Get the money you’ve earned?
In most cases, you will not get the money you deserve for something you create in the arts. At the moment, I have the honor of choreographing a piece for my old ballet studio. Doing this is so much fun and gives me that wonderful high I can only get from being creative. Seeing what I imagine come to life is an indescribable experience. I am not going to tell you how much I am getting paid, but I will tell you that putting together the piece outside of rehearsal takes a lot of time. Hours on top of hours. I love the work, but I still have no concept of good pay versus low pay. No clue. I don’t have a person I could ask and I have only choreographed when it comes to the same person when it comes to actually being paid. The worst I was ever paid? I will gladly share - it was $100 to choreograph an entire musical. I took the job because I wanted to jump at the opportunity to choreograph a musical. But the result from getting paid so little, I did not put much work into it at all. I was not being paid for my time at all - I was lucky enough if it was covering most of my gas expenses to get to and from the theatre. I do not like putting out bad work. In my head, at the time, I put in my best efforts to create the dances. But now that time has passed, and I can really see the big picture, I can see how I took offense to the low pay and therefore unconsciously pulled back in my efforts so I would not be as offended. It was an automatic way to defend my ego. I am not defending myself at all. It was what it was … which brings me to this question? How hard would you work if you were not getting the money you “should be earning?”
