Prolonging the Dance Career: Sustainability and Accessibility for Mid-to-Late Career Artists

Abstract

Name: MEEGAN HERTENSTEINERDate of Degree: MAY, 2026 Title of Study: PROLONGING THE DANCE CAREER: SUSTAINABILITY AND ACCESSIBILITY FOR MID-TO-LATE CAREER ARTISTS Major Field: DANCE Abstract: Longevity in the field of professional dance is examined empirically in pursuit of generalized practices to benefit artists seeking to extend their performative years, regardless of age or career maturity, rather than recognition of individual achievements or exceptions in this area. Drawing from embodied inquiry through personal practice and performance-as-research, combined with qualitative interviews with dancers across career stages, geographic locations, and professional contexts, the present study investigates how dancers sustain artistic, physical, and professional engagement over time. Rather than framing aging as decline, participants consistently described longevity as an adaptive process shaped by listening, care, access, and permission. Through personal praxis and performance-as-research, this thesis positions the dancing body as a site of knowledge. Improvisational performance, somatic practices, and choreographic inquiry are used to explore visibility, endurance, and witnessing, asking how dancers are seen, valued, and permitted to continue working as their bodies change. Performance emerges not as documentation, but as a mode of inquiry capable of generating insights unavailable through analysis alone. Interview findings reveal that sustaining a dance career is influenced by interconnected factors including mindset, cross-training, recovery practices, financial stability, community networks, and institutional support. Dancers emphasized the importance of personal health that is dance-informed, including preventative approaches to injury, ongoing anatomical learning, and diversified professional pathways. These lived strategies closely align with applied research framing dancers as high-performance bodies whose longevity depends on structural design rather than individual resilience alone. The thesis concludes with combined consideration of lessons learned from practical and interview research methods, with a focus on applicable takeaways for active dancers. Ultimately, this re- search argues that longevity in dance is not defined by duration, but by the conditions that allow dancers to remain in meaningful relationship with their work across a lifetime. Sustaining dance careers requires collective responsibility, representation, and systems designed to support change rather than deny it.