10,000 Signatures from the Dance Community... Calls for Enacting Dance Promotion Act and Expanding Job Opportunities

Major organizations and professionals in the dance community—including the Korea Dance Association, Professional Dancers' Support Center, Korean Ballet Association, and Korean Dance Society—have called on the government and the National Assembly to enact a Dance Promotion Act and to expand job opportunities, warning that the domestic dance ecosystem is facing a crisis.

The federation of dance professionals, "Solidarity for the Survival of the Korean Dance Community," announced on August 18 the release of an "Appeal for the Survival and Future of Korea’s Dance Community" and that it would launch a signature campaign with the goal of collecting 10,000 signatures from dance professionals nationwide.

According to Solidarity for Survival, since the campaign began on August 9, a total of 5,562 people—including 3,257 young dancers as well as members of national and public dance troupes and veteran dancers from across the country—have participated.

The organization emphasized that while Korean dancers such as Kim Kimin, Park Sae-eun, and Jun Minchul are active on world stages, the domestic dance ecosystem is steadily shrinking. The number of college dance departments nationwide, which once stood at 52, has now dropped to around 30. Many professionally trained dancers are unable to secure stable jobs and are leaving the field, leading to a further decline in the dance sector.

Solidarity for Survival explained that the dance community has worked to create job and activity bases on its own. According to the organization, through the Seoul City New Deal Jobs Program, 9.2 billion won was provided to 390 young and professional dancers, and through public and Hope Job Projects, an additional 380 million won was extended to 41 dancers. Furthermore, a workforce support project run by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism supported approximately 1,400 dancers nationwide with 13 billion won. Dedicated spaces for dance have also been established, such as the Seoul Dance Creation Center, the nation's first public theater exclusively for dance, which has four above-ground floors, one basement level, a black box theater with 252 seats, and studios. Initiatives led by the Professional Dancers' Support Center and others continue to support career transitions for dancers, job placements, and the prevention and rehabilitation of injuries.

However, Solidarity for Survival argued that such self-help efforts from within the dance industry have reached their limits. The lack of a legal foundation and a sustainable state policy support system at the national level has led to a deepening crisis in the field.

To address the structural crisis in the industry, Solidarity for Survival has called on the government and the National Assembly to adopt four key policy measures.

First, it urged the swift enactment of the Dance Promotion Act—which has been under discussion in the National Assembly for several years—to provide a legal basis for a national medium- to long-term plan for expanding dedicated dance theaters and research institutions, strengthening dance education in schools, supporting creation, performance, and research, and improving the rights and welfare of dancers. The organization also called for increased policy and financial support for dance events and support institutions such as the National Dance Festival and the Professional Dancers' Support Center. It advocated for an expansion in the number of national, public, and regional professional dance troupes, as well as enhanced dance education in schools to increase stable job opportunities for dancers. In addition, it pushed for improved support systems for creative work, noting that much of the current support funding is spent on venue rental and facilities/technical services. It argued that support should better reflect actual production costs, that the scale of support should be increased, venue rental fees at public performance facilities should be reduced, and that more dedicated dance theaters should be established.

The organization stated, "What we need is national action to create a sustainable ecosystem in which creation, performance, education, research, welfare, and employment for dancers operate in a virtuous cycle, moving beyond individual organizations or dancers simply struggling for survival." They added, "Through the campaign to collect 10,000 signatures, we will deliver the voice of the dance community to the government and the National Assembly and will continue to take action until policy improvements are achieved."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.