This essay investigates dance's “conditions of possibility” to argue that while dance and dancing is, in some ways unique, it many other ways it is similar to other types of labor. These types of labor function not simply as a job, or even career, but also as a “calling,” in the sense that they provide a core part of an individual's identity in the world and organize their life practices. Key dimensions of dance's labor which influence its precarity include the status of the arts in a particular social formation, the role of the state, the functioning of an informal economy, and the tension between art's marginalization and its simultaneous valuation as “priceless” cultural commodity.
