dancers - indeed, some of them combine such work to some degree with their performance work – professional transition remains invaluable to offer a real spectrum of choices to dancers upon their early retirement and thereby ensure that these skilled and highly trained individuals can continue to be an asset on the labour market.
Dance is also very strenuous and physically demanding. As many dance companies tour for part of the year to supplement a limited performance schedule at home, dancers end up spending much of their time on the road. Most dance performances are in the evening, whereas rehearsals and practice take place during the day. As a result, dancers often work very long and late hours.
Finally, dancers rank amongst the most mobile of all performers. Less constrained by language barriers, they work in many countries throughout their careers and often struggle to reconcile different social security, tax and administrative regimes they may be subject to when that happens.
FIA has a long history of working with dancers, promoting valuable union assistance to those working temporarily abroad, gathering consistent data on their working conditions, disseminating good practices in the field of career transition – much of which is referenced on this page.
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24.01.2023
Konvertigo: A New Belgian Transition Scheme for Dancers,...
Conducted by FIA with the support of IOTPD, the International Organisation or the Transition of Professional Dancers, from 2016...[more]
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22.10.2019
A new transition scheme for dancers in Belgium: Konvertigo
About a year after the end of the EU project "Dance Futures: Creating Transition Schemes for Dancers and Promoting...[more]
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17.01.2019
Meeting report: Final Event of the Dance Futures Project
The final event of the Dance Futures project took place in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, on the 6th of November 2018. This event...[more]
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05.11.2018
Launch of the Dance Passport: A Union Solidarity Network...
ROTTERDAM, 6 November 2018: the International Federation of Actors (FIA) and its European members representing dancers launch the...[more]
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04.04.2018
Third Seminar of the Dance Futures project, Madrid
The third seminar of our European project Dance Futures took place on the 20/21 of March, in Madrid, Spain. The European meeting...[more]
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20.03.2018
Seminar: Dance Futures - Creating Transition Schemes for...
The is the third and last seminar of the project "Dance Futures - Creating Transition Schemes for Dancers and Promoting...[more]
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30.01.2018
Third meeting of the Dance Futures steering group,...
The steering committee of the project "Dance Futures - Creating Transition Schemes for Dancers and Promoting Sustainable...[more]
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06.10.2017
Report from the Dance Passport Meeting
The Dance Passport Meeting took place on September 26th, in Warsaw, Poland. This meeting was organised within the framework of...[more]
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26.09.2017
Dance Passport & EuroFIA meetings, Warsaw, 26-28 September
The next EuroFIA meeting will take place from the 26th to the 28th of September 2017 in Warsaw, Poland, hosted by FIA members...[more]
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20.06.2017
Dance Futures: Creating Transition Schemes for Dancers –...
The second seminar of our European project “Dance Futures: Creating Transition Schemes for Dancers and Promoting Sustainable...[more]
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18.05.2017
Seminar: Dance Futures - Creating Transition Schemes for...
This is the second working seminar of the project "Dance Futures - Creating Transition Schemes for Dancers and Promoting...[more]
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20.04.2017
Dance Futures: Creating Transition Schemes for Dancers –...
The first working seminar of our new European project “Dance Futures: Creating Transition Schemes for Dancers and Promoting...[more]
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22.03.2017
Seminar: Dance Futures - Creating Transition Schemes for...
The is the first seminar of the project "Dance Futures - Creating Transition Schemes for Dancers and Promoting Sustainable...[more]
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21.12.2016
Dance Futures: First meeting of the steering group
Dance is more a vocation than a profession. But the dancing career is intensive, insecure and short. Dancers are a highly...[more]
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20.10.2011
Dancers’ Career Transition: A EuroFIA Handbook
FIA’s new handbook on professional career transitions for dancers is now freely available for download in English, French,...[more]
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26.06.2011
EuroFIA Conference on Transition Schemes for Dancers
The International Federation of Actors (FIA) is running a project on career transition schemes for dancers in Europe with the...[more]
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15.09.2009
Guidance and Reference Document for Dancers Working Abroad
The EuroFIA working group on dancers has as its main priority the development of practical tools to support dancers and help to...[more]