From our friends at <A HREF="http://www.answers4dancers.com" TARGET=_blank>www.answers4dancers.com</A> <P><BR> <BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Posted today on the homepage: "Are Agents Good For Dancers? You Betcha!"<BR>Don't miss this informative lead-in to the July/Aug issue of Dance & Fitness Magazine.<BR>It covers L.A.'s entire dance agent scene from walking in the door to keeping that client/agent relationship alive and healthy. <P>Posted today on the "audition/agent" page: an immediate casting call for two male ballet dancers.<BR>This is a time-sensitive opportunity. If you qualify and are interested in 29 weeks employment with a regional ballet company, act quickly.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Interesting this should pop up just tonight. I was only moments ago looking at a site - <A HREF="http://www.iam.com" TARGET=_blank>www.iam.com</A> - which is like an agent, but online. Basically, you can post up (rather nice-looking) portfolios with audio, video, audio/video, photos, etc. Not likely it can do exactly what the woman in the article does, but I'd be interested to see if it works for people.<P>Would you hire people from an Internet site? Maybe you can check out this place and let me/us know. Looks to me like it's just getting started, so far the portfolios are all for people in their ads (which I haven't seen). They don't seem to have totally exploited all the site says it can do with examples of work. What if they did have little moving clips of themselves dancing or playing the saxophone or whatever it is they do?<P>Seems to me it's the kind of thing where success depends entirely on the community of users it gathers. Like this criticaldance site - I like it because not everyone is very young and rather similar which make discussions interesting. If this online agent kind of thing gets a good mix going it'll help me in my out of the way spot know what other dancers are like in other places.<P>Were I in a position where having an agent made any sense at all, it would be nice to have someone looking out for me in a way. Haven't people gotten totally ripped off by agents before though? Or are more people ripped off by employers than agents?<P><p>[This message has been edited by Prisanh (edited June 22, 2000).]

I've found with most dancers who want to be in professional companies, that agents are unecessary. The ones in pro companies who do have agents often do modeling, industrials and other various side stuff, but the agents were not needed in getting them to the company, or to the rank (wherever they are) that they are at.... Seems as though this is all changing, and soon, any dancer out of work will need an agent. That's not a pleasent thought considering the way the dance world is generally structured (personal auditions, and no middle person).<P>prisnah, When I have a chance, I'll check outthe website, but hiring off a website with video clips in not to far off from directors and such hiring off of videos sent to them. Difference is Internet seems to be able to provide (now with the website) a database of dancers from which to pick and choose, as opposed to dancers being interested in working for your ocmpany and seeking the director out.<P>pidge