What is the value of our work? In a neoliberal economy driven by profit, loss, and return, how can we define and affirm the value of artistic labor – something inherently difficult to quantify? Is the value only to be found in monetary retribution? What has become of the value of art and artistic practice today? Perhaps the question is not only how to redefine the value of the arts, but under which values and conditions we can continue to create and work as dancers, movers, choreographers, and dance workers. In other words, what values do we want to stand for in the Germany of today.

In Berlin, artists and cultural workers have lived for the past two and a half years under constant suspicion. This has manifested through austerity measures that extend their effects to migrant and queer communities, along with the systems that sustain diversity, solidarity and cultural participation. If the state uses cultural funding as a tool for political repression, how do we resist that? What, then, is the true value of what we do – and how does our work change under such conditions?   

As we witness alternative structures of care emerging, what kinds of work are workers in the dance field turning to beyond stage performances. How can we affirm and support each other throughout these changes and what kind of lobbyism is needed today. 

In this workshop and panel discussion, moderated by Zeitgenössischer Tanz Berlin (ZTB) e.V., we will take a deeper look into the economics of our field through the lens of value, examining its intersections  with care work and other types of invisible or unquantifiable labor.