12 August 29 - september 4, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents different pronouns we use and people have piercings and tattoos,” Lancaster says. “And we all came into the building with these things. And we are not allowed to show these on stage or any Dallas Black Dance Theater-affiliated gala, rehearsal, meeting, in the studio, in the airport or anywhere. “And on top of that, being a Black dance company, we have all these different types of hair textures — braids, locks, everything. But we are not allowed to wear durags or scarves … and that means backstage before the show, even though we have to lay down our edges and make sure that everything looks proper, which in the handbook says, if we do not look presentable then we could potentially be fired.” “In general, jewelry or earrings in any way is technically prohibited at Dallas Black Dance Theater for men only, that is on and off stage,” Rogers says. “We’ve been talked to [by leadership] about that, about the men specifi- cally, wearing earrings. We’ve expressed that it’s 2024, and you can’t really tell men that they can’t wear earrings but then the women can. It’s just kind of, like, discriminatory.” The dancers say they struggled to raise their concerns under fear of repercussions for breaking Dallas Black Dance Theatre’s strict code of communication hierarchy. Lancaster says that in 2023, while slated to perform a piece by a dancer who was fired and no longer allowed on the premises, the company asked their artistic director how to go about learning the choreography. When that direct superior wasn’t able to advise them, the dancers wrote a letter to the DBDT board asking for instruc- tions on how to proceed, only to be met with disciplinary action for stepping out of autho- rized lines of communication. After a particularly exhausting run of back-to-back performances in Houston at the end of February, the main company dancers experienced what Rogers calls “the actual defining moment where we all kind of looked at each other and decided that we needed a way to protect ourselves and to se- cure a conversation which we weren’t get- ting.” That’s when they decided to organize under the American Guild of Musical Art- ists, a labor union founded in 1936 with a membership of more than 6,000 fine-art dancers, singers and stage workers. Other AGMA signatories in the state include the Dallas Opera, the Richardson-based Texas Ballet Theatre, the Houston Ballet and the Houston Grand Opera. On April 30, the main company dancers informed Dallas Black Dance Theatre that they were unionizing, and that’s when things really started to go south. “Is there any retaliation here? That’s the argument: Are you guys retaliating over the union?” says Fuller about the allegations of union busting. “Of course not. No, we’re not. We’ve welcomed the union.” But Lancaster and Rogers say that after Dallas Black Dance Theatre refused to vol- untarily recognize the AGMA formation, leaving company dancers’ only option to pe- tition the National Labor Relations Board for a unionization vote, they were subjected to multiple sit-down meetings where DBDT leadership attempted to coerce them into squashing the idea. “They even sent us a letter from the founder, Ann Williams, basically a long let- ter telling us about her legacy and at the end of it, told us don’t vote yes for the [union] election and said, ‘Vote no, vote no, vote no,’” Rogers says. On May 29, all 14 main company dancers gathered in Studio A of Dallas Black Dance Theatre for a unanimous vote under the Na- tional Labor Relations Board to form an AGMA union. The next day, company performers were told by the Dallas Black Dance Theatre that for the first time, departing dancers would be required to purchase tickets in order to attend The Big Dance annual benefit event on June 1 (hosted this year by honorary chair Erykah Badu). A high-dollar cost of admission to the prestigious fundraising event barred four outgoing company mem- bers from the longstanding tradition of hon- oring the end of their tenure at the event. For company dancers, it felt like a low blow, but the hits would keep coming. The following week, the troupe says, the 10 remaining dancers were told that the four dancers selected from auditions — who had been informally offered positions to replace their outgoing predecessors — would not be receiving employment contracts from Dallas Black Dance Theatre after all. This shrunk the regularly 14-strong troupe down to 10 performers. The company members, who say they were already worn out by DBDT’s extensive performance schedule, feared the inevitable strain on their bodies that would come with picking up the slack during the upcoming season. On July 15, Sean J. Smith, rehearsal direc- tor and a company dancer for 14 years, had his written offer of employment revoked and was terminated immediately. According to a statement posted on @dancersofdbdt, Smith was an “integral” asset to the company whose hard work for the Dallas Black Dance The- atre went “beyond his job expectations.” And Then There Were Nine T he day after Smith’s dismissal, the company dancers say they were in- formed that their teaching positions at Dallas Black Dance Theatre Academy (a vital source of supplementary income) had been filled by second-company performers working for a lower wage. During this months-long reign of uncer- tainty, the dancers’ union filed three Na- tional Labor Relations Board cases against Dallas Black Dance Theatre that included charges of repudiation and modification of contract, changes in terms and conditions of employment, discharge (including layoff and refusal to hire) and concerted activities (including retaliation, discharge and disci- pline and coercive rules). The tipping point came on Aug. 9. Lan- caster recalls waking up that day to news of a post on the official Dallas Black Dance Theatre Instagram account announcing a new round of open-call auditions scheduled for Saturday, Aug. 17. “We were like, ‘Oh wow, we’re having an audition! They’re finally going to replace those four dancers that left,’ like this is a good sign that we’re finally moving forward,” Lan- caster says. “We felt so positive about it (...) and then an hour later, we got emails that we were all terminated. We were just shocked because who would post an audition notice to replace all their dancers before their dancers even knew that their jobs were gone?” An hour after the call for auditions went up, Dallas Black Dance Theatre posted a second announcement to its Instagram ad- dressing the mass termination. That post was deleted on Monday, Aug. 12, and re- placed with a rewritten version: “The Dallas Black Dance Theatre has made the difficult decision to terminate Main Company dancers after a video sur- faced that violated their contractual terms and our standards of artistic excellence. This decision is unrelated to their choice to join the American Guild of Musical Artists, and we value their right to organize,” the post read. “While we cannot comment pub- licly on specific personnel issues, we remain committed to honoring and respecting the rich heritage and history of the Dallas Black Dance Theatre, and we are dedicated to con- tinuing our mission of creating and produc- ing contemporary modern dance at the highest level of artistic excellence.” “Our interim national executive director [Allison Beck] has been a labor attorney and a labor person for many, many decades in many other industries,” says AGMA’s Griff Braun, “and said she has never seen any- thing quite this egregious in any industry that she’s worked in.” Braun is a native of Dallas and an alum- nus of Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts who traded his dance shoes for picket signs when he began his career in artists’ labor relations. His mother served on the Dallas Dance Council (now the Dance Council of North Texas) with Ann Williams, who founded the Dallas Black Dance Theatre, in the organiza- tion’s early years. “The Dallas arts community is sort of where I came from. I went off and danced in Europe and then in New York for decades, and then eventually moved into the union work,” Braun says. “But this is home for me. And it’s kind of almost a personal affront that a group of dancers in my hometown would be treated this way.” As AGMA’s current national organizing director, Braun is a leading advocate for the DBDT union struggle and had boots on the ground at last Saturday’s rally — during which, as it happens, no person was seen crossing the picket line for auditions at Dal- las Black Dance Theatre to replace termi- nated company dancers. AGMA had issued a do-not-work order for its own members (and members of affiliated performing arts labor unions) on Monday, Aug. 12. With the exception of Smith’s termina- tion being a confidential personnel matter, Fuller attributes the DBDT’s policies over this summer to economic stress in the arts nonprofit sector (despite the fact that the or- ganization could afford to pay executive di- rector Zanetta S. Drew $178,208 last year). Asked whether Dallas Black Dance The- atre acknowledges that the timing is ques- tionable, Fuller replied, “There will be people who will say the timing here is questionable. When you lay out the discovery process that the organization went through, that is very well protocoled — they found out about something, they adjudicated something. “[Dallas Black Dance Theatre] made sure that it was a comfortable decision,” Fuller says. “They reviewed that decision with all of the appropriate people within their com- munity of interest, legal representation and the organization leadership. And we knew that this type of scrutiny was possible. But at the end of the day, we have to sooner or later stop things from happening that we know aren’t right.” The dancers believe they will eventually have their day in court. “The legal avenue is being pursued fully with the unfair labor practice charges, and we will litigate that vigorously,” Braun says. “But that takes some time. These dancers need action now. They need their jobs back. (... ) A lot of these dancers uprooted and moved to Dallas for this. They’ve signed leases based on their letters of intent. “And now the foundation of their life here has been taken away economically but also artistically. For many of these dancers, this was their sort of dream company, and they got in. And now they’ve had the rug pulled out from under them, just because they wanted to have a voice in their working lives and try to make things a little better at the company.” Vanessa Quilantan Performers, supporters and pro-union activists turned out for the dancers of Dallas Black Dance Theatre. 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