The fact of a dancer’s life is usually extra difficult than what we imagined as younger college students. We should grow to be not simply highly effective artists but additionally expert entrepreneurs, social media managers, and self-care specialists. 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, after all our first response is to say sure.
The tendency to overcommit is difficult. As dancers, we love what we do and need to carry out. We expect we will do all of it. We regularly want a number of earnings streams merely to make ends meet. And in our post-pandemic world, there may be additionally a delicate concern that life alternatives will once more be taken away. In consequence, we could need to tackle the whole lot whereas we have now the possibility.
However we merely can’t produce our greatest work or keep wholesome after we tackle an excessive amount of duty. That is after we’re extra more likely to get injured or sick. We now have to hurry from one undertaking to a different, risking accidents, being late, not consuming.
As a dancer, creative director of knowledgeable dance firm, and choreographer, I’m steadily looking for 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 usually have little management over—and are keen to compromise. Nonetheless, each forged contains 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 life-style and state of worldwide trauma, we have now misplaced the flexibility to step again and ask, “Can I fulfill my job obligations?”
We regularly overcommit with one of the best intentions, attempting to steadiness a gradual paycheck with freelance dance work. In these circumstances, speaking is vital. Be sincere and up entrance with everybody, together with your self. Let the manufacturing staff know of labor schedule conflicts forward of time, if and when you may.
A part of studying to say no is trusting the method. If we will’t tackle a job, we have to remind ourselves that there shall be different probabilities to bounce, in a time and house after we may give our all. It may be difficult to cobble collectively a profession from a set of dance initiatives, however one of many upsides is that these initiatives have a tendency to come back in many various types: long-term, short-term, minimal and longer rehearsal instances. With creativity, and the help of understanding administrators, we will 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 best steadiness—permitting us to care for our bodily and psychological well being, and to point out up for every undertaking at our greatest.
Amy Jordan is a choreographer, creator, coach, and speaker, and the topic of the documentary Amy’s Victory Dance.
