Claire Wrote
Editors Letters || Sunday, 7 August, 2005
Too frequently I have been told that I am 'not right' by yet another lame choreographer with poor communication skills and half baked ideas. To frequently I have got up in the early hours of the morning, and spent up to £200 on travel, accommodation and food for be greeted by a badly planned uninspired and depressing audition for a company or project. These people then go on to pick someone they already know. Why did they not just offer them the contract in the first place and save me some cash?.
Dance is an in-crowd where choreographers very often only want to work with people they have worked with before. Dancers are required to develop their skills to be able to adapt and adjust to a variety of personalities and demands. Why is a choreographer so professionally stunted that they can only work with people they know and then produce the same old thing every time. Dancers rarely have the luxury of working in such a comfort zone.
Furthermore as a dancer I am another face in a sea of faces and any form of 'being difficult' (sticking up for what you think is right) is avoided. It is important not cause a scene or behave controversially is to [conform to] the smiley, happy, hand holding 'every experience is positive' hippy crap that seems to pervade contemporary dance in London, because it is hard enough to get a job anyway without marking your card early on.
Dancers are expected to be positive and smiley about the situation they are in within the dance world. Dancers are becoming a bunch of desperate doormats who are pressured to respond positively and amicably when the choreographer fails to provide any form of communication, talent, money, organisation, inspiration or originality to better their experience. This leads me to the further question of how on earth do half of these people get funding?
I am so rarely blown away by dance anymore, only Forsythe, De Keersmacher and Vandekeybus do it for me anymore. It seems I will never have enough experience to work for them as no choreographer will give this very hardworking, talented, interesting (if opinionated) organised and creative individual a chance because I didn't follow them around like lost puppy doing free work for five years, I didn't go to school with them or I didn't date one of their friends.
The solutions to such problems are not easy to determine. All we can say is don't give up and perhaps, just perhaps, a good opportunity may arise.
Sadly they are all too hard to find.
Stumble It!
