So, the New York Times is asking why some tiny, probably-struggling dance troupe didn't cancel their Kennedy Center dates. Let's be real—the question itself reeks of an outsider's perspective. To anyone inside the arts world, the answer is screamingly obvious, and it's not just about "the show must go on."
Think about it. You're a small company. Your entire year's budget might be less than what a big ballet corps spends on pointe shoes. Your dancers are freelancers piecing together gigs, your admin staff is probably one over-caffeinated person, and your "tour bus" is a rented van that smells faintly of feet and desperation.
Then you get the call. The Kennedy Center. The marble halls, the chandeliers, the prestige. It's not just a venue; it's a career-making, grant-application-golden-ticket, "we-made-it" validation. You book it two years in advance. You build your season around it. You put it in every funding proposal and donor pitch: "*...and in the spring, we'll be appearing at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.*"
Now, imagine something goes wrong. Let's say... a global pandemic. Or a funding cliff. Or a key dancer gets injured. The logical, business-minded thing might be to pull out. Save the money. Regroup.
But you can't. Or rather, you feel you absolutely cannot.
Here’s the brutal math of small arts organizations:
1. **The Relationship Tax:** The arts world runs on relationships. Canceling on a major institution like the Kennedy Center isn't just breaking a contract; it's burning a bridge. That programmer who took a chance on you? You'll be labeled "unreliable." Good luck getting your calls returned next season. For a tiny troupe, that one relationship might be your only pipeline to that tier of stage.
2. **The Momentum Mirage:** For small companies, momentum is everything. A Kennedy Center run creates a perception of momentum. It gets the local paper to cover you. It makes your hometown board members proud. It gives your dancers a line on their resume that gets them teaching gigs. Canceling shatters that illusion and reveals the fragile house of cards underneath. It's a confession of instability you cannot afford to make.
3. **The Sunk Cost Fallacy, But Make It Artistic:** You've already spent the money. The creation costs, the marketing materials, the specialized lighting cues. More than that, you've spent the emotional and artistic capital. Your dancers have bled for this piece. To cancel is to render all that sacrifice meaningless. For artists, that's a harder loss than money.
4. **The "For Exposure" Trap, Elite Edition:** We rightfully mock companies that ask artists to work "for exposure." But for a small dance troupe, playing the Kennedy Center *is* the ultimate "for exposure" gig—except the currency is legitimacy, not cash. The fee might barely cover costs, but the imprint is priceless. You're trading short-term financial sense for long-term reputational capital.
So when the Times wonders "why they didn't just cancel," they're missing the point. For a tiny troupe, canceling isn't an act of prudent management. It's an existential risk. It's choosing a certain, immediate death of reputation and opportunity over the potential death-by-a-thousand-cuts of going through with it.
They kept the dates because the stage at the Kennedy Center isn't just a stage. It's a lifeline. It's a signal to the world—and to themselves—that they belong. Even if getting there means maxing out credit cards, crashing on couches, and performing on pure adrenaline and hope.
That's not just dedication. That's the survival instinct of the modern artist. The show doesn't just "go on" out of tradition. It goes on because stopping is often the greater danger.
