Yesterday I was in a union meeting. Among other things, a brief discussion was had about the evolution of individual contracts versus group contracts in particular among ballet and theater companies, not necessarily on the opera side of things. It was pointed out that the movement began primarily because more and more dancers wanted to be seen as soloists in the troupe rather than "ensemble dancers", and they wanted to negotiate their own contracts accordingly. Over time that has led to less negotiating power for dancers, ultimately developing into much lower pay, often the legal minimum salary for dancers. That led me to connect the dots between that devolution of solidarity in the ranks of ballet troupes where each had been a part of the braided fabric, strong and durable, to the political devolution we're starting to see around the world. For some time now, countries have been murmuring about wanting out of the EU. Granted, there are positives and nega...
Layman's Look is my own ideas about what is going on in different situations. Sometimes a guy just wants a place to put his thoughts out there. That's what this is for me.