Has been my profound pleasure to have known her since I was 16 years old (which makes it 44 years, for those who elect to count such milestones).
By Joshua Bartlett
So you’re hoping for your first big opportunity—a job in the dance world. If you’re lucky enough to land it, what’s next? Whether it’s in a big ballet company or a Broadway show, or as a dancer on the L.A. media circuit, the jump from being a student to a professional often turns out to be a gigantic grand jeté.
After a run-through of the Broadway production of Hairspray, the creative team meets to discuss notes and decide how to use the remaining rehearsal time. Left to right: Lon Hoyt, music director/conductor; Gabrielle Hatchett, former assistant dance captain, Las Vegas Company; Robbie Roby, dance captain; and Michele Lynch, associate choreographer. (Photo courtesy Robbie Roby)
Most experts in the field stress the need for newly minted professionals to take responsibility for their careers—keep up the training, stay focused, and constantly remain open to learning about professional life. Robbie Roby, the new dance captain for the Broadway show Hairspray (incidentally, his first job on Broadway) says that post-training life is an entirely new ball game. “In a college or training setting, your schedule is created for you,” says Roby. “You follow the pedagogy of the people around you to lead you to strengthening, conditioning, and flexibility. When you enter the field, you have to apply it to yourself. You are now in the business aspect of show business—you have to do your job and look good doing it. Nobody is going to tell you to go to dance classes or voice lessons.”
Claire Bataille, one of the original four dancers of Hubbard Street Dance Chicago and now the director of its Lou Conte Dance Studio, says keeping up with daily company class is essential. “Dancers sometimes lose a certain work ethic the first year,” says Bataille. “It’s easy to fall into the mentality that taking class is just a warm-up for the day. Your whole performing career should hinge on that time when you are training. I tell my scholarship students that they are working at making themselves physically and mentally strong. You need a strong sense of who you are and what you are doing.”
Ashley Wheater, a ballet master with San Francisco Ballet, closely watches new corps de ballet members and pushes them to improve. “But because you are dealing with 80 dancers as opposed to a class of 12, it’s very different. These dancers also have to absorb a whole repertoire rather than just one or two ballets,” he says.
In Los Angeles, dancers in films, television, theater, industrials, and videos have to adjust to the whims of producers. Jim Keith, an agent for dancers and choreographers at DDO Artists Agency, recently held an audition for 300 people where at least 25 dancers, most “brand, spanking new” and ages 8 to 30, were signed on for representation. “When moving from the student to the professional level, I try to stress in our orientations how to separate the personal from the professional,” says Keith. “I talk about the fact that in L.A., it has little to do with how good you are in terms of technique. It’s more about who you know, how good you look, and how well you sell. Everything is very height-, race-, and age-specific. Once you leave the studio and go into the working environment, it changes from getting better to selling better.”
Talented students often carry over the “big fish in the little pond” mentality from their studio or school. “Sometimes it gets to people that they were the stars of their studio,” says Roby. “The truth is everybody at this level was the best performer in their level in their field. In Hairspray you are selected to be in the ensemble.” Roby counsels the dancers to allow six months to settle into their roles as little (but important) “fish” in a prestigious Broadway show.
Wheater thinks an insidious case of entitlement has crept into some new company members’ mentalities. “Kids who have done really well in school can’t figure out why they’re not getting soloist parts when they join the company,” he says. “I tell them you have to take everything you get seriously, with responsibility.” Showing a sense of responsibility and proficiency in corps de ballet work can earn you a promotion.
‘You are now in the business aspect of show business—you have to do your job and look good doing it. Nobody is going to tell you to go to dance classes or voice lessons.’ —Robbie Roby, Hairspray dance captain
One of the biggest challenges for newly employed dancers is the issue of pacing and remaining injury-free. “If you don’t work on specific flexibility, you’re going to hurt yourself,” says Roby, who cautions the Hairspray dancers to maintain their technique, even though the show requires them to look like non-trained dancers. “In the real world, if you pull a muscle, you’re out of the show and out of a paycheck.”
Whether learning tracks (specific dance parts) in a Broadway show or understudying a contemporary work of choreography, young dancers need to learn the importance of understudying. “If you are called to a rehearsal, you are expected to learn the role of the person you are covering instead of just sitting on the floor. There is always the opportunity when you are asked to get up and do it,” says Wheater, who points out that San Francisco Ballet allows choreographers free choice, so that a new corps de ballet member can potentially be cast in a soloist or principal role.
“You have to get over being second cast and get self-motivated,” says Bataille. Conversely, she also tells novices not to get too pushy and to respect the boundaries of the first-cast dancer’s space in the studio.
In the arena of salaries, the pay can range from minimal to substantial, depending on the type of job you land. For the 2007–08 season, apprentices at San Francisco Ballet make $536.46 per week; first-year corps de ballet salaries jump up to $983.27 weekly. Ensemble members of Hairspray make up to $1,500 per week.
In L.A., Keith says that income depends on one thing: marketability. “Dancers have to retrain their ears and eyes on what is current and what isn’t,” he says. “You have to act like you love that Gap jean jacket even if you don’t, or that can of Coke or that cheeseburger. Dancers in L.A. are hired to make people, places, and things look cooler and better so more people buy them.”
The most successful dancers, Keith says, are the ones who take the initiative to get in and be seen. “They find out which choreographers are working and take their classes. If they are cut from an audition, they stay in the room and see why they were cut.” He also stresses the importance of versatility. “The successful ones take hip-hop or salsa or flamenco or ballroom. The more you learn, the more you earn. A lot of dancers assume that because they have signed with an agency, they can relax. That’s just not the case.”
So what is the success rate of first-timers? Wheater thinks that if they can stick it out through the first year at San Francisco Ballet, they will stay or perhaps move on to another company. (Leaving a company after your first season, by the way, is not always a bad thing. Sometimes you find that another troupe suits you better.) Keith’s experiences in L.A. are little less optimistic. “I’d say 3 or 4 out of 30 stick it out, because they really are proactive, from fashions to headshots,” he says. According to Roby, the Broadway dancers most likely to succeed stay true to themselves and retain a positive, exuberant energy throughout their careers.
As for final words of advice in a field that can be daunting on a first outing, Bataille thinks that cultivating a life outside of dance is essential. “Because the days are long, your personal time is limited,” she says. “It’s important to maintain a personal life of some sort—whether it’s through books or movies or whatever—away from the routine. If you are in a touring company, your whole social circle is there. For mental health it’s important to be in touch with what’s happening in the world.” She also encourages young dancers to extract advice from anyone they trust, including members of management, peers, and current and former teachers. “Don’t be afraid to ask, ‘What will make me better or different?’ ” she says.
Like Bataille, Wheater encourages communication with management. “I tell the new dancers my door is always open. There are often times, because of the nature and size of the company, when you need someone to go to,” says Wheater, who also acts as assistant to the director, Helgi Tomasson. Watching the top dancers in the company and absorbing their strengths only makes for better maturation, he believes.
To keep being noticed, Roby suggests accentuating the distinctive nature of your personality and dancing. “We are looking for unique people,” he says. “Their individuality is what we are seeking.”
Editor’s note: At press time, Ashley Wheater had accepted a new position as artistic director of the Joffrey Ballet.
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