Current Networks

What are the current and different ways (tools) that you have, or do, engage your professional network?

• Email
• Facebook
• Word of Mouth
• Google
• Dance Websites (Starnow, Dancerspro, The Stage)

I am constantly sending emails in my professional career. Here are a number of ways for which I use email:

Rossett Dance - To send all parents news and reminders.

Jobs - When applying for performing or teaching positions.

Employing - When I recruit a teacher for my school.

Enquiry - When I get in touch with various companies and businesses with queries regarding auditions and teaching opportunities.

Without email my life would be a lot harder. It is via email that I have sent my covering letter and CV and received approximately 80% of all the jobs I've had.

Where would we be without Facebook?

I am not a big Facebook fan but that being said I am coming to use it more and more in my professional career.

I am able to give weekly updates on my Rossett Dance page, quick and easy, where all my customers or prospective customer can see.

Along with helping to spread the word about my school it also provides more opportunities for me as a dancer. I have just recently come off Facebook now after finding two agencies offering dance work. Two extra contacts could mean extra work! I found out about these agencies as I noticed a friend had 'liked' their page. So you could say that it was also through word of mouth that I came to know about the agencies. 

Word of Mouth has been of great value to my school.
It is all very well receiving a leaflet through your door or coming across a poster in your local shop to advertise dance classes or any other business, but nothing works as well as word of mouth.
A person will take a friends advice and will trust their feedback as they have the same interests and understanding. If a Mum is taking her daughter to dance classes and she recommends these classes to a friend then that friend will more than likely give it a go as they trust this friends opinions and would like their daughter to socialise with other girls the same age.

If I need to answer a quick questions or find a bit more information about a topic I will turn to Google.

When I was at college and had just started looking for auditions, at the time I didn't really know of any dance websites that I could go to so I would type 'uk dance auditions' in the google search engine and this led me on to dance websites such as Starnow and The Stage.

In the past I have searched and applied for millions of jobs through dance websites such as Starnow, The Stage and Dancerspro. There are a lot of jobs on there that don't suit my criteria or location and it is a lot of hard work going through them all and using your own initiative to know which jobs are for you or even which ones can be trusted and are genuine. It can be a put off as well sometimes when you see how many girls have applied for that same job. Despite all this, I have come out with most of my jobs through dance websites and I always return to them when I am looking for more work.

What are the established (and different) ways that others use their networks, especially if they are more established or experienced practitioners that you admire?

A lot of my dancer friends have moved to London.
I currently enjoy where I am at the moment, I have built up a career and feel I have no reason to move but I can see the appeal in moving to London, especially for those who take advantage of what the city has to offer.

Being able to attend dance classes at Pineapplie Studios, all auditions more easily accessible and more teaching opportunities. All these reasons I think are great at getting your face seen and your name known.
In other words NETWORKING.

A couple of friends in my mind at the moment took advantage of NETWORKING to get them where they are today.

These friends have gone down completely different paths, ones ambition to be a ballet dancer and the other to do more commercial and musical theatre work but they have both used the same tools to get them the job they desired.

Below are the tools and their advantages:

* Attending weekly dance classes - Keeps you in the frame of mind as a dancer. Pushes your bodies stamina, builds your strength and maintains your technique along with testing your ability to pick up steps and routines fast which is necessary for auditions. You will also begin to build friendships with fellow class mates. These friendships will allow you to access more information in the dancing world. Whens the next audition? How did you hear about that workshop?

* Attending workshops - For all the same reasons as attending dance classes and more. These workshops are run by choreographers and directors. If you get your face known by these people then there will be a point when you go along to an audition and they will be on the panel; if they know your face and think you are a hard worker then it goes in your favor.
By attending workshops you are going that extra mile. You are connecting with other dancers and through these connections you will find out about more auditions. This is also a good way to keep on top of what's out there. What is your competition? Keeping your finger on the pulse and moving with the times. There's nothing worse than going along to an audition thinking you are prepared until you look at the other dancers around you who have a different style to you, who are stronger and have more personality in their performance.

* Auditioning - The more auditions you attend the more likely you are to get a job. It not only speeds up the pace of getting a job but it also gives you that priceless experience that you can build upon or learn from for the next audition. The panels at auditions quite often cross over to various other auditions. You will recognise them and they you. If they see your work is consistent and you are constantly performing and pushing yourself to the max then the more likely they are to offer you a job.

Are there methods, approaches and technologies that you use socially that might apply and help you develop your professional networking?

The key method of excellent networking to me so far is through word of mouth and being socially active.
People who use these skills really well seem to go further down their career path than those who don't use these skills to their advantage.

I personally like to feel that I have done the research and hard work to find out about auditions and job opportunities without the help of other people. I see it as an achievement in itself to be able use my own initiative to find out about auditions to which I attend without having to follow the crowd.
This worked really well for me at college in finding auditions that weren't necessarily mainstream and a bit more unique than your usual cruise audition. I was able to find out about a few contemporary auditions that I came across using google. I wouldn't have found out about these auditions if it weren't for my own investigations.
So I believe that you can't always just rely on other people to do the work for you, you have to use your own initiative.

I recognise though, you have to put pride aside and know that everybody needs the help of others at some point and as I said previously, I do believe having contacts for sources of information and getting your face known are extremely vital in todays world if you want to become successful.

A dancers world is a small one. Everybody knows each other.

I would like to become more proficient in using these tools that are at hand.  Building these contacts will lead me towards different opportunities, getting my face and name to be known will ensure prospective employers hear about me and through my contacts that I have maintained they will know if I am the right person for the job.

When you reflect upon current networks, can you think about the motives of others to be in the network and what values and purposes they have in mind?

I mentioned before two friends who moved to London to get their names know. One is now touring with Vienna Festival Ballet and the other is performing in the West End production of Wicked.
Their motive was to achieve their dream and through building contacts and good relationships they were able to do just that.

What would your ideal network look like and why?

I have mentioned before in one of my previous blogs how I feel I didn't receive the support and careers advice that I would like to have had to lead me in the right direction.
My ideal network would be a place where dance teachers could collaberate together to put information out there for young dancers who are just starting out on their dancing career. A place where these teachers could share their experiences, give advice and provide the contacts to benefit a dancer of any style and any ambition, for example, giving a dancer the information and the right contacts on how to become a dance teacher or to somebody on how to make it in the musical theatre profession.
This network could be a place where information is not a secret and young dancers could ask questions and seek advice from more experienced professional teachers.

What realistic things could you do to work towards developing your ideal network?

I would like to be a teacher that can give that advice to young dancers. As my school builds and when my students get to the age where they want to know how to achieve their dream I hope to be a teacher that can provide information to get them on the right path.

What tools and methods do you need to use? What do you know about your current, and intended networks, and importantly, what do you not know?

To ensure that I am a dance teacher who knows how to lead other dancers in the right direction to achieve success, I need to first;

Build my contacts

&

Build on my experiences as a performer and teacher