Andrea Deagon
New member
The answers to this might seem obvious, but I'm interested to hear what people say.
Do you take tips or go out for tips (have a place in your performance where you encourage patrons to tip you)?
If so, why?
If not, why not?
I guess what I'm interested in is, do you have reasons other than "money is good" for taking tips or designing your work situation so you can get them?
One reason I'm asking is that I have been reading (for my own arcane reasons) a number of sociological studies of strippers and tipping, and while there are other secondary issues, the primary issue in that situation is money, money, money. How to manipulate audience members for money, and how far you will compromise yourself to get more, and what interpersonal strategies get the most.
So -- being inflamatory here -- do we have substantially different motives than strippers for pursuing tipping from our audience -- or do we just draw the line of what we'll do to get them, in a different place?
I ask this because I think a lot of belly dancers do encounter issues of personal compromise in tipping situations. I used to take tipping in the costume for granted, then reached a point where I was fed up with it and wouldn't do it any more. There was a long period in the middle there where I felt a little irked at some of it, but didn't change.
For me, never having made my complete living from dance, and having lived in small markets where I could set my price and make sure I was well paid for my performances, the amount I made from tips was miniscule compared to all my other sources of income (not that I'm rich, just that it's rare to come home swimming in tip money from dance performances in smallish restaurants in coastal North Carolina). But over the course of my (looong) dance career, those relatively insignificant tip dollars had a lot of emotion attached, one way or the other.
Do you take tips or go out for tips (have a place in your performance where you encourage patrons to tip you)?
If so, why?
If not, why not?
I guess what I'm interested in is, do you have reasons other than "money is good" for taking tips or designing your work situation so you can get them?
One reason I'm asking is that I have been reading (for my own arcane reasons) a number of sociological studies of strippers and tipping, and while there are other secondary issues, the primary issue in that situation is money, money, money. How to manipulate audience members for money, and how far you will compromise yourself to get more, and what interpersonal strategies get the most.
So -- being inflamatory here -- do we have substantially different motives than strippers for pursuing tipping from our audience -- or do we just draw the line of what we'll do to get them, in a different place?
I ask this because I think a lot of belly dancers do encounter issues of personal compromise in tipping situations. I used to take tipping in the costume for granted, then reached a point where I was fed up with it and wouldn't do it any more. There was a long period in the middle there where I felt a little irked at some of it, but didn't change.
For me, never having made my complete living from dance, and having lived in small markets where I could set my price and make sure I was well paid for my performances, the amount I made from tips was miniscule compared to all my other sources of income (not that I'm rich, just that it's rare to come home swimming in tip money from dance performances in smallish restaurants in coastal North Carolina). But over the course of my (looong) dance career, those relatively insignificant tip dollars had a lot of emotion attached, one way or the other.