for me?
Is dance the
right career
There comes a time in all of our lives when we pause
to reconsider the choices we’ve made or the direction
we’ve taken. But such a time can be fraught with
emotion. Kym King helps you clear the way.
B
eing a professional dancer
is a vocation that requires passion,
talent and commitment. So we
don’t often consider assessing it in the
way we assess other potential careers. Yet
there are elements to consider that can
inform your thinking about whether it is
the right career for you.
Perhaps you’ve studied dance all your
life and never really thought that there
were other careers that you could do.
Maybe you’re already studying full-time
to be a dancer and it isn’t quite what you
expected, or perhaps you have a history
of injuries and are wondering whether
being a dancer is going to be sustainable.
Making the decision not to pursue
dance as a career often presents new
challenges. Throughout years of dance
training we are encouraged to believe
that if we just work hard enough we will
succeed. For some, choosing a different
career path can feel like not having tried
30 dance australia | April/May 2014
hard enough. While making the decision
can be an overwhelming and emotional
process, having some tools can help you
clarify your thoughts.
SELF-AWARENESS
The first thing to do is sit down and
identify your current interests, values
and personal qualities. Write a list: it
will help you decide whether you are a
good match with your dance career or
with any other career.
Interests: Write down headings for both
career related interests and personal/
leisure interests. Under these include
everything from the type of dance or
choreographers you are inspired by to
your favourite films, hobbies, causes and
subjects at school. Prioritise them in
order of importance.
What are your strongest interests?
What interests would you like to develop?
www.danceaustralia.com.au
If there are careers other than
dance that might be interesting
make a note to research them
further. You might discover areas that
appeal to you more than pulling on
those tights every morning.
Even if you are sure that being a
professional dancer is the career for you,
identifying other interests is a
worthwhile exercise. Dancers are often
at risk of burnout due to long hours of
training and rehearsal. Having interests
outside of dance to help you unwind
means this is less likely to occur, and
also means that you will be a richer and
more engaging individual and performer.
your commitment to be a dancer?
These might include a strong desire
to help others, or the environment,
or a strong sense of obligation to
family and friends. How does your
family feel about the idea of you
dancing for a career?
Values: We can examine what we value
in a career in terms of external rewards
(financial security, job security,
opportunity for promotion) and
internal rewards (being fulfilled by
doing the job itself).
How important is it for you to have a
good income or even to have a regular
income? While some dancers work
full-time, in Australia such
opportunities are relatively few, with
most dancers working on short-term
projects. Would you mind having
another job besides performing to help
sustain yourself financially?
How do the other things that you
value in your life weigh up against
Will these values limit your choice of
training institution or opportunities for
work? For many students, studying
dance full-time means moving interstate
and for many dancers being employed
means working abroad.
For some, choosing a
different career path
can feel like not having
tried hard enough.
Personal qualities: What makes you unique?
Make a list of what you see as your strongest
qualities. Think about your personality
type. You might like to ask a friend what
they see as your strongest attributes.
There is no perfect personality
prototype for being a dancer but some
useful qualities are creativity,
competitiveness, initiative, self-confidence,
intellectual capacity, adaptability and
Further Resources
• The ‘Your Career and You booklet’ Graduate
careers Australia has a great self-assessment
section: http://www.graduatecareers.com.au/
wp-content/uploads/2012/02/
YourCareerYou-2012_web.pdf
• Careers NZ has an Action Plan template that
can be downloaded: http://www.careers.
govt.nz/fileadmin/docs/action_plan_career.
pdf and used to record your goals.
• Ausdance list of tertiary dance courses in
Australia: http://ausdance.org.au/
publications/details/study-dance-at-university
• Ausdance list of Australian Dance
Companies: http://ausdance.org.au/articles/
details/australian-dance-companies-list
• Performers Collective Agreement has been set
by the Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance
(MEAA) and outline employment agreements:
http://www.alliance.org.au/equity-summaries
• The Life Of A Dancer: Employment, training,
and career paths – Australian Council for the
Arts: http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/__
data/assets/pdf_file/0018/34029/05_life.pdf
• http://www.myfuture.edu.au/occupations
• http://www.myfuture.edu.au/
• MiniCareerExplorer/index.html
April/may 2014 | dance australia 31
Remember that whatever you end up doing
as a career can be rich and rewarding, and
that you can continue to be passionate
about and involved in dance.
persistence. Such qualities will exist in all
people but to varying degrees.
Dancers need to be adaptable because
they often have to face a range of
situations, from working in other
countries to performing a variety of
dance styles. Persistence and resilience
are an advantage when auditioning.
With experience most dancers become
more proficient at auditions but the
reality is that often you won’t be
selected. While some people will be
merely disappointed, others may be
devastated each time.
You might also have good
communication and interpersonal skills,
organisational skills, leadership skills and
self-management skills – which are
important in most careers.
You might think that as a dancer your
Transitioning
types
These three examples
have made the move
out of performing into
satisfying careers,
writes Kym King.
Kate Horner
32 dance australia | April/May 2014
Find out what employment opportunities
are available. Research how many dance
companies there are in Australia and how
many dancers they employ. Which agencies
take on dancers? What is the standard
wage? What does an independent dancer
on average earn for a project? What do
dancers in musical theatre earn?
The internet is a great tool for initial
information about companies and training
institutions. Service organisations such as
Ausdance(http://ausdance.org.au), and the
Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance
(MEAA)(http://www.alliance.org.au) have
websites that offer comprehensive fact
sheets on a number of relevant areas.
Seek out the companies and dance
training institutions that interest you and
see if they offer holiday intensives. This is
a great way to gain an experience of
being a full-time dancer as well as trying
a variety of dance styles. See as many
dance performances as you can.
A good way to find out about a career is
to do a career research interview. Contact
someone you know who is working in the
area you are interested in and arranging to
Kate Horner
Associate Professor Gene Moyle
3rd year student, Bachelor of Arts
(Criminology and Psychology),
University of Melbourne.
Kate Horner completed her VCE dance
with marks high enough to allow her to
successfully audition and perform in TOP Class.
When she was younger she had wanted to be a
professional dancer but towards the end of
school began to realise that there were other
areas that she wanted to explore further.
Commencing an arts degree at Melbourne
University, Horner studied psychology and
criminology and decided that she was really
interested in doing something that helped
people, particularly in a one-to-one setting.
Currently teaching dance at Utassy Ballet
School,Kate enjoys the process of helping others
understand movement concepts and finds this
helps her to clarify her own. She has also found
it interesting to see how developmental
psychology theory can be translated into
practice in a teaching situation.
Horner still loves to perform and choreograph
and this year has been working with Adam
Wheeler’s youth company, Yellow Wheel
(Melbourne). “Before this year I felt that perhaps I
had gone as far as I could with dance without being
a professional. Working with Yellow Wheel has
opened up so many possibilities, in particular the
chance to collaborate with a wider range of people”.
Horner enjoys the fact that dance is something
she loves doing without the pressure of it being
what she doesto earn a living. She wonders “if I
had tried studying dance full time,whether I
might have lost my passion for it, since you must
so heavily invest your whole life in it.
Sport and Exercise Psychologist and
Head of Dance at the Queensland
University of Technology.
Gene Moyle knew from the age of four that
she wanted to be a ballet dancer. After
completing one year of dance at QUT, followed
by work with Queensland Ballet for their end of
year gala, she joined the Australian Ballet
School, entering second year.
Moyle concluded her first year with an
injury and struggled with the challenges this
presented, including putting on weight and
body image issues. Commencing her
graduating year overweight and recovering
from an injury was a very low point and the
school, although supportive, at this time had
no onsite psychologist.
This experience, however, proved
instrumental in determining her future career
path. Realising the psychiatrist to whom she had
been referred had no understanding of a
dancer’s perspective, she knew that “one day I
wanted to be able to help dancers like me”.
Upon graduation from the school Moyle was
offered a contract with the Queensland Ballet.
When this fell through due to lack of funding,
she began a degree at QUT Dance. But at the
beginning of her second year she decided to
take a break from dancing altogether. She
then started a degree in psychology not
dancing again until, in her third year, she
realised that “I wanted to know if I could still
be a professional dancer”.
After three months of taking classes back at
QUT Gene was certain that she had the talent.
But realising how much she would have to give
main skills are to do with your dance
training and technique. But it is also
worth noting that you will have developed
many other skills through dance that are
transferable to other careers. These might
include such things as: attention to detail,
getting on with the job no matter what,
working well in an ensemble or team and
presenting yourself well.
OPTIONS AND OPPORTUNITIES
www.danceaustralia.com.au
www.danceaustralia.com.au
meet so you can ask them questions. You
will need to use your contacts.
DECISION MAKING
Analyse all your research and weigh up
the pros and cons. If you listed other
areas or careers that were of interest
you will need to go through a similar
process and compare your findings
with each one. The MyFuture website
http://www.myfuture.edu.au)has
information on a range of occupations
as well as a mini career explorer that
provides some career options based on
your interests.
Using your intuition and the
information you have now gathered,
decide what you would most like to do.
What would you settle for?
TRANSITION
Whatever career you choose you will
need to think about your next steps.
Researching training options and various
qualification levels will be important.
Make a plan with goals and set a
timeline for achieving them. For a dance
career these might include everything
from finding out when training
institutions audition, to preparing a
resume, to improving technical skills.
Remember that whatever you end up
doing as a career can be rich and
rewarding, and that you can continue to
be passionate about and involved in dance.
Kym King is a career counsellor and
former dancer. Further resources and
contact information can be found at
http://www.kymkingcareers.com
Associate Professor
Gene Moyle
Glyn Scott
up in her life to pursue dance again, she
continued on with her psychology studies. Now
she is back at QUT as the head of department!
Glyn Scott
Pilot
After graduating from the Australian
Ballet School, Glyn Scott went on to dance with
American Ballet Theatre (US) and the
Birmingham Royal Ballet (UK). But at the age of
21, after landing badly from a jump, he realised
he was going need to find a new career. Grieving
for his career in dance, he knew it would need to
be something he was passionate about.
At the Australian Ballet School psychologist
Lucinda Sharp had spoken of the importance of
having interests outside dance. “She asked us to
look at ourselves as though we were a pie. If we
divided the pie up, how much of it was dance and
what would happen if we took dance away?”
Scott had been interested in flying and soon
after began working part-time at a cinema to pay
for flying lessons. He loved it and ultimately this
was to become his new career.
Despite his parent’s concerns that he would
need tocomplete the last two years of high
school, Scot pursued his ambition, believing that
his brain could be trained just like the rest of his
body. Discovering that he would need maths
and physics to attend flight school, he found his
year 10 maths teacher and began studying hard.
After successfully completing his VCE and then
his commercial pilot training, Scot now flies for a
career. He is still passionate about dance and
enjoys watching his sister (Amber Scott) and his
friends perform with the Australian Ballet.
April/may 2014 | dance australia 33