In the Modern Dance forum, in the Shipp Dance Theatre thread, we've diverged slightly into discussion of the resumes that free-lancers and other potential employees might send to a dance company.

For the company directors and administrators among us: How does your company handle unsolicited resumes? Do you try to answer them all? How many do you get?

<small>[ 08-11-2002, 16:51: Message edited by: Azlan ]</small>

I'm not a director, but my artistic director has told me about this issue once.<P>He gets unsolicited resumes and videos "all the time", and routinely ignores them (no time). Once when we were short on video tapes, I was asked to tape over an audition video someone sent us.<P>The only way to get his attention is a phone call or personal visit. I suspect there are many reasons for this fact:<P> 1. AD is busy. He can evaluate a dancer with the least amount of effort if that dancer comes to class. One day, three dancers interested in joining the company in six months came to class. Mr. Mateo wasn't teaching that day, he was working with the tech people. Every now and then he'd glance over at the class, presumeably to watch the people who were auditioning. He probably spent no more than 5 minutes total watching class.<P> 2. A willingness to come to the studios once implies a willingness to come later, for rehearsals.<P> 3. People are hard to judge form afar. Often, what you see is not what you get (WYSINWYG LOL ).<P> 4. Mr. Mateo stresses to dancers that we shouldn't just blindly audition: we should figure out which companies we think we'd like to dance for, and audition seriously for them. People submitting unsolicited resumes rarely know anything about the companies to which they're applying. If someone comes to the studios, then that dancer will learn a whole bunch of things about the company and its repertoire and be able to make a better decision about whether he or she would want to dance there.<P>(PS: Dancers, here's a great tip. When you audition for a company at its studios, ask the AD to see video tape of past performances. It only takes an extra 20 minutes. If you audition at a "neutral location", ask the AD about the repertoire. Not only will this let you better decide if you want to dance there, it also shows the AD that you're thinking.)<BR>

Unfortunately, there are few practical ways for designers to audition for an Artistic Director (and I am one of the people who have sent your AD a resume); if I'm doing a show out of town, I always write to whoever's in that area and invite them to the production as my guest, but I can't think of any other way. From my point of view, it would be nice to know -- even if by a pre-printed postcard -- that the resume at least got there, but I can understand the constraints of time.<BR><p>[This message has been edited by Tom Skelton (edited March 17, 2002).]

I just ran some numbers on my database. Since February of 2001, I've sent out resumes to 634 dance companies, theatres, and opera companies. Of these, the number that have replied, including form letter acknowledgements, is....<BR>.<BR>.<BR>.<BR>(Wait for it.)<BR>.<BR>.<BR>.<BR>.<BR>.<BR>.<BR>.<BR>.<BR>(It's coming.)<BR>.<BR>.<BR>.<BR>.<BR>.<BR>.<BR>.<BR>.<BR>.<BR>(Can you stand the suspense?)<BR>.<BR>.<BR>.<BR>.<BR>.<BR>.<BR>.<BR>.<BR>89...Out of 634.<BR><p>[This message has been edited by salzberg (edited March 17, 2002).]

In the December 2001 issue of Dance Europe Magazine there was a terrific section/article on what artistic directors are looking for (including resumés and videos)in dancers who wish to dance for their company. Not just what they are looking for, but the process by which they prefer to audition dancers.<P>Sixteen were interviewed and the answers were very interesting and quite diverse. It did not cover technical people, only dancers. It's well worth getting a back copy of the magazine to read this article - it runs for six pages.<p>[This message has been edited by Basheva (edited March 17, 2002).]