Hi

I just wanted to know how the dancers in this forum made it dancing professionally?
Colleges, courses,Auditions, experiences, shows etc !
Just wanted to hear some success stories and advice on my future in dance !!

Thanks

My advice to you would be not to wait around for opportunities to present themselves - make it happen for yourself! I attended Simon Fraser University in their Contemporary Dance program. I am graduating in December. Myself and two of the other girls in my program have formed a collective and are performing our own work in local shows and curated festivals. We choreographed a piece that is about 6 minutes long and auditioned it for festivals that are known to support emerging artists in and around Vancouver. You can also apply for grants to rent a theatre for a night or two to present your own show - this is a complicated process, both the grant application and the show planning - if you want me to explain more indepth I can, just let me know.

Another way to get work (if you don't want to choreograph your own)is to get to know the choreographers that you do want to work with. Go to their technique classes if they have any, go to their show, let them nkow that you are interested in working with them...give them tickets to shows that you aer performing in, ask if you could apprentice with their company for free, basically make yourself known to those in power.
With either route, if you work hard enough you will achieve your goals!

Shallom

I second shallom's advice to get to know the choreographers you want to work with. I danced many years ago, but that's how I got all of my professional gigs. (Well, I auditioned for one, but I think the fact that I'd been taking the choreographer's classes for the previous two weeks helped.)

If you want to have the inside track on professional contemporary dance in the UK, then "Juice" is a good place to look. It is a magazine by subscription from The Place:

- www.theplace.org.uk
- select Juice from the left-hand side menu

It has auditions, competitions and generally news about the profession in the UK and a little beyond.

I'm not aware of anything similar in the ballet world. Dance Europe has a good Auditions section:

www.danceeurope.net

Not forgetting our own "Auditions and Opportunities".

I made it professionally by studying and working very hard in a ballet academy. The career I ended up with was/is good: I work with a brilliant master of ballet who functions as teacher, choreographer and artistic director. In many ways, dance doesn't get better than that. Buyt it doesn't pay and it's not at all like what you might imagine in a professional dance career.

Therefore, I must warn you of a few things:

1. What I went through was very hard.

2. I have never tried to support myself financially as a dancer. If I had tried to do so, it would have been twice as hard.

3. You are unlikely to EVER dance for a large, well-known ballet company with a union contract. In fact, you're unlikely to ever get a unionized dance job (i.e. one that pays a living wage). The places you MIGHT get jobs will pay so little that you'll need to find another way to support yourself.

<small>[ 14 October 2004, 09:59 AM: Message edited by: citibob ]</small>