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Meet Felicia Rosenfeld of Dance Resource Center

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Felicia Rosenfeld.

Felicia, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Dance Resource Center (DRC) has promoted the viability and visibility of Los Angeles dance on local, state and national levels since 1987. By providing its members, constituencies, and the public, with information, resources and direct programming, DRC leads as the hub and a voice for dance in Greater Los Angeles. Dance Resource Center’s constituents include several thousand dance companies, choreographers, dancers, teachers, students, presenters, studios, collaborators, and dance enthusiasts. Currently, the DRC has over 200 active members and interacts with over 5000 dance stakeholders in LA County and environs. Through the work of our members DRC reaches approximately 10,000 Greater LA area residents. Membership is open to all professional dance companies, dance makers and dance stakeholders. We welcome all genres, organizational formats, voices and perspectives. Just as Southern California is the most diverse region of the United States, so does DRC seek to represent and include dance forms and voices that reflect this rich diversity.

Dance Resource Center (DRC) moves LA dance makers from having to “do it yourself,” to being able to “do it together.”

The Los Angeles dance community produces some of the most vibrant dance works in the United States with minimal institutional support. As independent (unincorporated) artists, artists borrowing or sharing a non-profit aegis or 501(c)3 entities that can barely manage the required paperwork, most members of the Los Angeles dance community survive on shaky, infrastructural ground with budgets below $250,000. They are struggling small business owners contributing dollars and workforce hours to the regional economy. Despite these serious organizational challenges, LA dance makers and presenters and teachers bring countless transformative hours and experiences to all Greater LA residents. The Los Angeles dance community is a prime example of a 21st Century entrepreneurial ecosystem made up of members who don’t wait for work to come their way, but create and present work and bring dance to the larger community proactively. Whether being transported for two hours to a beautiful space; reaching towards better health during a class; fighting the debilitating consequences of Parkinson’s’, or leading a joyous celebration during a life cycle event, dance plays a seminal role in the lives of a healthy Los Angeles.

Dance Resource Center’s work empowers these minimally institutionalized dance-makers, festival organizers and producers to achieve the organizational behavior of more institutionally developed organizations without forcing them to abandon artistic priorities. In fact, DRC’s services and programming allow this community to thrive artistically while establishing stable infrastructure. DRC is the only discipline specific dance service organization in the Greater LA area offering creative options to meet the often daunting infrastructural needs of its stakeholders, including helping artists survive the proverbial mid-career creative slump and providing strategic planning and mentoring in a peer supported setting. Always, DRC tries to stay nimble and retain staff with diverse skillsets so that it can continually adapt its services and programming in accordance with the evolving needs of its stakeholders.

As the hub of Greater Los Angeles dance, DRC also plays a crucial community-building role by offering opportunities for its constituents to convene and network both in the physical world and virtually through its website. Geographically, DRC’s members and stakeholders are scattered throughout LA County’s 88 municipalities and numerous other adjacent communities. This dance community, spread out over a far-flung and diverse geographic area, is challenged by the lack of centralized locations to network, exchange information and strengthen ties between individuals, companies and organizations. Consequently, Los Angeles dance has often been perceived as fragmented and isolated or as a marginalized medium where dance artists compete for limited resources and struggle for recognition of their work. To meet this challenge, DRC recently has embarked on creating a new website that can more effectively serve as a virtual, centralized communal venue for Greater Los Angeles dance. DRC’s website, in addition to serving its members and constituencies, also functions as the primary portal for the general public to learn about Los Angeles dance and transmits to the larger world that a thriving Los Angeles dance community indeed exists. Simultaneously, DRC remains committed to sponsoring convenings and other events where its constituents can find in-person community and feel part of a cohesive whole.

Has it been a smooth road?
Dance Resource Center, as a small not-for-profit continues to struggle with there never being sufficient stable funding. Despite this major challenge, DRC has persevered on the bumpy road that is a not-for-profit arts service organization’s life. Although in existence since 1987, Dance Resource Center really relaunched in July 2015 as a fully professional organization, thanks to the California Community Foundation’s Nonprofit Sustainability Initiative. This process allowed DRC staff to learn more about the organization and sift through the infrastructural underpinnings–speed bumps did appear. For almost 30 years, DRC had been run like a small, manage by the seat of your pants, dance organization; not always following good governance or taking the time to create and follow best business organizational practices. Some were small, like reopening bank accounts because the inherited ones had been opened as regular corporate accounts as opposed to not-for-profit corporate accounts. Others required more amelioration: the agreements and procedures for participating in DRC’s fiscal sponsorship program had to be completely redone, and DRC’s by-laws had not been revised since 1987 when the organization formed. DRC staff has worked methodically to assess, analyze and reform each organizational element as needed. This process was mostly completed at the end of the 2016-2017 fiscal year. We had to move twice; we learned that we needed to better focus and streamline our programming so that staff can deliver it up to expectations. Issues that are common themes in the life of a small not-for-profit organization.

We have learned many lessons since July 2015. The biggest lesson learned is that no matter how small an organization, setting aside time to explore, plan and strategize about fulfilling mission is essential. When resources of all kinds are precious, we often get so caught up in the day to day administration of an organization that it runs from a position of scarcity. We can never keep up. We can never get ahead. The last two years have taught and allowed DRC to have some breathing space within which staff and Board can examine where the organization came from, where it was before the merger, where it stands, and where it needs to go to successfully serve and lead the Greater LA dance community. Over the next two years, DRC plans to continue to refine and mature its organization, its messaging, and, most importantly, its programming and services to the field. To do this in a creative, thoughtful and measured way, DRC will continue to need support that allows for staff and experts to have the time for research, analysis, reflection, creating and implementation. DRC also learned that although an arts organization, it does not create or present art. Rather, DRC serves as a kind of economic and community development organization whose community is the professional LA dance community. DRC’s work supports very thinly institutionalized dance organizations-usually having only one person to create the work and run the “business”-so that they can focus on the creative process and engaging with citizens to enrich the lives of all Angelinos.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
Dance Resource Center is the only dance specific service organization serving the Greater Los Angeles dance community: all its genres and elements. We are welcoming, nonjudgmental, and seek to empower our members and constituents to achieve delineated successes and to advance the LA dance field locally, regionally and nationally. We work with larges segments of the community as well as providing programming that works intensely and deeply one on one with dance companies, dance makers, festivals and presenters.

What We Do:

Networking & Community Engagement:

• Dance News: Keeping community members up to date weekly on performances, events, job listings, classes, auditions, artist opportunities, news and advocacy.
• Calendar: The online hub for news and dance events for the professional and the enthusiast.
• Day of Dancer Health: A day of devoted to dancer health and wellness.
• Convenings: Networking, professional development workshops, in-depth discussions, community conversations.
• Lester Horton Awards: A community celebration of excellence in LA dance, recognizing community members who advance the field of dance and fuel the vibrancy of Los Angeles arts.

Administrative Services:

• Consultations: DRC staff is available to consult with DRC members and constituents in all areas of importance to not-for-profits and small businesses.
• E-blasts: Individualized e-blasts to our ever growing list of dance audiences.
• Fiscal Sponsorship through non-profit status for professional dance projects allows for receipt of tax deductible donations from individuals and the ability to apply for certain grants.
• Social Media: DRC posts about members’ activities on its social media outlets.
• Staffing: DRC provides direct administrative support to dance companies, organizations and projects.
• Technical Assistance: DRC works with funders, government agencies and other organizations to provide technical assistance in a variety of formats.

Artistic Development:

• Home Grown: supports maturation of local dance makers’ work via performances, residencies and showcases.

Advocacy & Resources:

• Member Discounts: Discounts on tickets, classes, memberships, advertising, and events.
• Advocacy, Community Outreach & Research: DRC works to ensure that the activities, economics, workforce, and interests of LA dance are better understood and represented on local, state, and national levels.
• Resources: DRC provides resources in all areas of interest to the professional dance community through on-line lists, as well as accessible, responsive staff.

Dance Resource Center is proud to serve through leadership and support and to bring affordable “behind the scenes” administration and creative development to the LA dance community. There is no other centralized hub and voice for professional dance in the region.

Contact Info:

 
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