These past few weeks have not been the best of my life: with the company that I danced for folding, leading me to move back in with my parents and to start looking for new work.
To lose a job is tough for anyone, especially when it's one that you deeply loved, gained a lot from, and had fantastic colleagues to work with. However, for a dancer you don't only lose your job but also your lifestyle. To secure your next job, fitness needs to be maintained to as high a standard as possible; but without daily classes and rehearsals your previously attained standard of dancing is sure to slip, unless you pay to attend public dance classes all day everyday.. but money doesn't grow on trees and, oh yes, you don't have a job anyway. There are also the psychological effects to consider. Dancers thrive on the thrill of performing, and on spending hours upon end in the studio; so without a regular dose of rehearsals and performances, it's easy to feel less and less like one. This loss of identity is difficult to cope with as, in the case of many professional dancers, it is a vocation that you'll have been living, eating, breathing and sleeping for most of your life. A dancer's mentality is equally as important as their physicality. This applies to the times when you are in work and performing, but even more so to when you are unemployed and competing against hundreds of others for your next contract.
The unexpected turnabout of my situation has left me struggling for ideas as to the direction of my project. The aforementioned 'loss of identity' is something that I am currently experiencing, so to choose a topic from my 'work-place' is something that is, at this point, confusing and frustrating for me. Had this module come about a few months ago, I would have had a clear understanding as to my position and identity within both my company and my industry as a whole, making my thoughts on a project topic much easier to organise.
Until now, I have been skirting around the issue of actually selecting a topic, simply studying the module handbook, Bell book and blog entries from a general perspective. I think I've been half-hoping that one of the two auditions I've recently done would land me an instant contract; that I'd be back working as a dancer and once again feel established enough within the industry to justify my researching an area of it. Despite two fantastic and very enjoyable auditions, I don't yet have any contracts to sign, and must accept the reality of a dancer's working life being uncertain and without much structure or stability. It's time to bite the bullet and throw myself into some structured and organised studying, in spite of the current unstructured and disorganised section of career path that I am walking through.
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Hey Laura, sounds like a rubbish time. As a dancer this lifestyle is hard, all of it, however you are strong enough to get through it.
ReplyDeleteTo me everything you have just said made me think you were about to do your project on life without a job for dancers. Do you not think that your project title is staring at you in the face? You could do your project on your unfortunate situation. You have explained what changes you have had to make whilst unemployed, what you have to do to get back into work, what you might have to do to earn money other than dancing etc. You have your own experience to drive the project where you want to. You have access to all of us bloggers that have been in and out of jobs to tell you what we had to do to earn money, and the stress of keeping up to scratch. Maybe you could do it on "Effects being unemployed has on dancers confidence and lifestyle"??? What do you think?
Hope your ok Abs x
Thank you Abbi :)
ReplyDeleteYou're right, it's a blatently obvious project idea, and one that I have been busy brainstorming after some discussions with my family about it. I had thought of a couple of other topics that I might like to research, but the idea of investigating the effects of unemployment on dancers is one that will be continually relevant to me, and to many others. Even if I am working at points throughout the study, there will always be another period of unemployment to encounter soon enough!
I hope that by researching how unemployment affects other dancers, I will be able to identify the most effective methods of coping with the situation, and pass these on to anyone looking for some advice and support! As I don't cope with unemployment particularly well myself, I hope that by investigating its effects thouroughy I will be able to utilise my findings positively and learn how to make the most of the situation.
Thank you Abbi.. I shall head to your blog shortly and complete that survey you've created!...