Current networks

Networking is definitely an important part of any professional career but especially between performers. Networking is how we can keep up to date with the ever changing dance world, find out useful information such as auditions that don’t always get posted, meet new people and develop new contacts. The name of the game is getting to know people and influential people if possible.

The widely used quote ‘It’s not What you know, It’s who you know’ instantly springs to mind

Never a truer word spoken. In my experience so far all of my opportunities and those of others close to me have come through chance meetings with someone or even being heard of or seen without meeting at all! For example my friend and I were working in a small touring Ballet company, he was always great at making friends even those that not everyone could get along with At the end of the contract one of these people who everyone else tried to ignore it turned out was a good friend of the Director of Ballet West and then recommended my friend to work as a guest principal with the company, he didn’t even audition and ended up touring China in Romeo and Juliet. Also my friend was very pro-active in finding company class; after working on a one off project with ENB he always goes back to take company class with the help of the human resources coordinator who he had befriended and realised she would soon be company manager, this goes to show the importance of friend making not necessarily with just dancers but influential members of a company.

This statement could be expanded to how well you know the person and not just if you know them at all. This really makes me think of such things at ENB my friend is now really good friends with all the dancers there and all the ballet staff know his name just because he kept letting them see him and get to know him and whenever anything comes up it’s always his name first. Another thing on this same line is sites such as Networkdance.net where you can let people get to know you without meeting you in the interest of employment and networking. It contains a way to blog, put some personal info about yourself, pictures and videos just like facebook. The website is accessed by all the company directors from all the major companies all over the world and again my pro active friend is right in there, he literally just yesterday turned down an international gala opportunity in Chicago but in doing so he had a conversation with the directors of many American state companies and was invited again next year.

My current networks are:
- past and present teachers
- past production managers/directors
- past teachers/choreographers
- friends in the business
- previous colleagues

My tools that I currently use to engage with these networks are:
- Email
- Facebook
- Telephone
- Arranging meetings
- Networkdance.net
- dancerspro.com
Since we left college my friend and I have barely applied for an audition let alone been to one due to the future of networking, the people he knows have got him amazing jobs such as touring internationally with CATS or Mercutio touring in China so he’s never been out of work.

The more experienced we become in our profession, the bigger our networks will be. Other dancers now ask for his contact details for work in the future because he’s so well travelled. This shows that further along we get in our careers the more we are able to give back due to the experience and people we know.

Inquiry

Through reflection I have begun to ask questions which isolate aspects of my work and have shown me what parts of dance and performance I wish to explore and improve

What in your daily practice gets you really enthusiastic to find out more about?

I have always been very passionate about Classical Ballet and, although it sounds like a very ‘schoolgirl’ and narrow-minded approach to appreciating dance, It is the finer detail of pure technique and furthermore using said technique to create artistic expression so beautiful or exciting it makes those watching feel moved or enthralled.

What gets you angry or makes you sad? Who do you admire who shares your

feelings or has found away to work around the sadness or anger?

What angers me so much in this industry is the blatant abundance of ignorance. With Dance now at a fantastic media high I feel it is tainted with ignorance and the impression that what we do is easy or in some cases that your success is proportional to your hardships and sob stories. A fine example of this is the BBC programme ‘So You Think You Can Dance’. Don’t misunderstand me I am actually a big fan of this especially as my friends, Charlie Bruce and Drew Mconie, did very well last year but on watching some of the other competitors who progressed rather far I felt their talent was mediocre but their back stories were extraordinary. This raises two dilemmas; 1: People who watch mediocre, or even terrible dancers in some cases, believe that they are talented and that is what great dance looks like and 2: people are also led to believe that if you have a heart warming back story you can get anywhere in dance. Obviously professionals know that these people are accepted into the show to make entertaining television but members of the public and prospective audience members begin to think that no effort needs to be made to become a dancer and a sob story will suffice. My Dance teacher Terry Wright is someone who I admire who shares this same view; as an ex-dancer and first soloist with English National Ballet and a teacher at Arts Ed Tring for over 20 years she clearly has an expansive knowledge of dance and it’s technique, especially Ballet. While under her instruction she gave me a section to read from-

Beaumont, Cyril, Idzikowski, Stanislas. A Manual of the Theory and Practice of Classical Theatrical Dancing (Methode Cecchetti).Dover Publications, Inc. New York, 1975. (first published in 1922).

“Advice to those Contemplating the Study of Dancing.

Pause- and think a score, fifty, a hundred times before you devote yourself to the study of the dance.

Do you realise the difficulty of this art, at once so beautiful and so ungrateful? Do you realise how many obstacles must be surmounted before you can become a dancer, even of average ability? Then think of the labour that must be expended, the injustices, intrigues and jealousies of distinction. If you are still undaunted by these disagreeable facts, you have proved yourself to possess enthusiasm and determination, qualities indispensable to success.

Consider your physical, personal and mental qualifications. If you are too young to do this for yourself, let your parents or guardians give their thought to so vital a matter.

Do not imagine that you can become a dancer in six months. Terpsichore is a jealous goddess, and those who seek fame among her votaries must sacrifice at her altar years of patient study and hours of physical labour. Weigh carefully these words, and if after due consideration you still find yourself consumed with a passion for the dance, the first question that arises is the choice of a master.

I really feel that these words articulate the endeavour of dance and its struggles very eloquently.

What do you love about what you do? Who do you admire who also seems to love this or is an example of what you love?

The best part of what I do for me is achieving something that my body shouldn’t be able to do; what I mean is that some amazing dancers that we see today have these amazing bodies that are almost custom built to dance, not that I’m saying they don’t work hard because it is obvious that they do however I am definitely not one of those people! If you’ve seen my legs you’ll agree. What I’m driving at here is being able to achieve something with a perfect body is great but when you achieve something with limitations then that’s something really special. I think a lot of the people I went to college with agree with me as Tring merited itself on being able to make all sorts of dancers whereas places such as the royal ballet looked for a certain aesthetic which stopped many of my colleagues being accepted. I have great respect for all these people as many of them are now either Principals in ballet companies touring the world with contemporary or working the west end in musical theatre they may not have had a perfect body but they worked hard, achieved what they wanted and are now never out of work.

What do you feel you don’t Understand? Who do you admire who does seem to understand it or has found a way of making not understanding beautiful or interesting, or has asked the same questions as you?

Something I have been unable to understand since I began touring ballet is the variety of audience responses; for example the ugly sisters in Cinderella, at some venues the jokes would bring the house down but at others the response was a definite ‘tumbleweed’ moment. Some people who I really admire are the dancers of English National Ballet Company and I remember some of them asking the same question. The conclusion that they came to was very simple ‘we dance exactly what we’ve been instructed to at the best of our ability, everybody is different and not everyone laughs at the same things. Also when the audience is not as experienced at watching ballet they are more reluctant to express their feelings in case of embarrassment...plus we still get paid the same if they like it or not!’

Reflective theory

Reflective Practice encourages us to question what it is we know and how we have come about to acquire this knowledge; reflecting on our strengths and also where we can improve.

John Dewey (1930) was the first to realise the true value of reflection as an aid for learning. He stated that those trying to learn in a chosen field need to first be active in ‘doing’ for, lack of a better word, but then in thinking back on what we are trying to achieve and the information that relates/aids this goal.

Many would rename this process as ‘Critical Thinking’ and that is what I have encountered numerous times in the world of dance and performance.

According to Google Critical Thinking is:

An essential tool of inquiry; purposeful, self regulatory judgment that results in interpretation, analysis, evaluation, and inference, as well as explanation of the evidential, conceptual, methodological, criteriological, or contextual considerations upon which that judgment is based. The ideal critical thinker is habitually inquisitive, well-informed, trustful of reason, open-minded, flexible, fair-minded in evaluation, honest in facing personal biases, prudent in making judgments, willing to reconsider, clear about issues, orderly in complex matters, diligent in seeking relevant information, reasonable in the selection of criteria, focused in inquiry, and persistent in seeking results which are as precise as the subject and the circumstances of inquiry permit’.

I first encountered Critical Thinking/Reflective Practice as a learning aid at Tring Park School for the performing Arts (Formerly Arts Educational, Tring). I have mentioned before that it was here we were asked to keep a journal of corrections and constructive criticism on how we might improve it was a also a vehicle for learning the English language which is also relevant to this point. Writing these notes down made us adopt a process of physically banking all the useful information required for improvement as well as making us recall them in our minds (by looking back over the relevant parts). This is exactly step by step the process Dewey was referring to. It wasn’t just useful to apply this technique from one day to the next but to adopt this tactic in real time; thinking of a movement in its finer detail before you execute it. For example a double pirouette, stop, think about placing your weight over your turning leg, hold in the core, go up to the turn as your feet push down into the floor, etc.

In my professional work after training has finished, it is now up to me to establish what isn’t working, as opposed to being told by a teacher, and how to improve. Without reflecting on my actual performances, my rapport with the company and my base technique I cannot hope to improve and this is why I really value keeping my own version of a journal which is encouraged by this course. The journal not only contains technical corrections but also company member observations, Dos and Don’ts, Audience feedback paired with things that I changed or tried new in performance etc.

Reflective practitioners have been described as those who;

‘understand how to think and learn from their experiences in practice and to apply and monitor the outcomes of that learning’ (Moon 1999:42).

I think the reflective journal is already beginning to help me, I have already seen two company members whom I was working with become blacklisted due to poor company skills and correction management and I feel that if they had the opportunity to understand learning like I and many other professional have, they might have avoided this fate.

Moon also refers to journal writing as enhancing “self empowerment”, when confidence is at a low. There are so many rejections to be faced in this industry and a bit ego boosting and self empowerment can really go along way. A friend of mine has a Journal himself and he has a section with a condensed version of his CV including all of his favourite and proudest moments of his career and next to them he has all about why they were good and how they could still have been improved if similar opportunities were ever to arise. I think this is a fantastic example of what Moon was talking about when he mentioned “Self Empowerment”

When reading through some other people’s thoughts on this same subject and a lot seem to talk about Kolb and Fry’s Experimental Learning Model (ELM) from the 1970s but when I first read about it I couldn’t really relate it to my own learning especially in the four elements so I decided to take this model and adapt it to aid my own learning, making it into a dancers four elements.

Cycle for learning and improving repertoire for performance

Set Choreography

(Learn work from Choreographer)

Rehearse

(Show Choreographer by physically dancing)

Relect/Criticize

(Hear Corrections/ Praise)

Apply

(apply feedback for further rehearsal or a performance...curtain up!)

Reflective writing

The day I decided to write about was Saturday 5^th of March 2011, the day of the last performance of Cinderella with Ballet Theatre UK because I felt it was quite a unique day in the tour and was worth writing about in more detail.

Description : What happened?, What where the main events?, Where and When?

Saturday 5^th March 2011 at Melton Theatre in Melton Mowbray. I left at 11.30 to drive from my house to the theatre. Class was at 4.30 and was obviously our last one; we had some people in taking company class. I did the last performance of Cinderella with Ballet Theatre UK,  my role was Cinderella; the show was at 7:30pm. I then attended an after party for the whole cast.

Initial Reflection : What did you feel about it? What were you thinking? Did anything unexpected happen? What was your mood?

I was really excited to do that performance from the morning because it was our last performance of Cinderella but I felt a bit sad as well as the 6 month journey from September was finally coming to an end. When we were doing class I felt everyone was really happy and I was happy too but I was a bit scared because I really pressured myself to make the last show a good one as I’m sure many dancers can relate to. The director Chris Moore sat us all down after the class and thanked us for all our hard work, I really appreciated this as praise can sometimes get overlooked during a tour because everybody is so busy; it was really refreshing to receive some positives! He also made framed photographs for all the cast members of their best performance photo taken during the tour. Before show started lots of people were taking pictures and seemed to be very relaxed, this made me very relaxed and encouraged me to just enjoy our last show together. During the show I think it all went well for me, the pas de deux was one of our best compared to other performances. It was sad but also a relief to check off each section as ‘the last time’ during the performance especially during the final pas de deux where it truly felt like the end.

List : Make a list of all the things that come to your mind about the day. Things you saw? Felt? Did?

During the day it began to dawn on me that a lack of performance time was coming up fast, I was happy when I thought about having a rest but I knew that I would have to go back to helping out at college and be poor again as I won’t start work again until September ... there’s only so many times you can have beans on toast! I also remembered that when I’m dancing I feel a bit lost and empty as I really miss being on stage and performing for an audience.

Evaluation : What did you think went well? What worked? Did you learn anything, discover anything, and notice things to avoid?

I thought overall the whole performance went very well, everyone seemed happy about it as well. And also all the lifts and partner work felt strong for me. I still practiced the pas de deux before the show; I learned that this can really clarify where you are in your body (on your leg, pulled up properly, warm enough, etc.) and although I had done so many shows I learned that there are always ways to improve and just because it’s the final performance it should still grow and improve. During performance the director was filming the performance but I found that I should avoid focusing on adding extras into the work in an effort to make the show better just because he is filming but instead to remain disciplined and concentrate on what I had made work through rehearsals and all the other shows.

What if? : What could have happened? What would you love to happen, what would you hate to and happen. Use your imagination, you can be amazing!

Despite it being very vain, I would love it if the director of a big ballet company such as The Royal Ballet or American Ballet Theatre came to watch our performance and after the show came backstage to congratulate me and to offer me a contract to start right away. On another note I would love it if the one company member that has been horrible to work with this season finally got his comeuppance when the director tells him that he can never work for this company again! I would hate it if I had had a terrible show for the final performance and the director approaches me and says “you are not good enough to ever work for me or anybody else ever again, do us all a favour and retire, I’ve told every other director not to hire you in the future because you aren’t good enough for this industry” that is the stuff of nightmares!

Another View

I am going to write from the perspective of my colleague and best friend. I was always rubbish at getting up in the morning but I had to be up for when Kazuka could drive me to the theatre, it was very kind of her to give me a lift; I would have gotten up at 1 or 2 if I could have done! When I got to the theatre I knew that Kazuka was playing Cinderella and having partnered her for 5 years was once again saddened at the thought of not being able to dance opposite her as the Prince, it still gets me very frustrated that just because I’m shorter than average, a far less able dancer should have the opportunity to dance a principal role over me, especially when I’m in the wings during his variation watching him kill it. I always just get on with it, however, as being professional is always part of my approach to work ‘class and dignity’ is my motto! I was really happy to have finished the tour as the show was really starting to tire and I had really run out of new ways of using my comic character to make the audience respond.

from first hand testimony.

Overall this day was a real landmark day as it was the final day of a very long tour, which in turn is a point of learning in itself, and this task has helped me reflect on my personal conduct throughout my work; it has helped me to understand my colleagues’ feelings and attitudes towards their work too.