ABSTRACT
Adopting a Marxist perspective, this chapter aims to provide an overview of the working conditions of performing art workers, whilst considering their invisible precarity, individualism and lack of unionism, using the case study of workers based in the Lombardy region of Italy. We highlight the fragmentation and fragility of their working conditions and the scarce forms of collective bargaining in the sector before the pandemic, showing how COVID-19 triggered the emergence of many formal and informal workers’ groups. In our conclusion, we reflect on the connections between the Marxist perspective and the fragile performing art workers’ conditions, highlighting how COVID-19, seen as a moment of shock, might have disrupted, in the long term and not only for the emergency, the unfairly taken-for-granted paradigms of the industry.
