UK Higher Education Institutions are being required to reflect on the balance between academic and vocational aspects of their course provision and to identify more clearly how they are preparing their students for employment. This is not a simple matter. The UK arts and cultural sector is highly complex, with the characteristic features of a diversified and fragmented post-Fordist labour market. The artist's world of work is under-described and the extent to which artists need to work entrepreneurially is under-appreciated. All artists, including dancers, need to understand this working context if they are to navigate it successfully. This paper draws on a participatory action research project with artists to explore the complex trading relations that artists engage in. It offers a starting contribution to what will undoubtedly be an ongoing developmental field of inquiry and debate. (Contains 1 figure.)