Politics and Pirouettes Don't Mix
I've been writing about dance for years. Ballet scandals, company bankruptcies, artistic director feuds—I thought I'd seen it all. Then an ethics complaint against AOC mentioned "troubling expenses" tied to a dance company, and I genuinely laughed out loud.
Not because ethics complaints are funny. They're not. But because whoever filed this clearly doesn't understand how arts funding actually works.
Here's What Bugs Me
Dance companies survive on scraps. Most dancers I know have side hustles—Pilates certification, teaching kids, bartending. A mid-sized company might operate on $500K a year while a single political campaign burns through that in weeks.
So when I see "dance company" and "ethics violation" in the same sentence, my first thought isn't "corruption!" It's "someone finally gave money to artists and now it's a problem?"
Doesn't mean AOC's in the clear. If documentation's missing or funds were misused, that's real. But the framing itself reveals something ugly: arts funding is so rare that when it happens, it looks suspicious.
I've Been There
Last year, a small contemporary company I follow lost their NEA grant. Not because they did anything wrong—because someone decided their work was "too experimental." The artistic director cried in my DMs. Her dancers were on unemployment within two months.
Meanwhile, defense contractors overcharge by billions and it's a "clerical error."
You see why I'm cynical.
What This Is Really About
If AOC supported a dance company, good. That's what arts advocates should do. If she did it wrong, fix the process. But don't pretend the scandal is the funding itself.
The scandal is that funding artists is notable enough to make headlines.
The Real Question
Forget the complaint for a second. When's the last time a politician's arts spending made news? That's the story—not the ethics complaint, but the fact that we're shocked a progressive put money behind something creative.
Most politicians dump funds into the same safe buckets: infrastructure, defense, tax incentives. Arts? Too risky. Too "frivolous." Too easy to attack.
So yeah, I want answers about these expenses. But I also want more politicians spending money on dance companies, theaters, and community arts programs. Make it boring. Make it normal.
When funding artists becomes unremarkable, we'll know we've actually accomplished something.
