The thorny issue of flowers in the performing arts.

Flowers arranged at home. (Photo: ©Sonja Nikkila 2008)

The other week my five-year-old daughter had her first ballet recital. It was a lovely if slightly drawn-out affair, with well-executed dances from the older students punctuated by delightfully cute potterings around the stage from the tiny girls, and everything in between. Even my three-year-old son put aside his vehement protests at being there in admiration for the senior modern ballet girls’ performance. “It had cool music,” was his assessment, but also, it was an impressive performance of compelling choreography. 

And how did my daughter do? Great. Actually, she and her class proved themselves as performers not only when the music cut out and they continued with their dancing, but when the music came back on again and they almost seamlessly returned to the correct spot in their routine. That, my friends, is why you put your children into dance and music.

The recital was coloured however by the expense of it all. From a professionally-made costume costing over $100 and worn on stage for all of five minutes, to the tickets at $28 a head for a concert in a proper performing arts venue. This was a professional performance in all facets bar the performers themselves. Suffice to say, my eyebrows raised a little on seeing all the parents carrying flowers for their darling children, and then a florists’ stand in the auditorium, presumably there to fleece any parents who were as yet unaware that small girls are supposed to receive flowers after ballet recitals. 

My mother sarcastically asked me if I was going to buy some flowers, to which I curtly replied, “she’s not a soloist; she doesn’t get flowers.” Then my rant began to formulate.

Was I perhaps bitter about my own chorus status? I have very rarely received the soloists’ flowers, but once when a friend gave me flowers after a performance, I was actually embarrassed. After all, I was just a chorus member in a concert performance of Acis and Galatea; you could’ve just bought me a drink. No, hang on, I actually would have preferred a drink. Or several, because a bunch of flowers could buy several drinks. 

I really like flowers. I love front gardens stuffed to the brim with cottage blooms. I’d love to have the money to full my house with deliciously fragrant bouquets or the means to regularly pick bunches of wild flowers. I do love flowers, but aside from the delight of receiving a completely unwarranted and unexpected bunch of flowers, I’ve never really had much time for the floral industry. Or at least in its relationship to the performing industry.

I’ve seen my sister - a professional singer of high regard - receive more flowers than she has the space for in her flat, and on a couple of occasions I’ve quickly calculated that all those bunches could have paid for a week’s rent. I’ve also seen her receive flowers after scandalously underpaid performances when the male soloists have received bottles of wine. That wine may not cover the costs of rehearsal and concert, and actually could be much less expensive than the flowers, but at least it’s arguably more useful and more enjoyable.

I’ve seen performers given flowers from audience members who have tried to get themselves reduced-priced tickets or comps because they’re family members. People who won’t pay more than $10 for the performance - money that should go towards paying the performers themselves - but will fork out over $30 for flowers as an act of congratulations. An act that pays the florist appropriately.

Let me repeat that: we will pay the florist but not the performer.

Returning to my daughter’s amateur ballet recital, the florists’ stand further reinforced for me the cultural practice of disregarding the worth of a performer. Even for a child’s performance, we will pay the auditorium staff according to the letter of employment law, we will pay the costume makers professional rates, we will pay the technical staff, and we will probably pay the teachers (though we might try and skimp on that if at all possible). Furthermore, we will pay the florists for materials and labour.

But we will tell our small children that if you perform all you will get are flowers that will die in a few days and are probably meaningless to you at this point in your life.

And get used to it kid, because chances are if you manage to get into a ballet company in your late teens or early 20s, you will struggle to pay the rent, but your art will be rewarded in more flowers than you know what to do with. The florist, however, will still be appropriately compensated.

So, I apologise to the florists of this world; I love the product of your art and will buy flowers when I can for their own sake, but I will not buy flowers for my daughter’s or my son’s performances. I’d rather they get a certificate, a ribbon or a cheap medal to acknowledge their year’s work. You can’t keep flowers, but twenty years after I stopped dancing, I still have all my certificates, ribbons and medals as mementos of a childhood full of love and labour in the performing arts.

If your child really deserves a reward after an excellent performance, how about putting the $20 or $30 you would otherwise spend on flowers into their bank account? It may be less ostentatious, and perhaps even a little mercenary, but it will quietly suggest the notion that performers should be paid too.