The fact of a dancer’s life is usually extra difficult than what we imagined as younger college students. We should develop into not simply highly effective artists but in addition expert entrepreneurs, social media managers, and self-care consultants. This, coupled with the necessity to pay hire and purchase meals, can create a heavy schedule of labor and artwork. Time administration and communication, important to sustaining any profession, are particularly essential in project-based work within the arts.
However when alternatives to work in our chosen artwork kind come up, in fact our first response is to say sure.
The tendency to overcommit is difficult. As dancers, we love what we do and wish to carry out. We expect we are able to do all of it. We regularly want a number of revenue streams merely to make ends meet. And in our post-pandemic world, there’s additionally a delicate worry that life alternatives will once more be taken away. Because of this, we could wish to tackle every part whereas we have now the prospect.
However we merely can’t produce our greatest work or keep wholesome once we tackle an excessive amount of accountability. That is once we’re extra prone to get injured or sick. We’ve to hurry from one venture to a different, risking accidents, being late, not consuming.
As a dancer, creative director of an expert dance firm, and choreographer, I’m steadily in search of artists for rent. I at all times have candid conversations with dancers at auditions and earlier than we start the rehearsal course of. We give them contracts to signal, which embrace the fee particulars and rehearsal schedule.
Most producers perceive that artists are juggling demanding schedules—schedules they typically have little management over—and are keen to compromise. Nonetheless, each forged consists of dancers who’re merely overcommitted. “Oh, I’ll solely miss a pair rehearsals” is a typical response, or “I can be taught off video.”
In our ever fast-paced way of life and state of world trauma, we have now misplaced the power to step again and ask, “Can I fulfill my job obligations?”
We regularly overcommit with the very best intentions, attempting to stability a gentle paycheck with freelance dance work. In these circumstances, speaking is essential. Be trustworthy and up entrance with everybody, together with your self. Let the manufacturing crew know of labor schedule conflicts forward of time, if and when you possibly can.
A part of studying to say no is trusting the method. If we are able to’t tackle a job, we have to remind ourselves that there can be different probabilities to bounce, in a time and area once we may give our all. It may be difficult to cobble collectively a profession from a set of dance tasks, however one of many upsides is that these tasks have a tendency to return in many alternative kinds: long-term, short-term, minimal and longer rehearsal occasions. With creativity, and the assist of understanding administrators, we are able to discover a good match.
It’s not straightforward to sq. our monetary and logistical realities with our creative goals. However approaching each our careers and one another with care and belief will assist us discover the suitable stability—permitting us to care for our bodily and psychological well being, and to point out up for every venture at our greatest.
Amy Jordan is a choreographer, writer, coach, and speaker, and the topic of the documentary Amy’s Victory Dance.
