Jessica Chen on the Creative Economy, Disappearing Arts Funding, and Why Artists Are Small Business Owners

By Kekeletso Nkele, small.news Assistant

Q: How do you see the intersection of being a creative, an artist, and a business owner?

A: To me, a small business owner is someone with a bold idea who wants to elevate their community. The business is more than a profit engine. It’s a way to drive positive social impact, innovation, and human connection. When a small business succeeds, it directly lifts up the community around it. That’s not far from what artists want to do.

People don’t always connect dance and the economy, but look at the numbers. My company is based in New York City, where the creative economy generates $145 billion in economic output, about 11% of the city’s entire economy, and supports over half a million jobs.

This fall, I’m choreographing Les Misérables at Syracuse Stage, a major regional theater that has hosted out-of-town tryouts for several Broadway shows. The theater has about 500 seats, and over five or six weeks we’ll have roughly 35 performances. That’s more than 17,000 audience members buying tickets, getting dressed up, having dinner at a local restaurant, grabbing a drink at intermission, and getting a treat after the show. The production provides jobs for performers, dancers, stage managers, technicians, and box office staff, and it feeds the local businesses around the theater. Artists are major economic drivers. It’s on the business side to see artists as small business owners, and on artists to see themselves that way, too.

We’re a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, so our operating costs depend entirely on grants and private donations. We file taxes too, though it looks different from an SBA form, and the incentives differ, but I can draw real comparisons between the nonprofit world and small business. It’s not a favorable time for either, with inflation and corporate pressure. In my world, the National Endowment for the Arts has canceled hundreds of existing grants nationwide amid attempts to defund it entirely. A small company like ours has no chance at an NEA grant. We had it in our timeline to apply, and we decided not to because we can’t afford the resources the application takes. We had spent years cultivating relationships in the NEA’s dance department, and those have evaporated because the staff resigned.

Major institutions have pulled back, too. The MAP Fund had 35 years of national re-granting, and it stopped its programming two years ago when supporters like the Doris Duke and Mellon Foundations concluded their funding. That trickles down. When open calls vanish, it creates an equity crisis. Open calls have historically been the equalizer, where an underfunded, underrepresented artist could apply, have their work seen by a panel, and get a foot in the door. The balance between open calls and invitation-only opportunities is tipping, and that makes it even harder for artists who don’t already have visibility, a support system, or their own financial resources. I see parallels for small business owners.

Q: What is your personal relationship to protecting the art, keeping it pure, and needing to generate revenue?

A: I toggle back and forth. Being an artist, especially in this country, requires a lot of putting yourself out there, applying, and getting rejected. I’m most creative when I’m inspired and confident, so the question is how to maintain that through constant rejection.

But it’s part of the system. If in one year I get five rejections and three yeses, that’s eight panels, eight communities, eight institutions that have now been introduced to my work. Maybe a panelist on one of the rejections fought for me and lost, and then sits on another panel and says, “I’m not letting this artist go again.” A lot of invisible things happen.

It’s like the dark matter and dark energy I’m researching for my current project, which make up about 95% of the universe. We can’t see them, but we know they exist because of how they interact with stars and planets. Panelists are like that. I know these people have watched my work samples, and I know it’s affecting me somehow, but I can’t see it.

When you do get funding, whether it’s a city grant, a state grant, or a grant from a large institution, you have to fit your project into each funder’s narrative and objectives. That can strain your creativity and leave you a little disillusioned.

Q: Tell us about Wonder. Where did it come from?

A:Wonder is a new evening-length work that blends astrophysics and contemporary dance. I’m collaborating with science producer Dr. Crystal Dilworth, who assembled a science advisory board of NASA astronauts, scientists, and engineers. We started the conversation in 2024, and the piece grew out of an earlier work of mine, AAPI Heroes. Now it has its own engine, like a rocket ship going up.

It’s a multidisciplinary work that explores the cosmic forces shaping our universe and shows why deep space exploration and human spaceflight matter to life on Earth. JPL engineer Steve Collins, who has been a key figure on NASA’s Mars rover missions, including Spirit, Opportunity, and now Perseverance, keeps talking about orbital mechanics. He explained that if you’re going from Earth to the sun, you don’t aim directly at it. You go at an angle so that by the time you arrive, the sun is there. All the math around that is a choreographic device in itself.

Retired NASA astronaut Leland Melvin told me he would find a private spot on the International Space Station to watch the Earth while listening to jazz. On the ISS you see about 16 sunrises and sunsets in a day. In my head, I see a moment in space with a single light on one of my dancers doing a sexy jazz solo, maybe to “Livery Stable Blues,” the first recorded jazz song, or to a new piece with my composer. That’s still up in the air. But the moment celebrates the beautiful things humans have created, like jazz, dance, and rockets that can take us to the moon.

The piece is meant to inspire curiosity and wonder, and to share a little about cutting-edge astrophysics. NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, with its infrared technology, may help us learn more about dark matter and dark energy. There are really cool things happening in space exploration, and I want to shine a light on that.

Small business owners, artists, and scientists ask some of the same questions. The James Webb telescope can capture light from near the beginning of time, and essentially we’re all particles from that explosion. Where do we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? Scientists and artists both ask that, and I’m bringing them together.

It started with Sunita Williams, who was on the ISS in 2024 when Crystal and I began this conversation. About a year ago, while we were workshopping at the University of Kansas, I made a bold statement: I want to make a dance that brings the overview effect to the audience. That’s what astronauts experience seeing Earth from space, a feeling of unity and oneness with all of humanity. Research suggests that people who contemplate something larger than themselves become less self-absorbed and more connected to others. In a divided world where we sometimes turn inward, I hope Wonder makes us look up. We’re planning an April 2027 premiere.

Q: What feels most concerning or unsettling to you as a small business owner?

A: With all the major shifts across economics, politics, and technology, my concern is that we close off our imagination and innovation. I also see an opportunity. Our biggest advantage as small business owners, artists, and scientists is agility. Because we’re small, we can pivot faster than corporate machines, take radical artistic risks, and innovate in ways a corporation never could. What concerns me is our ability to imagine from within, without asking AI to imagine for us.

Q: If you had a Magic Silver Wand and could make one thing true for small businesses right now, what would you use it for?

A: I live in Hell’s Kitchen, and I walk around my neighborhood and see a lot of empty storefronts. I wonder why. If rent and space are a huge problem, I’d love to take over one of those spaces, have my company rehearse there, and bring our human energy into it. So with my wand, I’d have landlords open those spaces to local artists and small business owners rather than leave them vacant as a corporate tax write-off. And I’d make healthcare universal.

Q: How can our community support you?

A: You can find us at jchenproject.com and on Instagram, which is our most active account, at @jchenproject. To follow my own work, it’s @jessicachen.arts. Engagement is always helpful. We’re also fundraising for Wonder right now, with a goal of $30,000, and every donation is fully tax-deductible.

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