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By Maggie Kelleher
As the COVID-19 crisis continues, SMU’s performing artists face unique challenges as they look towards entering the workforce.
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inding a career in the performing arts has never been easy. During a worldwide pandemic, it’s almost impossible. For Southern Methodist University students majoring in the performing arts — theater, dance and music — this means uncertainty and instability as they enter the workforce. Some students even say they are opting for career paths unrelated to their major in the face of such challenging times. Kat Robertson, who graduated from SMU in 2020 with degrees in both dance performance and health and society, has dedicated most of her life to dance. She started dancing at the age of 3. At 15, she joined the University of North Carolina School of the Arts’ high school dance program, where she studied ballet for three years. Robertson came to SMU because of its dance program and had plans to move to New York to audition for dance companies and Broadway shows following graduation. Then COVID-19 hit. The audition processes Robertson had already started were halted indefinitely, and Broadway is closed until at least Jan. 3, 2021. “It’s been a huge punch in the face in a way — graduating from a university with a degree in the performing arts, feeling really prepared and having that fire lit underneath me, and then the initial drop off,” said Robertson. “It has been terrifying. I had all of my eggs in the performing arts basket.” As COVID-19-related business closures became more widespread in early March, performing arts communities were some of the first to be hit hard
financially. Being home of the largest contiguous urban arts district in the nation, Dallas has been profoundly impacted. “The arts play a larger role in the overall economy and the good of society,” said Jim Hart, SMU’s Director of Arts Entrepreneurship and an accomplished actor, director, writer and producer. “They are part of a larger creative community, and if they are going to survive, they need financial resources.” According to research conducted by The Arts Community Alliance, Dallas Arts District and Dallas Area Cultural Advocacy Coalition, Dallas arts and culture-related COVID-19 losses topped $67 million between March 13, when most major closures were initiated, and July 31. Since then, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has issued guidelines for reopening performance venues, but with reduced capacity numbers and other restrictions, many have struggled to adapt or have opted to stay closed altogether for the time being. This means that money is short and few, if any, performing arts groups are looking to hire in the near future. “Now, I’m nannying and doing really anything I can,” said Robertson. “I would still like to pursue dance in the future. I’m trying to stay optimistic, but I also have to be realistic.” Hart has seen firsthand the hurdles students have had to overcome as a result of COVID-19. To come out ahead in a global pandemic, students will need to rely on entrepreneurial spirit and think beyond traditional job roles
“It has been terrifying,
I had all my eggs in the performing basket.”
30 • SMU LOOK
