After training

A place to talk about full time schools and post 16 training.

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dancemom43
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After training

Post by dancemom43 »

My DD is in 3rd year at Bird College and has loved her training. I suppose my question is to those that have already gone through this process. What I am interested in knowing is how many came out with agents, jobs, did they continue to live in London or move home and travel to London for auditions ? What about continuing dance classes, obviously there is Pineapple but wondered if any trained local to home and found this good enough ?

They have an agent showcase coming up and agents have been to see some of their shows and shown interest in a few. She is on Spotlight and being put forward for auditions already - its quite a daunting time. Would be interested in any comments
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jasmine2
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Re: After training

Post by jasmine2 »

Hello...so glad your dd loved her training, My dd graduated from Bodyworks a few years ago, and has worked ever since, mostly work found by herself without an agent. She has just returned from an 8 month contract in the caribbean! She is also a qualified performing arts teacher, and teaches as well as performs. She does have an agent too.. good luck :D
I believe that children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way.......
dancemom43
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Re: After training

Post by dancemom43 »

Ah that’s good to hear. Was she on a cruise ? Did she have to take an additional qualification to teach ?
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jasmine2
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Re: After training

Post by jasmine2 »

She worked at Beaches resort in Turks and Caicos as a lead actress, singer and dancer. Yes she has a teaching qualification for dance xx
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dancemom43
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Re: After training

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Being abit thick here but just thinking of possible jobs for future. What teaching qualification do you need to get ? Bird do the DDI for ISTD exams but my daughter does not want to teach exams and this was very expensive and time consuming on top of everything else.
2dancersmum
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Re: After training

Post by 2dancersmum »

I think that final year of training was perhaps the most stressful time of it all as they really are facing the unknown once college finishes. My DD did not train in London but in Chester -I think about 3/4 of them had agents following the agent showcase. Not all chose to go with an agent, including my DD - all dancers, as they were auditioning mostly for cruiseships and cruise ship auditions tend to be open for dancers for the most part, not agent referred. Best advice I can give to your DD is to just keep auditioning. For my DD's year job offers started coming in in April and the vast majority who wanted to perform had contracts by about October - cruiseships, holiday resorts both UK and abroad, stage shows etc. My DD has worked almost continuously since graduating - max of 5 weeks at home at a time since early 2016 and that was with the next contract signed already. She has mostly worked on cruise ships. On the question of where to live - most of her friends have actually gone to live in London while waiting for and auditioning for the next contract, although for the northern based Manchester also seems to be a good option. Most performers will have periods when they are not working as performers and it will depend always on the individual for where suits them best - both for work and keeping up with training. Good luck
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jasmine2
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Re: After training

Post by jasmine2 »

dancemom43 wrote: Thu Feb 06, 2020 7:53 pm Being abit thick here but just thinking of possible jobs for future. What teaching qualification do you need to get ? Bird do the DDI for ISTD exams but my daughter does not want to teach exams and this was very expensive and time consuming on top of everything else.
My dd has a DDI but also does not like to teach exams. Currently she is teaching at several schools/colleges (including the one she trained at lol)
and she also runs MT club at a primary school, and does dance parties. She has things in the pipeline (performing) but teaching also provides her with an income inbetween contracts.
I believe that children are our future, teach them well and let them lead the way.......
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